Reform in the Upper House.

Cromwell Argus, Volume IV, Issue 204, 7 October 1873, Page 7

Reform in the Upper House.

During the Ministerial Statement made by Mr Vogel in the House on Sept. 19, in com nection with the throwing out by the Legislative Council of the Provincial Loans Empowering Bill, that gentleman is reported to Lave spoken as follows: “ I will now proceed to consider the evidences that a reform of the Council is needed. I have already stated, generally, that the Council has for some time inclined to undertake duties which belong to this branch of the Legislature. There is always an assumption upon the part of members of the other Chamber that they represent, and especially that the Council represents, the propertied interests of the country. I think it is our duty to deny the justice of any such assumption. Members of this House, if they duly discharge their duties as the representatives of the whole country, represent alike each of the varied interests of the country—the mining, the labouring, the propertied, and other interests ; and it is not because members of the Upper House happen to be men of property themselves that they are to be considered the representatives of property, other than on behalf of themselves. The members of this House who represent country districts are essentially those who should be considered the representatives of the propertied interests of the country. What is meant by the term * ‘ propertied interests” ? I deny that we are

entitled to hold' that a man with a freehold worth £IOOO is not a propertied man, but that a man with one worth £20,000 is a propertied man, and is, therefore, entitled to superior consideration. It is common to compare the position of the Legislative Council with tlil position of the House of Lords ; but I say that the two are essentially different, and that any attempt to make it appear that they are similar is a mockery. The House of Lords is composed of men who may, in one sense, be said to be the natural representatives of the propertied interests of Great Britain, because they are the large landowners and large landlords of the country. They have large bodies of tenants under them, and many of them are far more influential, and have much greater power of doing good to the people around them, than the princes of some of the smaller Continental States. Those who assume to be the representatives of the propertied interests here are not the great landlords of the country, but the great tenants of the country. 1 We have heard it said in this House, very recently, and in no feeble terms, that these tenants of the country are entitled to arrogate for therhselves a position much superior to that of the other representatives of the country, I deny that they are so entitled, just as I deny that there is any analogy between the character and position of the nominated branch of our Legislature and those of the House of Lords. Because there is not such an analogy, the Legislative Council is not amenable to public opinion to the same extent as is the House of Lords. It is not for me now. to discuss what may be necessary to be done to get rid of existing evils ; but I suggest that it is worthy of consideration whether—if we are not to discontinue the system oT nomineeism, but are still to have a non-elective Council—there should not be some arrangement by which, when difference on grave questions arises between the two Houses, the two could be brought together, and the minority of the one body, added to the majority of the other, be left to decide the point at issue; As an example of the state of things of which we have a right to complain, we find .that, in another Chamber, a great deal of time has been occupied this session in discussing a resolution, moved by one whom I may characterise as the professed alarmist of the country [the Hon. Mr Sewell] for the last twenty years, to the effect that “ the financial position of the Colony demands the grave consideration, of the Legislature.” That proposition was .actually argued for days ; though no two members could make out the same figures, so little did honorable members come to anything like agreement. Yet this nominated branch of the Legislature had the presumption iq ..place upon record a resolution such as,L‘have indicated: thus putting it into the power of any one who might be so disposed, to affect, for speculative purposes, the, monetary position of New Zealand, and to bring down the price of our securities in the English market, by publishing that resolution, without comment, in one of the London daily newspapers. No doubt, a sufficient explanation would afterwards be forthcoming to check the evil; but is it right, I ask, that the Legislative Council of New Zealand should place upon record such a resolution with respect to the financial position of the Colony, after such a discussion, and without considering that the fact of their so doing might be used in such a way as to cost the Colony hundreds of thousands of pounds ?