Lake Wakatip Mail. QUEENSTOWN, FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1903. PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2478, 14 August 1903, Page 4

Lake Wakatip Mail. QUEENSTOWN, FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1903. PROCEEDINGS IN PARLIAMENT.

Parliament as it is run in our colony might almost be described as a record of Mr Seddon's likes and dislikes. " I am the colony," he practically proclaims from his seat in the House, " all the rest is chaff and rubbish." The unfortunate outcome of this belief is that private members' legislation has absolutely no chance of becoming law. Of course, we admit, this is not an unmixed evil, but what becomes of our vaunted government of, by and for, the people? It cannot be too often laid down that Mr Seddon's legislation does not meet with one approval of the sober intelligence and the sane common sense of the country. He is profoundly distrusted by the commercial and educated proportion of the community. There is far too much of Mr Seddon and too little of the people. True, a majority of the people have placed him where he is and we must submit with the best grace we may to his decisions, but this fact does not affect our original statement that the people, through their representatives, can hope for no practical results unless those results receive the sanction and gracious patronage of the Government, i.e. Mr Seddon. And how far we have strayed from the genuine paths of democracy, how great our profession and how small our practice a glance at the dishonorable condition of affairs in Newtown will show. There an overwhelming majority of the people declared they would have no licensed houses within their boundaries—the wisdom or un-wisdom of this policy is not now before us—and the Appeal Court upheld the Bench. And, yet, liquor is being openly and defiantly sold by the hotelkeepers, and the police do not move a finger. Why? The only answer is that a democratic Premier, a gentleman who trusts the people, has not given the word, or rather that he has not put forth the power of the Government to stop, once and for all, this insolent scouting of popular opinion. A more audacious violation of representative institutions has seldom come under our notice. This, however, being the spirit animating our autocratic rulers, how can independent members hope to influence legislation? Five weeks have been wasted in talk and triviality, bluster and subterfuge, and we are no nearer any permanent benefit to the colony than we were when the session opened. As a glaring sample of Mr Seddon's methods we would refer to the incident known as the Otira cable. Mr John Duthie, of Wellington, recently called attention to this matter in the House and it is so eminently characteristic of the Premier's conception of his duty to the country that while few people will be surprised at this, its latest manifestation, the utmost publicity, we think, should be given to it. Speaking at Otira during the recess, on the subject of preferential trade, the Premier, after criticising severely the, hostile attitude of certain liberal politicians at home, said that if the mother country did not enter into trade reciprocity with the colonies, the latter, i.e. New Zealand, would make their own arrangements with foreign powers. This statement was duly cabled Home (at the colony's expense) and throughout New Zealand and, naturally, called forth sharp criticism. What, then, did Mr Seddon do ? He simply denied having uttered it. Finding such bluster fell flat, or else provoked derisive and contemptuous comment, he characterised the message as the most glaring

misrepresentation of which any pressman had ever been guilty. Nor can we prove the contrary. We can only recall denials of a like character under analagous conditions and, then, bow our heads in shame that the leader of our administration should thus put us to the blush. Three questions have considerably exercised the public mind during the last week or two—only, however, because there has been nothing else to discuss. We refer to the proposal to make Saturday a compulsory half-holi-day, the Election Executive Bill and the question of dramatic copyright. Of the firs': it is sufficient to say that there has been no demand for it except from the assistants who would obtain it, that employers universally oppose it and that in large towns especift'ly the public do not want it. Before any change is made in any long-established custom it falls upon the advocates of a new order to show that its benefits are so overwhelmingly obvious that argument is unnecessary. Now this cannot be done in the matter of retail shops. The whole market and domestic arrangements of the community are based upon Saturday shopping and we have yet to meet a valid argument why every retail business and household arrangement should be upset because the young men and young women who serve behind the counters

prefer Saturday to some other day. Surely the employer has some rights in New Zealand. We know that individual enterprise has been cribbed, cabined and confined in our free colony and that capitalists are anathema maranatha to the advocates of the rights of labor, but that a shopkeeper cannot arrange his business hours in harmony with his customers' wishes is, we should imagine, one of the most offensive interferences that we have yet been favored with. Sir W. Steward's Elective Executive Bill, whatever its merits, could not possibly find favor in a Parliament led by Mr Seddon. Nor can we entirely give our adhesion to it. Granting that the present Cabinet but reflects Mr Seddon's will, granting that it is not the right honorable gentleman's policy to have a body of able men around him, the answer is that a majority of the electors deliberately elected men who had pledged themselves to support Mr Seddon. Therefore Mr Seddon would still be Premier even under an elective system, and it would be absurd to say that neither he nor any Premier should exert a controlling influence in the choice of his coworkers. Supposing men of ability but with views opposed to those of the Premier were elected, how long would such a cabinet last 1 There may be advantages in a ministry not being dependant for its life upon a vote of 'he House, but under our form of Government, which in toto from that of the United States where the Ministry takes no part in Congress, we are afraid the scheme would not work. True, a body of able business men could probably run the country infinitely cheaper and better than Mr Seddon, but, constituted as we are politically, we could not very well take a ballot for a choice of ministers. Eminently undesirable as the personal results of our representative institutions may be in this relation we cannot get out of our responsibilities so easily. The people d2mand a certain man, and place that man in power, and there he stays until the people turn him out. We cannot have him there and seek to minimise his evil works by electing an executive, each man of which would deem himself as strong as the other, to act as a check upon him. Plausible as the plan looks, satisfying as it is in theory, we are compelled to believe that it cannot be grafted on to our form of Government with any probability of satisfactory results. The Dramatic Copyright Bill, introduced by Mr Fields, seeks to protect theatrical proprietors from being robbed, and the only way this can effectively be done is by imprisoning the offender. Time and again the owners of the copyright in certain plays have seen them acted by penniless adventures, who thus rob the original proprietor of his chances of success, and when judgment has been obtained against the culprit at a cost of many pounds (over £BS being paid on one occasion), have found themselves met with a declaration of bankruptcy upon the part of the pirate. In these circumstances it is asked that the offenders be imprisoned. We think the demand a just one but doubt its chances of success in a democraticparliament.

Of Mr Seddon and his foolish rhodomontade anent the libel law we will say little. All the New Zealand press ask is that advanced New Zealand be placed upon an equality with poor, backward, conservative England. We want to be able to report public meetings and court proceedings if the public interest demands it. This we cannot now do, with the result that many a scandal is hushed up. Our democratic Premier, roaring at the full stretch of his stentorian lungs, says it shall not be. With few exception the whole of the press of New Zealand is opposed to Mr Seddon and his party, and the exceptions can be pretty well accounted for. Therefore the press shall be made to suffer. But, alas, it is the public who suffer. We can still criticise sham democrats and we trust we always shall, but we cannot, thanks to Mr Seddon, give the public full details of charges of jobbery and waste made against certain parties at mining and other meetings. Verb : Sap :