THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY JANUARY 17, 1895.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9721, 17 January 1895, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY JANUARY 17, 1895.

For some time there has been discus sion in England as to a proposal to obtain a record of comparative legislation. It is believed that much good might be done if anyone could see at any time precisely what was being done in different parts of the world on any special subject. It may be said that a beginning has already been made in this matter, for it has been arranged that the Governors of colonies shall send to certain libraries in Great Britain copies of colonial statutes, so that any student of comparative legislation can see at all events the experiments that are being tried in communities which have devoted themselves to the making of experiments.

But in the discussion Mr. Herbert Spencer has intervened with a suggestion which he is of opinion would result in greater benefit. Mr. Spencer, we may remark, has of late years made it a rule not to take part in any controversy. ' He is a silent observer of all social movements, although he is deeply interested in them. The suggestion is, that there should be a record of legislative failures. Mr. Spencer, indeed, himself made a beginning with the work some years ago, in his "Descriptive Sociology," but was obliged to discontinue it owing to the expense entailed. He endeavoured to present briefly, in a tabulated form, the contents of our statute book from early days onwards, showing why each law was enacted, the effects produced, the duration, and, if repealed, the reasons for the repeal "the general purpose being that of making easily accessible the past experience useful for present guidance." It was intended also, if the plan had been fully developed, to make tabulations of the lawd of other nations* A tabular example was drawn" out, which showed that the scheme would have exhibited " Reasons for the enactment," "Provisions of enactment," "Date and title," " Effects," " Repeal." The period actually dealt with in the specimen extended from 1328 to 1349, and the table showed that nearly all the laws passed have been repealed. Mr. Spencer, having in view the characteristics of the average legislator, says :

It is true that politicians and legislators who plume themselves oil being " practical," and whose facts are furnished by Blue-books and Parliamentary debates, would probably pay but small respect to these groups of facts furnished by the legislative experiments of our forefathers. Experiences of the day satisfy them. But those who take wider views, and see that generalisations drawn from the entire past life of a nation are more to be trusted than these superficial generalisations, and that it is folly to make laws without inquiring what have been the results of essentially similar laws long ago passed and long ago abandoned, will see that such a work, containing easily accessible information, might have considerable effect in preventing some of the legislative blunders which are daily made. $

Nowhere would such a compilation haTe been more useful than in the colonies. As a rule, the colonial legislator knows nothing of history. It would be quite safe to assert that nine out of every ten members of our House of Representatives would be completely "stumped" if required to submit to an examination into the principal features of the legislation of, say, the reign of George IV.; they would be lost altogether if taken back to the reign of Queen Anne. History has been defined as being "Philosophy teaching by example." In these colonies all example and precedent are despised. It is a failing of men generally to hold in contempt everything they are ignorant of. I We in the colonies glory in our shame. | We are rather proud that we are igno- ! rant of legislative experiments made in I former times. We believe that we are I a special people, better than any people j who have hitherto lived in the world, | that Henry George and the apostles of j modern Socialism are the first men that I have ever thought or written on certain | topics ; that it is our destiny to make ! experiments which are entirely novel ; | that we need not look to the past, but | that all who live hereafter in the world i will regard us as the great original i thinkers who have laid down lines on I which the world will travel as long as it [ endures.

All this is very far indeed from being the truth. Solomon has said that there is nothing new under the sun, and he was wiser, to put it cautiously, than the average member of our House of Representatives. Human nature is the same in all ages, and there is no department of legislation where we might not find

many instructive r examples in the past. There is no tendency more pronounced in these times than towards State interference. No doctrine in politics ;; has been so completely and carefully tried, f at different times, in different circumstances, and as applied to different objects. No doctrine has been so completely exploded by the failures which are recorded in history. And yet we go on, year after year, making laws which we believe to be new, as if the business of legislation had only commenced a few years ago, and as if the humanity of our time were essentially different from the humanity that has existed aforetime. Mr. Herbert Spencer feels that such a project as he speaks of is required as a guidance to the House of Commons. What would lie say in the case of a legislature such as ours ?