of members was raised, and the limit was eventually abolished. The Council reached a peak of 53 members in 1885 and 1950. Extent of representation The Legislative Council was generally less representative of the New Zealand public than was the House of Representatives. Women were not eligible to serve as councillors until 1941, and only five were appointed. Two, Mary Anderson and Mary Dreaver, were appointed in 1946 by the First Labour Government. In 1950, when the First National Government appointed several new members to vote the council out of existence, three women were included; Cora Louisa Burrell, Ethel Gould and Agnes Weston. Māori were slightly better represented. The first two Māori councillors were appointed in 1872, not long after the creation of the Māori electorates in the House; Mōkena Kōhere and Wi Tako Ngātata. A convention was established that there should always be Māori representation on the Council. 1891 appointments In January 1891 the outgoing Atkinson Ministry appointed six new members to the Legislative Council, with the object of blocking any radical bills that John Ballance (who became Premier on 24 January) and his Liberal Government might introduce. They were the last appointments for life as the new government introduced a seven-year term. The new members were Charles Johnston and John Davies Ormond on 20 January; and Harry Atkinson (elected as speaker), James Fulton, William Downie Stewart, and John Blair Whyte on 22 January. John Hall had written to Ormond: "It will be a serious disaster if the Council is not strengthened before the Reds get into the saddle." Petitions were tabled against the "stacking of the Council" by MPs and by Aucklanders. But the stacking has been seen as assisting the Liberal Government, which "might not have survived but for this assistance ... [which] provided a useful unifying influence in the critical early years" and "identified with dramatic clarity the reactionary class enemy ... and acted as a convenient brake on the radicals [who] were asked to settle for moderate measures." Proposals for election A number of proposals were made that the Legislative Council should be elected, not appointed. When responsible government had been granted at the beginning of the 2nd Parliament, the Governor, Thomas Gore Browne, was given sufficient authority to make the Legislative Council elected, but no action was taken. In 1914, a reform proposal to establish a 42 or 43 member council elected by proportional