This Upper House consists of eighteen members. Every fourth year six members retire, in February, and the votes of the entire colony are taken as to the election of their successors,--so that the members are elected for twelve years. There is a property qualification for voting,--£20 leasehold, £25 household, or £50 freehold. Very slight interest is taken in the elections,--as might be expected from such a scheme. The distances in the colony are enormous, and each district feels that as the election is to be made by the colony at large, its own effect must be very small. When the result of a national election is of extreme importance to parties,--as is the case with the election of a President in the United States,--the country can be awakened to the work; but no political animation can be aroused by the national importance of sending six members to the Upper House. As a consequence men do not vote except in the towns, and do not vote there with any regularity. At the election of 1869, 4,468 votes only were cast, by a body of 15,773 electors. Certain members who have long been in the House keep their seats when the day for their re-election comes round, because no one cares to disturb them; but every now and then some obscure but ambitious and probably absolutely unfit individual puts himself forward, and is elected, to the scandal of the House,--because there has been no interest felt in the matter. The expenditure of a few hundred pounds would almost certainly carry an election,--not because a few hundred pounds have much force in the colony, but because the amount of antagonistic force used is very small. I look upon this as the very worst plan yet adopted for maintaining the existence of a legislative chamber. The Lower House consists of seventy-two members, who are elected by thirty-six districts,--two members for each district. They sit for three years,--or would do but for dissolutions. Manhood suffrage, with vote by ballot as a matter of course, prevails; but residence for six months is required for an elector,--so that the nomad tribe of wandering vagrants who call themselves workmen, but are in truth beggars, is excluded. The competition for seats in the House of Assembly is sufficiently lively to show that a seat is desired, but it is not very keen. At the time of the election for the House of Assembly in 1870, there were 39,647 men in the colony entitled to be electors, but only 17,233 voted.