THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7719, 18 August 1886, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1886.

To all appearance Parliament will be prorogued to-day. Its career for this session, at all events, is practically at an end, even if its attenuated existence should be prolonged for a few hours longer. And its career since it assembled in May has certainly been the opposite of brilliant. On all sides the remark has been made that the expiring session has been the dullest and most uninteresting that has ever been witnessed since Parliamentary Government commenced in New Zealand. For nothing can it be said to have been distinguished except low and scarcely artful dodging, in which leaders and followers alike have taken an unworthy part. In looking through its records the future enquirer will search in vain for anything tending to give lustre to its proceedings ; and, indeed, so far as the public benefit is concerned, these might as well and perhaps better have been left undone. And what adds to the regret, which so much waste of time and money cannot fail to awaken, is the fact that for the political trickery which has been enacted the Ministry must bear the principal if not the entire blame. First among the duties devolving on a Cabinet is that of leading the Legislature, and giving it tone ; but, instead of bracing themselves up for the vigorous discharge of this function, the Ministry occupied the session with a series of political expedients, and demoralised all who were associated with them for the passing of measures supposed to be promotive of the country's good. Of this make-shift style of legislation, the conduct of the Cabinet in connection with the Representation Bill was notoriously illustrative. No one can think of the dodging resorted to by its members for the defeat of that measure without experiencing a sense of humiliation and shame. Professing a desire to gratify those who were anxious to see the question of representation dealt with this session, and who had made their wish known at an early stage of the proceedings, the Premier yet postponed the introduction of his proposed Bill till the session had far advanced, and thus furnished those opposed toany change in the representation an opportunity of urging its postponement until Parliament should again assemble. In so managing this business he must have known that a little stonewalling on the part of these might easily be made to suffice to accomplish their undignified purpose. In perfect keeping with this device, too, was the announcement made by him after the Bill had been introduced, that he did not intend to make it a party measure, and that unless a substantial majority of the House were in favour of its being proceeded with, it would have to be abandoned. This, as we pointed out at the time, was to tempt for the measure the fate he affected to deprecate. It could not fail to rally all the Middle Island supporters of the Government, whose chief aim is tc prevent the growing population of the North Island from increasing its representative power, and induce them, not only to offer a solid opposition to the Bill, but also to insist on the Ministry dividing their own votes on the question. This is the true history of the measure being declared a non-party one. The Government supporters, who are almost wholly Southern men, did not wish the measure at all, and were determined in any case that it should not be allowed to pass this session, and the Government thereupon undertook to so manage matters that it should be strangled. The Ministry were, in fact, in the power of their followers, and therefore allowed these followers to dictate to them their course. And hence the disgraceful spectacle of three leading members of the Cabinet voting for the defeat of a measure which the head of that Cabinet had prepared, and had declared himself anxious to have carried through the House. Hence, too, the manipulation which resulted in the betrayal by three Auckland members of the interests, not of Auckland city, as our correspondent in Monday's issue chooses to put it, but of all the Auckland provincial district, and not even of that alone, but of the entire Northern Island. The whole business was, out and out, a most discreditable piece of political huckstering, exposing all concerned therewith, and especially the Cabinet, to unmitigated contempt. But, after all, what else could be expected from a Government whose chief distinction lay in their power to plan and execute such mean devices? It must candidly be admitted that the sophistical dodging by which the Representation Bill was thrown out was a fitting conclusion to a session which all through has been characterised by similarly unworthy procedure. The dropping of the curtain upon the scenes of the past session will, therefore, occasion no public regret. On the contrary, the community from end to end of the colony will experience a sense of relief at the thought that the proceedings have come to an end. People will, of course, be glad to welcome back to their homes those who have mingled

in the uninteresting, badly-conducted displays which forl last three months have been wit, in Parliament House. For Its faults, the public does not cheruK personal grudge against those who J? a have been acting foolishly an[ i > 7 sides, it cannot rid itself of the - n ' - e " tion that the members one and will render more service to the ml by attending to their private than they have been doing 0 lata? playing their little parts in attem.- 7 at tortuous legislation. The i regret which the public is likely J? , is that the Ministry are not relea.-J from their duties at the same tim? the other members. There is a pro®;** conviction in the public mind that i S country would not suffer, but on T contrary would greatly benefit if ♦£* Ministry and the Legislature were Ct dispensed with for a time. That end less habit of patching away at the law of the country, coupled with that d' 3 position to look to the State authorities' for the satisfying of popular which our whole system of Govern' ment tends to foster, is not on i' developing in the commonwealth an an fruitful restlessness, but repressing th» independent energy of the people? I* would be a universal gain if the' m j<i of the State were allowed to stand still for a while ; the corn would not in the meantime grow the worse, and as a matter of fact there would in the end be the more to grind. This, however is but another way of saying that the whole of our Parliamentary machinery demands remodelling. But among ail those at present engaged in driving it there is apparently not one capable of effecting the necessary improvements and making a new departure. or their want of ability they are of course not open to censure, unless indeed their powerlessness is due to perversity rather than the lack of potentiality But, seeing that what they do can only for the most part be reckoned as blundering, it is not unnatural that the country should wish all of them to be" for a time at least, where the opportunity and the temptation to do mischief would in a large measure be withdrawn from them.