Evening post. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1910. AN OBEDIENT SERVANT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIX, Issue 68, 22 March 1910, Page 6

Evening post. TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1910. AN OBEDIENT SERVANT.

The House of Lords is not the only Second Chamber in the Empire that needs something more than what Mr. Asquith calls "a coat of democratic whitewash" to make it serviceable, or even presentable. The Legislative Coun. cil of New Zealand is free from the absurdities of hereditary privilege. The pioneers who opened up this country to civilisation in the early years of last century brought no dukes wifh them among their household goods, nor have any of their successors endeavoured to acclimatise even the less exalted classes of the order which within the last few months has been claiming the right to dictate the financial polity of the United Kingdom. But a Second Chamber may possess other titles to contempt than hereditary. The accident of birth is not the only way of filling it with nonentities. If anybody ventures to doubt that a democracy which prides itself, not entirely without foundation, upon its vigour and its alertness, can nevertheless endure for years a Second Chamber which is weak, unrepresentative, and incompetent, he has only to loot at the Legislative Council of New Zealand. It is supposed to represent the intelligence and the independence, the tried worth and the mature wisdom, of the country. Everybody knows to what extent that ideal i* realised, and that ihe contract between the ideal and the ieality become* :i broader farce year by year. Nobody rtf»pe<ts tho Legislative Coitus il, and it has ceased even to r»-f-peit lUelf. The hi-t point may niclred bo put on Ihe Mdc of virtue, muco it hnc FBV«d th* Council from the arrogant itlf -Miir.tiun which baa m»d« Jht ilouift

pf Lords a nuisance and a menace. The Legislative Council is very meek, and never makes itself a nuisance. It never menaces anything, and, least of all, the hand that nils it and feeds it. Ib has become the- obedient servant of the Government, and servant and master are equally pleased with tho arrangement. When Mr. Ballance procured the passing in 1891 of tho Act which abolished lifo appointments to tho Legislative Council, and substituted a seven years' term, the change was generally approved as providing a means of supplying tho Council with new blood and of keeping its members in closer touch with public opinion. But the system has been to worked that the Council does not get the benefit of new blood, and its members aro kept in closo touch, not with public opinion, but with the Government. By making tho seven years' term a sort of renewable- lease, and treating political subservience as tho condition of renewal, Ministers have defeated the laudable object of Mr. Ballance's amendment and converted what was intended to enhance fcthc vigour and dignity of the Council into an instrument for its degradation and thrit own tyranny. In this matter tho present Ministry has been just as bad a sinner as the preceding one whose evil ways it set out so virtuously to amend. Tho first batch of appointments to tho Legislative Council for which tho Ward Administration became responsible included some of the worst that were ever made, but, recognising that these were probably a legacy from the previous regime, public opinion, though disgusted by the result, was lenient in its judgment of tho Ministry upon which the technical responsibility lay. No such excuse can be pleaded for the reappointments which are now being made. In April last Messrs. Jas. Holmes and Jas. Marshall ; .in December Messrs. Jones, Reeves, and W. C. Smith; and on Thursday last Mesprs. Baldey, Carncross, T. Thompson, and F. Trask, all reached the end of their respective terms, and every single one of them has been reappointed. We- do not desire to make any invidious distinctions, and therefore we eelect no particular names ; but we have no hesitation in saying that in more than half of these nine cases the original appointments should never have been made, • and that tho appointees have taken full advantage of the ample opportunity afforded by a seven years' term of demonstrating their unfitness for the position. Yet men whose chief recommendation to the public seven years before was, in some cases, that nothing was known about them, and whose blank record of service during those seven years has proved that there is really nothing to be known, are reappointed by the Government without a single exception. Can Dr. Findlay lay his hand on his heart and say that these men were really fit for reappointment? or that he could not have found fifty better men able and willing io act? Wo all know that as a conscientious man he could say no such thing, and tho question naturally follows, How as a conscientious man h» can be a party* to such a scandalous abuse of official patronage, such a scandalous neglect of his plaitf duty to his country? Mr. Fowlds, Mr. Millar, and other reformers cut sorry figures indeed in a Ministry which performs like this. Two or three years ago they were able to delegate their responsibility to a tyranny which had passed, but which had left legacies that had to bo satisfied. Now they stand convicted of tin attempt to found a tyranny of their own upon exactly the same breaches of trust.