The press. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1895. THE WANT OF CONFIDENCE MOTION.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9162, 20 July 1895, Page 6

The press. SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1895. THE WANT OF CONFIDENCE MOTION.

No more conspicuous example of the evils of our present system of Parliamentary Government could be imagined than has been afforded in the present no-confidence debate. The House was called upon to give its vote on one of the most important questions which could have been submitted to its decision —a question vitally affecting the financial credit, honour, and good faith of the colony. It was called upon to give its solemn and deliberate opinion whether the Trust Funds of the colony are to be regarded as sacred or are they to be Trust Funds only in name, liable in time of financial stress to be swept away in the maelstrom of colonial finance? Is the Government which is prosecuting Leonard Harper for alleged misappropriation of the trust funds committed to his care, justified, should it ever be driven into a finan-, cial corner, as he was, in following in his footsteps—or what it alleges to have been his footsteps ? It is no use beating about the bush. That was the plain and simple question to be settled, and we regard it as a national calamity and disgrace that members were not allowed at once to vote upon it in accordance with their consciences, and what they believed to be right. In that case jive feel assured that they would have - indignantly repudiated a proposition so flagrantly dishonest. But the Ministry, in making it a party question, determined that it should not be dealt with in the judicial and honourable spirit with which such a question ought to be approached. They determined to lay upon their too subservient followers a strain more revolting to a man of of honest purpose and a sense of what is right than any yet devised by the iron-heeled despot who at present holds his party so firmly in the leash. To save the Colonial Treasurer from the indiscretion of his remarks, to preserve the Ministry a little longer in the enjoyment of the loaves and fishes, we find the House called upon to affirm, in effect, that it sees nothing wrong in a Government misappropriating, in time of panic, the trust funds committed to its care for safe keeping by colonists believing in the good faith of the Government and desirous of making prudent provision for themselves and their families in time of need. For our part, we do most sincerely regret that Parliamentary tacticians did not devise some method by which a question of this kind could have been dealt with straightforwardly, and on its merits. As we said yesterday it has ceased to be merely a question whether Mr. Ward did or did not make a foolish speech before the London Chamber of Commerce. If he had told the House candidly that in his zeal for the colony's interests—in his anxiety that the loan should go off we ll—he-went-a little too far in speak- : ing.of trust funds as if they were unpledged and at his disposal, we would have excused him, and the colony's credit might not have suffered any permanent harm. It is one thing, however, for a man in a bragging speech to make unguarded remarks about Trust Funds, which are j not justified by the circumstances, and |it is another thing for the House to ' solemnly affirm, after a full and exhaustive debate, that it does not recognise the sacredness of the colonial i Trust Funds—that in fact it sees : nothing wrong in a Colonial Treasurer ' misappropriating them to stave off the ; colonial creditor in time of need. We 1 cannot imagine anything more likely to ! discredit the colony in the eyes of the j world, or to cause serious concern to the more thoughtful electors than such an action as this. What makes it all the worse is the extraordinary attitude which Ministers have taken up in the matter. It was bad ; enough that they should deliberately ! seek to draw the House into a vote I which in effect declares that Governj ments are not to be bound by the ! ordinary rules of commercial honour ] and morality. It is worse when, in I order to justify such a procedure, they abandon all the higher instincts of statesmen and treat the matter as some of them have done in this debate. Mr. Saunders, who was returned as a Ministerial supporter, could not help expressing his indignation at their conduct, and was quite right when he said that Mr. Ward's fault in London was in reality a small matter compared with the conduct of the Government during this discussion. He added it was most unfortunate that three Ministers j should, one after another, make speeches which greatly weakened the

confidence of the public in the safety of the trust funds, which in his opinion should be held at least as sacred as any private investments in the ordinary way. Many other Ministerial supporters must have felt in the same spirit, although they had not the manliness to avow it. Mr. Saunders went on to say that he had never heard from the Ministerial Bench, or indeed in the House, anything like the speech made on Thursday night by the Hon. Mr. Reeves, which he justly characterised as of a grossly personal and vicious character. We have no hesitation in endorsing this statement. Judging from the brief report which has been furnished, it is evident that the speech of the Minister of Education wa3 one unbecoming the lips of any member of average self-respect, to say nothing of what is due to his position as a Minister of the Crown. The question of the sacredness or otherwise of the savings of the thrifty j in the Post Office and of the provisions made through the Life Insurance Department and the Public Trust Offics for the widow and orphan, is of too much importance to be allowed to to rest upon the hazard of a vote in j which the issues are obscured by blind partisan feeling. The Ministerialists who threw the honour of the colony to the winds in their infatuated devotion to their own party interests will be called to stern account by their constituents. They will not easily satisfy the depositors in the Savings Bank, or the Government Insurance policy holders, or those whose little all is invested in the Public Trust Office, when they come before them and admit, as they will have to do, that they sacrificed the principle of the sacredness of the Trust Funds .in order to whitewash Mr. Wabd and keep Mr. Seddon in power. The matter, however, cannot be' allowed to rest where it is. The colony cannot remain under the stigma cast upon it by the Government, and at the earliest possible moment it must be made quite clear, by an amendment of the law if necessary, that the methods of Jabez Balfour and others of that ilk are not those which are to guide the Government of this colony in dealing with the trust moneys confided to its care in implicit belief that its honesty and good faith are to be relied upon.