SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 101, 11 December 1852, Page 4

SPEECH OF THE RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P.

ON v THE SECOND READING OF THE NEW ZEALAND CONSTITUTION BILL. ( Concluded from our last.) I come now to the gravest of the points in which I am disposed to object to the provisions of the bill; and first, I agree with an^objection urged by the honourable baronet the member for Southward. lam afraid that a great difficulty will arise from that which is called the concurrent jurisdiction of the legislative bodies. There is an unnecessary complexity in these institutions. You have positively got a hierarchy of three orders of legislative bodies in New Zealand, topped by a Government and Parliament at home. (Hear, hear.) You have a central legislature, and a district legislature. Under them you have a municipal legislature, properly so called. I cannot help suggesting that this municipal chamber might with very great propriety be swallowed up in the district legislature. You have an unnecessary complexity, and depend upon it, where there is such a complexity there will be confusion. The more simple your plan the better it will so far be likely to work. Moreover, these district legislatures would after all be legislatures only for 1200 or 1500, and from thence up to some 5000 or 6000 people. If that be the case, of which there is no doubt, there can be no necessity for a municipal legislature—the district legislature will be thoroughly adapted to all the purposes which Aye commonly call municipal. A concurrent legislative jurisdiction is a matter of great difficulty. We know that it would be so in this country, and I do not perceive how it can work without confusion in the colonies. And here I detect the lack of a guiding principle in the framing of. this bill. Take, said the honourable member for Southwark, the central legislature, and make it the fountain of power ; on the other hand I say, let the district legislature be for New Zealand and under its circumstances the fountain of power. (Hear.) But Ido not think this bill proceeds consistently either on the one principle or on the other; and concurrent jurisdictions I must confess are to me subjects of apprehension and alarm. A concurrent jurisdiction in the business of legislation means uncertainty, conflict, and confusion. The overriding of arrangements, already made under authority deemed competent, by extraneous power, must ever lead to annoyance and angry feeling. What reason can there be, if these district legislatures are fit to deal with the subjects which come before'them—what reason can there be that their decisions should be subject to revision? I will put this in the form of a dilemma. If these district legislatures are fit to deal with the subjects you entrust to them, why not let them deal with them? If they are unfit to deal with them, why put into their hands the power to meddle with them ? (Cheers.) Unity of power is essential—clear discrimination and accurate division of power are essential to the repose of a community and to the harmonious working of its institutions. Look to the United Siates, which is the great source of experimental instruction so far as colonial institutions are concerned. There you will find unity of power, and correct division of power, but you will not find concurrent jurisdiction. The proposition in the bill rests upon the notion that there is no unity in the political system* Whereas it is an essential condition of a healthy and a strong government that there should be unity. We know very well where the organ of power lies in this country. It lies with us in Parliament. Certain functions aie delegated by us to other bodies, but we do not interfere with them or over-ride them in the exercise of functions so delegated. But these district legislatures are not to exercise certain powers delegated to them by the central legislature. They are to exercise all powers whatsoever except only upon a certain limited and specified subjects. I look upon this objection to the bill as one of very great force.—(Hear.) It I am asked why, recognizing the force of this objection, I do not join the honourable baronet the member for Southwark, in deprecating the further progress of the bill ?—my answer is, tbe large powers of alteration which the right honourable gentleman has given in this bill render it unnecessary.—(Hear, hear.) My belief is, that the highly intelligent community you have founded hi New Zealand more thoroughly reflects the spirit, the character, and i ntelligence of England then almost any other among all your colonies, and my opinion is,

that they will exercise so clear an intelligence in discerning what is for their own good, that they will rectify the error of our crude legislation, and will, extricating themselves from this complexity, attain to a unity of system and a clear and accurate discrimination of power.

Another great objection to this bill is this. Having constituted these local legislatures, you enable them to pass laws upon all subjects, except certain ones which are reserved. Now the great bulk of the laws they will pass will be purely local. Indeed, as to the district legislatures there can hardly be such a thing as an exception. There will, therefore, be no necessity for referring these laws home. This proposition is, I must observe, virtually acknowledged : for it is required, not that these acts shall come home, but simply that they shall go to the Governor of New Zealand. Only to the Governor: you ought, therefore, not to sub] ect the colonists to so long a period of uncertainty as two years before they can ascertain whether their measures will be approved of or not. Now, sir, I must confess that, under the circumstances, I am disposed to make great sacrifices of opinion, and to yield my own private views, in order to see this bill have a chance of becoming the law of the empire. But if this bill is to be fought in committee, as it is termed —(hear), and if all opportunities are to be taken by gentlemen, thoroughly educated in the doctrine and discipline of colonial philosophy, for lecturing the Government and the House of Commons upon the pure theory of colonization, I am afraid we shall have but a small chance of such a desirable consummation. Ido not therefore speak of amendments and divisions in committee: but I simply put it to the Government whether the proposed term of two years is not rather too lengthened a period ; and I suggest, especially as those acts will be local, that a period of from four to six months would be amply sufficient for the purpose, and that this limitation would, moreover, detract nothing in any respect from the value and efficiency of the bill. I have said already that Ido not feel disposed to pursue my own opinions, that I am ready to yield them in the most important details of this political arrangement, because I have placed before myself the only alternative which remains, namely, the acceptance or tbe loss of the bill. Sincerely wishing, then, that this bill should pass, I shall notwithstanding refer to one or two amendments, which, as at present advised, I think if not absolutely essential, yet in a high degree valuable and expedient for the measure, reserving it to myself to act in regard to them hereafter as shall on the whole appear most prudent.

The right honourable gentleman has thought it fit, following the traditions of his department in this particular instance, that the settlers in New Zealand, composed of Englishmen and natives as intelligent as ourselves, except in so far as they may have lost their intelligence by having lived "so long under what must in strictness be called arbitrary government—(hear, hear) —the right honourable gentleman has thought it fit that each one of his six districts should be government bya Superintendent, who is not to be elected, but who is to be nominated by the Governor of New Zealand, and that this functionary, to relieve him from the risk of starvation, should have provided for him by our parental care a salary of £500 per annum— (Laughter.) I would respectfully suggest, sir, if we could get rid both of the nomination and of the salary, it would be a great improvement in this bill.—(Cheers.) From what source is it that political appointments derive their attractiveness and honour? I have the distinction of sitting in an assembly of six hundred gentlemen who give their laborious services to tbe country without fee or reward ; we have, again, in the service of the state a great multitude of salaried offices : yet no man can say that these salaried offices, many of them bringing distinction as well as emolument, are coveted more than a seat in this House. Why is such a seat, with the heavy burden of duties attaching to it, so coveted? because every seat in it is a mark of the confidence of a portion of our fellowcountrymen. That confidence stands instead of money, and it does the work of money better than money itself can do.—(Hear, hear.) If you allow these communities to choose out from among themselves those whom they believe to be the best men, you would find, without undertaking to provide them with £,500 a year for their labours, that the office would become the object of honourable competition, and it would be, in addition, I venture to predict,

the means of making the colony attractive in a degree far beyond your present experience ;''of drawing from England to that colony men of a different class, men of a higher class than you can ever get to go in numbers to any of your colonies, until you stamp them 'with the same broad, and deep, and indelible character of freedom which has been marked upon all your institutions at home.

There is another objection which I have to urge, which I consider to touch a matter of the deepest importance—l allude to the question of the nominated upper chamber or legislative council in the central legislature of New Zealand. The intention of the legislative council or upper chamber is, that it should check and control the other legislative chamber ; and it is proposed that it should be composed of nominees of the Crown. In this important particular the plan of the right honourable gentleman differs, and I must say greatly degenerates, from the plan of Lord Grey. Having had the misfortune frequently to differ from that noble lord on his c&lonial policy, it is with the greatest pleasure that I acknowledge the excellence of his plan in this -particular respect. His intention, as I understand, was that the council should be composed of persons elected by the district legislatures. It is quite plain whence he derived that hint. It was from the United States of America; and in going, as I have stated, to the constitution of the United States to draw hints and suggestions for the improvement of our colonial institutions, he resorted to the very best fountain of instruction founded oh experience ; and if there be one thing in the constitution of the United States of America which more than others entitles the'great authors of that astonishing work to the gratitude of their countrymen, and to fame as wide and lasting as the world, it is the system which they have devised for the election of the Senate, (hear, hear) ; which, proceeding on the principle of providing for the election of senators from separate states, each considered as units and all as equal, establishes a check on the power of mere numbers or pure popular election. The right honourable gentleman in this particular has fallen back upon the ordinary modern practice, and he proposes to create an upper chamber by the nomination of the executive. Against that I say that this bill ought not to make any such provision, but that the legislative council ought to be elective. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) Those cheers came from the liberal side of the house—it is on that side that the elective principle finds favour. Now, let me illustrate this state of opinion by a reference to what is taking place in the British North American colonies. If you trace the recent annals of Canada, you will find that there have been, at more periods than one, several energetic movements made to get rid of nomination in the election of the Legislative Council. These movements have, however, been always defeated. And how have they been defeated. These movements have been all made by the Tory or Conservative party in the colony, and they have been all defeated by the liberal party in the colony. And why? Not because the liberal party were opposed to the principle of election—quite the contrary —but because the liberal party have, during those periods been in a position of power, they, without opposing the principle of the change, which, on the contrary, they, I believe, commended, have acted on a familiar and well-known principle, " Let well alone." (Hear, hear.) When they came into power, they had an intractable Legislative Council, composed of nominees, to deal with, and how did they proceed ? To use a homely phrase, which all of us understand, they swamped it; by procuring the appointment of a large number of persons of liberal principles. (Hear, hear.) Thus the majority was converted into a minority, and tbe minority into a majority ; and the council by this process was brought into harmony with the assembly. But it is the Conservative party in Canada, the party which is opposed to rapid and incessant change, and which wishes to introduce a principle of stability and continuity into the institutions of the province, that desires to abolish the system of nomination. (Hear, hear.) The same thing has occurred within the last few months in Nova Scotia, where there bus been a great struggle of parties and a division of opinion exactly similar. The liberal party has there, too, succeeded in maintaining the principle of a nominated legislative council against the Conservative party, which is in favour of an elective council; but the victory has been gained

by a majority of only one. Such is the division of parties-on this question ; but how does the system work ? What lights do we obtain from experience ? It is not difficult to bring a House of Peers up to London, but it is exceedingly difficult to bring members of a Legislative Council to. Toronto, still more difficult, perhaps, to bring them to Halifax, and certainly much more still to Wellington. (Hear, hear.) You have not. the inequality of fortune in the colonies that you have here ; you have no class of men possessing leisure and wealth, who it may almost be said are born to political pursuits; who can afford to leave their places of residence and come to considerable distances to attend to public affairs. It is found necessary there to pay the Representatives of the people, not indeed for sordid purposes, but to enable them to bear the expense of their journeys, and the absence of the emoluments which they derive from their ordinary pursuits. Now the colonies do not grudge that payment when it is given to their own representatives, but they will not endure it when it is given to your nominees. (Hear, hear.) The right honourable gentleman must know what are the consequences which sometimes arise from this state of things. He knows that the Government is occasionally brought to something very near a dead lock, and that there is the greatest difficulty in obtaining a quorum of the Legislative Council to transact the public business. The cause is, that they cannot afford to absent themselves from their homes during the session without being paid, while the people of the colony will on no condition agree to pay them as long as they exist as members of the Council by your nomination. (Hear, hear.) I have now shown that in practice it is found most difficult to work the system of councils elected by nomination ; and 1 have also shown you that, as regards political principle and opinion, it is the party favourable to stability which is endeavouring to get rid of nominated legislative councils, and to substitute in their place elective councils. (Hear, hear.) The real truth is, that here we have another of those vulgar superstitions which it is necessary to protest against from- year, to year, until we see them effectually and utterly exploded—the superstition, namely, which induces men to believe that it is right to have a body of men in the colonies appointed in this country for the purpose of checking the free action of popular sympathies in those colonies. Now, sir, if it were true that this country had a set of interests distinct from the interests of the colony in respect to its local affairs, I grant that you would be acting on a sound and right principle, in making provision for the separate and independent maintenance of those interests. But it is not so. (Hear, hear.) You have no conceivable interest apart from those of the colonists. What serves their purpose best serves your purpose best. That which contributes to their greatness —that which gives them strength, enlargement, and stability—that is their interest, and that is your interest also ; and as for the notion of setting up a body of men by nomination who are to be the representatives of your interests, which are no interests at all, and whose offices are to be in the gift of gentlemen in Downing-street, it is a most gross and serious error, not merely one of those idle- errors that lie by in the lumber room that do no good and no harm, but an error full of practical mischief, and tending to keep up that intermeddling in the local concerns of the colonies, which is so prolific of weakness to us and of vexation to them. (Hear, hear, and cheers.) For reasons like these, I must say it would be most gratifying if the Government would re-consider this question of a nominated upper chamber, and would introduce a provision similar to that of Earl Grey. (Hear.) There is yet, sir, another point to which I must refer. It relates to the New Zealand Company, The honourable member for Chichester has spoken of the disinterested conduct of that company: and I do not at all question that patriotic motives have governed the gentlemen who formed the direction. But I must confess that for colonial purposes, when once companies of this nature get beyond the purely commercial business of bringing the capital of the old country into contact with the soil of the new country, I look upon them with an ineradicable jealousy. So long ago as the time of Adam Smith they had acquired with him the ill repute of being the greatest obstacles to the well-being of colonies: ,We have one most unfortunate instance of this in the case of the Hudson's Bay Company, which spreads a death-

like shade over a large region of North America. (Hear, hear.) I object altogether to the management at*home of the local affairs of colonies such as we have now in view ; but if we are to have government from hence, I say let it be the Queen's Government; let it be the government we see on that bench, the government which we can face and interrogate, with which we can argue, and whose errors we can expose and cendemn ; but as to companies of this kind, which fall into the hands of irresponsible individuals, into which necessarily a narrow spirit creeps, and a spirit that gradually becomes more and more narrow, I certainly look upon them with the greatest jealousy, when once they get beyond that which I have ventured to characterize as theirlproper sphere. (Hear, hear.) No doubt there may be exceptions,, and the New Zealand Company may be one of these. I certainly do not mean to draw a comparison between it and the Hudson's Bay Company ; but I maintain that too much of territorial power and of political relation has belonged to it. I am afraid, too, that the course of its affairs has proved most unprofitable to the proprietors and directors, as well as most costly to the Treasury of this country. I will not now inquire who is right or who is wrong, but it is certain that besides a sum of £236,000 already paid by us, there is an unpaid bill of £268,000 more still owing by the colony to the company. (Hear, hear.) Now it appears to me, that by this measure we do essentially alter the position of the New Zealand Company in regard to this debt, which is already a subject of great soreness in the colony. Sir, I think we ought not by this bill to do any such thing ; and I am not willing to be responsible for such alteration in favour of the New Zealand Company, and against the colonists. The act of 1847 declared, that after winding up the Company—

" There shall be charged upon and paid to the New Zealand Company out of the proceeds of all future sales of the demesne lands of the Crown in New Zealand, after deducting the outlay for surveys, and the proportion of such proceeds which is appropriated to the purposes of emigration, the sum of £268,370 155."

So far the bill of 1847 corresponded with that of the right honourable, gentleman, inasmuch as it was based upon the calculation of ss. per acre of the Company's lands, which it was proposed the Company should be entitled to receive. Now, there is all the difference between a first mortgage and a second, but the claim of the New Zealand Company was neither a first mortgage nor a second, but something very indefinite and unsatislactory to a creditor indeed—namely, a third mortgage. The first mortgage was for the surveys. The second was elastic beyond description, being such proportion of the proceeds as might be applied to emigration ; the Company Avas only the third claimant. Now, what was the proportion appropriated to the purposes of emigration ? I hold in my hand the opinion of the English law officers of the Crown upon a case drawn up for their consideration, and they

said—

" In obedience to your lordship's commands we have considered the case submitted to us, and have the honour to report that we are of opinion that (regard being had to the acts of Parliament, agreement, and land instructions above referred to) no definite proportion, of the proceeds of future sales of demesne lands of the Crown in New Zealand is to be regarded as appropriated to the purposes of emigration, and that the Crown has the power from time to time to fix and alter that proportion by instructions previously to the extinguishment of the debt of the company."

So that the first charge is for the surveys. By the second charge you are to vote out of the proceeds of land sales so much as the Crown shall think fit for the purposes of emigration. And thirdly, you are to pay over the residue to the extent of £265,000 to the New Zealand Company. The bill of the right honourable gentleman, on the other hand, while it makes over the management of the lands to the legislature of New Zealand, goes on to state, that in respect of all sales there shall be paid to the company sums after the rate of os. for each acre of land so alienated: and this appears to be an absolute unconditional payment, hidependent of price: and a first charge, independent of the cost of surveys, independent of funds for emigration. I say, then, that in point of fact you are entirely altering the position of the New Zealand Company.—[Sir John Pakington made a gesture of dissent.]-—I am glad

to see that the right honourable gentleman does not intend to alter it. lam satisfied, that if he did alter it, it would be a matter of extreme delicacy and difficulty. Recollect, you are getting very near the edge of the ground of the old disputes with America and the old colonial revolutions—(hear) :—for this is, after all, a question indirectly if not directly of colonial taxation. These lands are deriving a value not from your passing any act of Parliament to give it them, but from coming into proximity with.' other lands, where capital and industryhave been invested, and where communities have sprung up, and the intercourse with those communities as it spreads from point to point creates the value of the lands. —(Hear, hear.) In the present instance those lands are under a mortgage of £268,000 to the New Zealand Company, but it is a third mortgage. Keep it a third mortgage. I do not ask you to make their position worse : nay, I would protest against making them worse, but I am not prepared to make them better; and Ido feel that this alteration of the incidence of a burden of such magnitude is a question of so vital a character, touching the most delicate and nicest points of the relations between Great Britain and tbe colonies, that, with whatever reluctance I. might adopt the conclusion, yet if the position of the New Zealand Company is to be varied to the prejudice, by one tittle, of the colony, I for one cannot take upon myself the responsibility of being a party to passing this bill during the present session.—(Hear, hear, and cheers.)

Sir, I most sincerely apologise for detaining the house so long upon this interesting subject, but the question of our colonial policy is one growing in importance from year to'year,— (hear, hear) —and having feelings deep and of long standing in regard to it, I have ventured to trespass on the time of the House, an offence for which I trust my apologies will be received with the same indulgence which has been conceded to my prolonged remarks.—(The right honourable gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud cheers.)