REDUCTION OF MEMBERS.

Evening Star, Issue 7233, 8 June 1887, Page 1

REDUCTION OF MEMBERS.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—From one end of New Zealand to the other there ia universal acknowledgment of the utmost necessity lor retrenchment and economy in our system of government; and as it is evident that the Legislature as at present constituted will not face the necessities of the case, in my opinion nothing remains for the electors but to take the matter into their own hands. I would suggest that all parties, whether Protectionists, Freetraders, Steatites, Vcgelites, or Atkinsonites, should, for the pnrposes of the forthcoming elections, lay aside weir respective theories and unite on one platform. « viz,, to secure the return of members who will pledge themselves in the new Parliament, and during the first session, to vote for a reduction of members to, say, forty—twenty for each island—and, this being effected, a dissolution immediately to follow. In the elections that would result thereafter, let all parties then fight their respective nostrums for earing the all too patent and potent depression. As one who has spent nearly all his UfatimA in the colonies, and who for many years took more than an average active put in public hffairs, and who still takes a deep interest in them, I feel convinced that the first step towards ■ remedying the depression that easts is , a thorough reform of our system of government. . The country is groaning under a burden of taxation,, which is paralysing all trade J *ijd enterprise, brought aoout mainly by the extravagance of Government, and which, in my opinion, is not to be laid specially at the door of one Ministiy or another, but is the natural result of our system of over representation. From the initiation of the Public Works policy onwards electorates have been taught to return members on account.. of their success in obtaining a mess of pottage for their districts, and hence their representa* tives have been characterised,-as a rnle, asmen' who gave but little heed to the craihmii burdens they were accumulating people by all means of extravagances. Thus, in the battle of “the ins and outs n Minisfoca have been compelled to purchase the support of these men at a sacrifice of all oonriderationa as to wise government, and some times of lumoc itself.. It is humiliating, but the truthls,that* under existing circumstances, no snaighK'