The Hastings Standard Published Daily. MONDAY, OCT. 19, 1896. PARLIAMENT AND PEOPLE.

Hastings Standard, Issue 149, 19 October 1896, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily.

MONDAY, OCT. 1 9, 1896. PARLIAMENT AND PEOPLE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance. And the good that we can do.

The session has come to an encl, and with it the life of the twelfth Parliament of New Zealand is snuffed out. The session has had its purple patches and its barren wastes. It can show its collection of new statutes, like a fleet of ships safely in harbor, while its joast is strewn with wrecked Bills and legislative flotsam and jetsam. The third session of the twelfth Parliament was no better and no worse than its predecessors, except, perhaps, in one respect, and that in -the plentiful patter of putrid phrases : sentences reeking with personal spite, with innuendoes pointed with malice ; and for this we are indebted to the bilious banking business, which intruded itself into the political arena in the first session of the now moribund Parliament. Of the measures that have been passed into law we cannot single out any for special mention, neither can we find excuse for selecting any for condemna tion. The laws passed during the

session are of the hum-drum average order, and will be of average service to the community. Some measures of magnitude formed part of the golden promises of the Governor's Speech, but their very magnitude caused their ruin. The average man loves the privilege of roundly abusing Parliament, and the opinion of the average elector will probably be that the Parliament which has just pissed out of existence was the worst on record. This opinion has, no doubt, been expressed with respect to the last eleven Parliaments, and will be repeated until that happy time when, to parody a well-known couplet, Politicians cease from piping And Parliaments sit no more. It is now a wearisome platitude that Parliament is just what the people make it —neither better nor worse. Parliament is the product of eclectics — the selected of the people —and must always be respectable in the eyes of the people from whom it is chosen. A House of Parliament which has been deliberately fashioned by the people after the pattern of its best judgment must in every State, when properly considered, be the highest object of reverence in that State. Of course Parliament blunders ; it is selfish, even violently unjust. The same accusations apply to individuals, and the aggregate cannot be exempt from the failings of its units. It is patent tint every free representative Parliament must be just us good as is deserved or desired by the people who make it. "Whatever Parliament is good or bad, it is certainly the eclectic work of the Democracy. It is the highest political institution which the wit of man has yet been able to invent. 3Jut this is no time for moralising, but rather for realising the fact that the decks are cleared for action, that for the next few weeks the electorates will be bombarded with vigor; broadsides will be followed by broadsides, with the rattle of musketry to vary the monotony. AN e shall have line speeches, embellished with sentiments of the broadest human feelings, and we shall have those stilted jerky, selfish useless addresses which annoy the bearers and belittle the speakers. The turmoil of a general election may be in some sort a witches' cauldron in its Hubble, bubble Toil and trouble. In the seething conflict of worthy and unworthy motives there will doubtless be much that is unsightly, unseemly, and unaltnustic, but Ave have the faith which amounts to a conviction that the electors will choose wisely and well, and that the thirteenth Parliament of New Zealaud will be a credit to the country.