The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1884.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7246, 21 May 1884, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1884.

It is a common complaint that the General Assembly, like “The Service ” in Captain Marryat’s novels, is going to the dogs. Unhappily, the complaint is not more common than well-founded. . Both the Upper and Lower Houses have, for the last eight years, shown a falling off in quality as marked as it has been steady. This has especially been the case with the House of Representatives. While men of experience and ability drop out, as drop out they will in the natural course of events, promising colts —to borrow a term from athletics —are hot found to take their places. This process of deterioration was foreseen and predicted before it began. It is due to Centralism, and Centralism alone. It is not due to the fact that our institutions are Democratic, as has been unreasonably argued; and to show that it is not so true, it is only necessary to point out that since the latest extension of the franchise, a Conservative Government, supported by a Conservative majority, has held office. Therefore, unless those who argue that Democracy is at the root of the deterioration are prepared to admit also that Democracy has caused five years’ Conservatism, they must look for other explanations. And the only explanation to he found will he this —that Centralism means political torpor in all parts of the body politic, the centre only excepted. So it comes about that the fittest men to represent in Parliament places at a distance from Wellington do not care for the honour of so doing. Busy men cannot afford to spend from three to four months of the year, with a sea voyage between themselves and their business. Men of more leisure perceive that there is neither credit nor distinction to he gained from sharing in political struggles, in which the people of the Colony generally take no interest, and to which they pay no attention.

There are three classes who still like to go to Wellington:—First, capitalists or the friends of capitalists who, like Messrs Lamach and Driver, have axes to grind, or, like certain members of the Upper House, have large properties from which the incidence of taxation must be warded off. Second, the other extreme, in the person of the impecunious political adventurer, to whom £2OO a year and the chance of other indefinite, but pleasant, pickings form a substantial attraction. Third, a class of men of average honesty, but of less than average education and knowledge of the world—men who have raised themselves in life from somewhat humble beginnings, perhaps, and whose very ignorance of political life gives an entry into Parliament a vague but irresistible charm. There are several gentlemen of the last class at this moment representing Canterbury at Wellington, whose plunge into politics can only be explained on the principle of omne ignotvm pro magnifico. Were an ordinary amount of interest taken in the government of the country by the constituencies of this and other Provinces of Hew Zealand, we should not have the spectacle of bewildered ignorance in Parliament representing apathetic ignorance outside Parliament, and the well - meaning but fatally , incapable M'Millans, MTI- - and Thomsons would retire into the private life from which they never should have emerged. As a proof of the truth of all this, we may point out the excellent effects of the wave of political excitement now passing over Canterbury. Within a few months, Messrs Wakefield and Richardson have been added to the House of Representatives, while a few weeks more will probably see Mr Wason added also. It is almost needless to say how greatly these three additions will strengthen Canterbury in the Assembly, The late Mr Edward Lee was a country gentleman of high personal character, but not a politician in any sense of the word. He has been replaced by Mr Wakefield, who, whatever else he may be, is a politician and a remarkably able one, Mr Richardson is as distinct an improvement upon Mr Isaac Wilson as is the present upon the late member for Selwyn, and for similar reasons.

As for Mr Wright, -with every desire to speak kindly of one who has had to retire from the political arena from bo distressing a cause as the loss of health, it must yet be confessed that his political career certainly did not equal expectations. Whatever was the cause that held him back, whether physical indisposition or per-

sonal unwillingness, ho never took that position in the House which his knowledge of public affairs should have enabled- him to take. Of Mr Wasou, on the other hand, it rnav safely bo said that he will not look back after once putting his hand to the plough. Want of energy is assuredly not among his faults. He has many of the requisites of tho best class of country ropre-’ sentativos, He is a landowner of that desirable class who cultivates aud improves an estate large, but not inordinately large. Mr Wasou is a farmer who can laugh at tussock taxes for the excellent reason that ho does not keep his land in tussocks; one of those to whom a fair and moderate Land tax would be less burdensome than an impost which presses so cruelly hard on improvements as does Major Atkinsoivs Property tax. Though not what can be called u Eadical in these days of Greyism, and certainly not a sympathiser with any despotic Socialism of the Atkinson oi-dcr, Mr Wason is what is perhaps better in a candidate for a country seat: be is a moderate but pronounced Liberal. For one of his class to have emancipated himself from the narrow,’ selfish Conservatism of the ordinary Canterbury country gentleman, bespeaks an independence of mind and a power of thinking for himself. There are many men who can think for themselves perfectly well, but who are afraid or unable to speak their thoughts. Mr Wason is not one of these. On the contrary, he does not see why a job should be hushed up because it is perpetrated by men of good position. On Saturday night, for example, he told the Chertsey electors that “ Sir George Grey and Mr Sheehan had been run down fearfully by 'the Press for doing shady things; but when such things were done by the respectabilities of Wellington, who gave big balls, there was nothing said—they were all honourable men.” All who remember the attempt of the Hall Government to saddle the Colony with the district railways at the very time they were crying out that the Colony was on the verge of ruin; all who can remember the hundred-and-one jobs, large and small, perpetrated still more recently by the Atkinson Ministry, will agree with Mr Wason in denouncing the disgraceful silence preserved by nine-tenths of the Press of the Colony over these things. Another instance of Mr Wason’s courage is found in the blow he strikes at the giant Centralism. True, things are not now as they were a year ago, when to call oneself a Decentralist was to incur the certainty of being branded as an imbecile, if not a madman. As Mr Pyke prophesied in the House last winter, the dead hones of Provincialism have risen into life once more, though the form and flesh which clothe them are not precisely those of old Provincial days. Decentralisation now ranks as one of the questions of the hour. As a cautious, but emphatic, friend of the movement, we welcome Mr Wason into political life. As a Decentralist, he has a long battle before him; but, if we mistake

not, he is precisely the right man for an uphill fight.