Evening Post. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1897. ONE MAN GOVERNMENT.

Evening Post, Volume LIV, Issue 19, 22 July 1897, Page 4

Evening Post. THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1897. ONE MAN GOVERNMENT.

THE city of New York has recently undergone a very complete change, not in external appearance, but in internal constitution, and it is one that has a peouliar interest for New Zealand under its present political conditions. The "Greater New York' Charter Bill' 1 has duly passed the State Legislature and received the signature of the Governor; it has therefore become law, and in doing so has created a city with a population of 3,000,000, an area larger than London, and a property roll o£ about £600,000,000. Transatlantic democracy may well be proud of its great commercial metropolis, and we, too, may take heart' for our own destiny when we contemplate the giant works performed by men of our race and lineage in another dime and under other auspices. Our task at present, however, is not so much to enlarge upon the happy results that have crowned with material success the colonising efforts of the British i ace as to examine a few of the most striking political characteristics of the

transformed city's new institutions. Under the new charter New York will enjoy a distinctly one-man government. The Mayor, whose election takes place next November, will, within the limits of the charter, exercise almost absolute powers, legislative and executive, during his four years of office. He will possess over almost all kinds of expenditure a veto, which can only be overridden by a five-sixths majority of the City Council. Increases in current expenses will be determined by a special Board,whose members will, all but one, be nominated by his Worship. He will also appoint heads of municipal departments, and that not merely for a four, but an eight, years' term of office. These functionaries will not be dismissible by his successor, and consequently the Qrst Mayor will have a very permanent influence upon the future of the new Municipality In short, as a London contemporary observes, be " will be a kind of civic Emperor, whose authority, within the limits of his sphere of action, will be greater than that of most of the monarchs of Europe within theirs/ A position such as this would seem to demand above all others one of Carlyle's able men " not needing 'election' to command but eternally elected to it by the Maker himself." Can New York find such a heaven-born king ? "r, if .« can, wii! he be willing to sit in the seat of Tweed of Tammany fame ? It seems strange that one of the rival sister cities, who have tested to the bitter end the evil effects of the witch Corruption's baneful drugs, should be willing to place herself once more .n the grasp of a single omnipotent physician. The present regulation is perhaps the natural outcome of the one-man tendency which has always prevailed i.. American politics. The average citizen is too much occupied in Wall-street, or some other temple of Mammon, to | undertake the duties and responsibilities of government, and he apparently thinks a ' single man a better representative of the people than an elective Council • at any rate, ia the last resort there would be only ! one traitor's neck to -wring, and so responsibility might be more effectually secured. It may be also that Americans think a dictator more capable of stemming the toe rent of corruption; our own experience, however, would incline us to an opposite conclusion, but of course much must depend upon the nature of the man chosen. Many thoughtful but timid folk are continually- dinning into, our ears the old refrain that democracy necessarily means a oneman government. Were it not for the persistency of the chanters we should hardly deem it necessary to controvert this fallac}\ It is, however, specious enough to gain by reiteration a sort of passive approval. Democracy frequently does lead to personal rule, but such a retrogression is due to tho defects of a particular system and not to the principles of Democracy. Its most prolific causes are ignorance and corruption. Political reformers have in the question of settling the basis of the Constitution — that is, the determination of what shall be the composition of the sovereign people— to faoe a very awkward dilemma. If the franchise is to be made very wide, as with us, the electorate must embrace many who are not skilled in matters political but if the electorate is narrow it is not improbable that those very people would for long years be kept in that s,tate of ignorance whioh makes their voting liable to grave errors but would, if that voting were not granted them,, tend to perpetuate itself as .a social sore that would disgrace the community and be a danger to the State It seems to us that the people of New Zealand have chosen what is, perhaps, the only wise way out of the dilemma. They have made their foundation as wide as possible, trusting wisely in the conviction that in the end the people must, and will, prove true to their better selves. Unfortunately there must intervene a transition period, when things may possibly go rather awry, and during that time the strong man 1 with a varnish of Parliamentary rhetoric" and a certain ' ' toughness of character will assuredly strive with industrious " mob worship, place worship, Parliamentary intrigue, and the multiplex art of tongue fence" to grasp and '• freeze on to," as New Yorkers say, the reins of government. This seems to be very much the state of affairs in New Zealand at the present time. There is a want of civic knowledge iv our democracy, a want which the present Government has not shown itself at all eager to supply. This ignorance, coupled with a certain amount of callous indifference to the issues at stake, has brought about a sort of one-man, one-sided rule, whioh tickles the political palate of the electorate, and is not above financial juggling and judicious jobbery that for the nonce tend to consolidate and continue its powers. Such an outrageous condition of the body politic cannot- remain permanent, and we have little doubt that the very abuses to which it has given rise will before long prove its ruin. Our people must sooner or later see through the "sweet-mouthed ' utterances and specious but guileful explanations which are used to cloak the chicanery employed in the interests of the dominant "boss" and his coterie of intimates. That the seeds of decay are inherent in the present rtgime is the only hope that prevents our looking with despair upon the effects of our Liberal legislation, and that the not distent downfall of corruption and personal rule will prove the soundness of our creed is our Chief assurance in relying upon the ultimate benefits of orderly but progressive Democracy.

The mild-mannered Minister for Public Works appears to the chosen instrument of the Cabinet to announce to the colony that its last pretence at observance of •" nonborrowing and self-reliant" methods has been abandoned, and that a scatter-casb. policy that shall discount the future on the gay old Vogelian lines shall take its place. He sounded his first note at New Plymouth l<st week, where, in course of his speech, he actually exulted in the fact that Government had succeeded in expending so much more money iv that district than their predecessors. On their roads and bridges, he told his hearers, the previous Administration had in five 3 r ears only expended £28,000, whereas for a like period the present Government had expended £173,429. " They could see the difference between the two Administrations (applause). The claims of the settlers had been better met by the present Government than the preceding one. and Will there was more

expenditure required, as was evidenced by the deputations that he had received for the making, maintenance, and repairs of roads and bridges. It was a question of money. Give him money, and as Minister of Public "Works he would soon see that needful works were carried out. . . Tbey had now 298 co-operative men in this district, and just over the boundary, in the Auckland district, there were 52 men who were doing good work that Would be of benefit to this district." Give him money, and no deputation shall ever go away empty-handed, is what he says. A nice time the Opposition member for Taranaki will have if he ventures to oppose the coming loan policy. And to think that Mr. Hall- Jones" should be .the ohosen instrumenf of Seddonisin fdr this attempt to debauch constituencies! But this is only the beginning. At Tar&naki he took the first plunge, doubtless after much shiveringmisgiving on the edge of the coming financial flood. To-day we hear of him from Auckland floating on the tide of a new publio works policy, the feature' of which is to be light railways. It appears to him that light railways are just what are required for the Auckland Province, and apparently he in quite a royal way intimated that he would consider the opening up of the King Country by this means. " This was going to be a great thing for Auckland, because of the business that would be concentrated in it. This was a matter more' advanced than most people were aware, of. , Before long the country would be thrown open, and the result would be seen/ ~Wky, the Premier could hardly be ino're prodigal' of promise or oracular of speech. We may presently expect Mr. Hall- Jones to put the Left Wing vdtes of Canterbury in his pocket in return for a promise of a light - Government railway to take the yiace o f the Midland contract, and capture all Otago with an indication of his intention to complete the Otago Central. Meanwhile the Premier may be expected to have arranged iv London for the underwriting of, say, three millions or so , then after his return obtain authority for the loan in an all-night sitting at the end of the coming session, and go gaily ou debauching the constituencies, and so '•keeping on top ' until it is expended. After that — well, the next Government can pull up the lee-way, and Mr. Seddon, as Leader of the Opposition, will impress upon the Treasury .Benches t,he imperative duty of a non borrowing' and self-reliant policy.

. TTc trust that as soon as the Minister for Marine lias returned from his Northern tour as Minister for "Works exploiting a new X J ublic Works policy, the Harbour Board and Shipmasters' Association will, by a united effort, induce him to face the question of an improvement in the lighting of the harbour, so that the matter will not be permitted to drift until there is another marine disaster to record. The position at present is so far improved that there is unanimity of opinion 'twixt the Harbour Board and the Shipmasters' Association as to what should be done. Last month, the latter body forwarded to the Minister a series of resolutions to the effect that the present lights are totally inadequate to the requirements of the port, that prompt improvements are required for safe navigation and to lessen the risk to life and property, that as the height of Pencarrow causes it to be obscured iv weather when it is urgently required, a low light should be put under Pencarrow light at' low-water mark, and that Somes Island light should be increased in power* These resolutions were communicated also to the Harbour Board, and the reply of that body, as we understand it, sets' out in effect that if the Government will hand over the revenue of the port from light dues, the Board will take charge of the lighthouses and do all that is required. Thi9 is a' reasonable proposition, and will,, we trust, be considered by the Cabiuet on its merits, and without regard to any consideration as to whether a political axe mayor may not be ground in the granting of it. ItVis not equitable that' the Consolidated Revenue should profit by the income from light dues while the chief port of the colony is a death-dealing trap to the unwary mariner. The light dues collected at the Port of Wellington for the past year amounted to £4014, and of course must have yielded a large margin l of profit to the Treasury. The Minister for Marine has not once during this controversy ventured to state that the revenue from light dues is insufficient to meet the fair demand that is now locally made upon it. Anyway, the proposal of the Harbour -J^oard is not only reasonable, but entirely on all-fours with the principles of local government that it represents in its best aspeot, and we would urge upon its members that it should make such combined effort in conjunction not only with the shipmasters, shipowners, and agents, but also with the members for the City, as will ensure compliance with- 1 request, refusal of whioh will be tantamount; to a premium to the encouragement of shipwreck and disaster.

The first New Zealand prosecution on the lines of the now famous Hawke v. Dunn Case in England began, as we reported at the time, in the Auckland Magistrate's Court On Tuesday last. The information was laid under the Gaming and Lotteries Act of 1881, which declares " every room, office, or place, opened or kept or used for the purposes recited in the last-mentioned section* (among 1 which is betting on horse or other races), or any of them, shall be taken or deemed to be a common gaming-house." As the Queen's Bench included a racecourse enclosure among the places constituting common gaming-houses in the British Act of 1858, it is only rational to suppose that a similar course would have to be pursued in interpreting the allied Colonial Statutes. Prom this consideration many bookmakers have, as is well-known, been fined in New South Wales Courts, but a second English casePowell v. Kempton Park Company — lately decided in the Court of Appeal, appears from cable advices to have upset the Hawke v. Dunn decision, upon which all such prosecutions depended for their success. The second case was a friendly one,, brought by Powell, a shareholder, against the Kempfon Park Company, claiming an injunction to restrain them from permitting betting in rings on their racecourse. On the 21st May last the Lord Chief .Justice heard the case on appeal, and, accepting the Hawke v. Dunn ruling of the co-ordinate Court, gave judgment for the plaiutiff,' but with every facility of appeal to the highest Court. The final appeal was heard on the 7th instant, when five out of six Lords .Justices of Appeal decided that betting in racecourse enclosures was legal. This would seem to reverse the judgment in Hawke v. Dunn, but as there appears to be some doubt about the actual bearing of the decision, cases both in Sydney and other parts of the colonies are standing over for further information, and the betting community is having rather an anxious period of suspense. Advices by Australian mail of yesterday indicate that tho Minister for Justice in Sydney has yet a hope that the text of the judgment of the full Court of England will not wholly bar the way to a continuance of his crusade against the local ' • bookies." It is stated that the full ten o£ the judgment has been cabled to the Sydney Government. If so, it cannot have beeu vet published, or we should, have heard of it by wire.

A correspondent, signing himself '" AngloIndian," writes to us about the possibility of establishing a tradu iv Xew Zealand goods in the East. In the course of his letter, he says—" I have had many years' experience in the East Indies trade, and a few 3'ears ago travelled from Calcutta -to the Northern frontier (Peshawur) and back again in the interests of a large Calcutta firm, visiting and introducing business ia all principal places en route. From 40 to 60 canes of stock always accoui-

panied me, and the venture was very successful and profitable, also resulting in various branches being established. Our correspondent is confident that a large business is certain if our products could be established in the East by similar means. We admit that in a few " lives," such as concentrated milk, leather, wooli and perhaps butter, a certain amount of trade might be bttilt up, but the facts adduced in the report made to the Victorian Minister of Agriculture by the Commission sent to the East in 1894 to enquire about this very subject are not encouraging. The main difficulty is that the European population is so very small in*proportion to the native ¦in India, China, Japan, &c, and unfortunately our chief customers would be the Europeans. With respect to the natives we should have to create a need for our products as well as to supply tbe .demand it caused. With wool it is, however, possible that we might do some good. The Indian raw material is very inferior, and ouly fit for the coarsest fabrics! while Japanese manufacturers are seriously contemplating the erection of woollen mills. For frozen meat and other agricultural or pastoral produce there is not a wide field, since the natives are largely vegetarian from religious or financial reasons, and the European residents are scarcely numerous enough to make a large market.