THE DECADENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10319, 19 December 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE DECADENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

|BY COLON'US.] The assertion implied in the title of this article does not require any discussion, for the decadence of Parliament is very much of a universally recognised fact. The statement does not apply exclusively to the New Zealand Parliament, but to all the Parliaments of the Australasian colonies, and we can even extend it to embrace the legislatures of the United States and the United Kingdom, and the Dominion of Canada, and it is doubtful whether ic is nob to a decree applicable to all modern parliamentary institutions developin}; on popular lines oven outside tho limits of tho Anglo-Saxon race. The causes may be varied, and some of these operating in our case may be hardly existent in other cases, but the result seems to be the same—that there is a general falling away in the character of popular Parliaments. In the caso of New Zealand there are no doubt special causes that have acted apart from the general tendency, but here, as well as elsewhere, there seoms to be a general principle operating which seems to be deleterious to the tone and character of Parliamentary bodies. • Those special to Mew Zoaland are connected with the fact that in tho earlier days these islands were peculiarly favoured in the large number of able and educated men, and men actuated by tho higher principles of public life, who were among the pioneers of settlement in New Zealand. Tho halo of interest that encircled islands far away in tho South seas—which seemed so palpably destined to be the Britain of the South in tho coming time—presented a peculiar attraction to men of expanded views and generous instincts, and as a matter of fact brought to theso shore* men of good blood and good education and in tho prime of youth and manhood; who had they remained at home would have made their mark on the times. None of the other colonies in these seas had their foundations laid by such, hands, and the only parallel we find is in tho class of men thab laid tho foundations of tho American republic, and whose names to this day stand out conspicuous ovor nearly all their successors as reproducing there the best traditions of English public life. ■ From this class was our public life first recruited, and as one by one they passed from the scene, it was natural thab their successors not having been trained in tho same school, bub on the contrary nurtured among the hardening and contracting influences of practical colonial life, should not have developed the same traits of character. This of course accounts for tho extreme contrast between former and modern times, which is far more marked in Mew Zealand than in any other countries with which we are acquainted. But ib by no means accounts for all the decadence in parliamentary life, which undoubtedly in chargeable to the fact that our parliamentarians are now drawn from an inferior class as compared with the class from which as a rule members of parliament were drawn some decades ago. ' lam well aware of the unpopularity of such! views, but that does not in any way affect the correctness of the statement. A time was when—with the exception here and there of men who had something in them of the character of Nature's noblemen—people did nob aspire to parliamentary lifo who were utterly uneducated and ignorant of everything but what was contained within the narrow limits of their own trade and calling. Ib was considered then thab some general knowledge of the principles of public life and of legislation, or something of a compre-hensive-grasp of things was an indispensable fitness for being sent bo make laws and to govern the country, and though there were people then, as now, whose own infernal cheek was the chief incentive to ambition, they were generally sat on by electors. • Now, by a large number of people, the qualification of a capacity for comprehending the principles and the scope of legislation and-political economy and government is ' nob doomed ' requisite, : and; the - chief recommendation; of a candidate is thab ho j be in his daily life and sympathy identified [ with ft particular class or calling, even if he.

ig a? ignorant of the principles of law and government as a chunk of wood. .This has come no doubt of the extension of the franchise, which in this respect has been the greatest curse that ever befel the country. I say "in this respect" for the extension of the suffrage to men and women of every class in the community, is not wrong, and should not be an injury, for it seems the right of all to be represented in the making of laws which all are bound to obey. Bub it has developed an ambition among the ignorant and tho unfit to themselves take a part in making the laws _ and in governing their fellow-man, for which they are no more fit than a bullock is for doing tho work of a reindeer. In the name ot all reason, what possibility is there in a manual labourer or a shoemaker for comprehending, the intricacies and complexities of -laws' and lawmaking and political economy ? If a newspaper editor, for example, undertook to make a pair of breeches, or a hat, he would be laughed at, although that class of person may be supposed to know all things in heaven and earth, and the things under the earth. ■ And if a doctor or a lawyer proposod not only to make a chest of drawers, but to lay down the principles and lines on which cabinetmakers and joiners and carpenters are to carry out their work, his proposal would bo received with derision. And it is not a whit less grotesque to assume that a man who has been engaged all his life in manual labour, and who may have been a more or loss good workman with his hands, should bo called 011 and sent up to . Parliament to do the most dolicalffe and responsible brain work tff which tho minds of men can bo turned. Now this is not intended as any special reflection on members of what are called tin) Labour Party ; for they aro not a whit less irrational than other people who assume that neither intellect, nor education, nor training, is an essential in a legislator and ! administrator, but only that a man should be allied to certain interests or callings, and that in virtue of those sympathies and leanings slono he should bo a valuable member of Parliament. A doctor would mako an awful botch of a pair of breeches, and I would not like to have to wear the boots made by a minister of the Gospel or a retailer of needles and thread who had ever handled a wax-end. _ They might bo very excellent men in their way, but not in this way ; and yet it would not be more absurd for them to enter a sphere of employment for which they have neither knowledge nor capacity, than it is for a man whose brains have never been employed in brain work, but in the honourable work of guiding his hands in manual labour, to bo set to do a class of brain work demanding not) only great skill but the widest comprehension of the principles and tho laws that govern social and political life. In tho name of all that is rational what fitness has a lumper taken from the wharf, or a cobbler taken from his fstool, or a boiler maker taken from the hammering of rivets, for making tho laws for the control and guidanre of his fellow men? and yet we have had all the three making laws for this colony. The tiling is sojuttorly contradictory to the common sense of things, how can any one wonder at tho crudities, and the general mess of things that have characterised the results of Parliamentary proceedings, and yet the people that favour thi&sort of conduct are so utterly thick-headed, that they will refuse to see the folly of the thing, and will persist in maintaining that though a man may be as ignorant as an owl, if he is only allied by interest and sympathy, or says that he is, and can gibber tho shibboleth of party, he is fit to bo entrusted with the grave interests of Parliamentary duties. It cannot be denied that this state of things has been provoked by what is called the I' better classes," or the more intellectual and educated people. At a time when electoral privileges were nob so universally diffused, thoy, as well as tho wealthy, classes, acted and legislated on such class linos that the manual worker | had reason /or rosontment ; and for what they are now suffering from wild and suicidal legislation, and from being shunted out of public lifo, one might fairly be disposed to say serve them right. Still, that docs not better the position a bit, and the country in all its interests is suffering by this revanche in being legislated for and governed by the mere sweepings of society. It is nob that tho country suffers from the interests and tho claims of tho masses being voiced in Parliament. Justice as well as public interest requires this: but those interests and tboso claims and tho country itself have suffered through the unwise selection of those entrusted with the duty of engrafting them on legislation. On the other hand, it may be said that such as these moro correctly represent electors than if members were taken from a higher order of intelligence. With all tho deference that is duo to tho principle of tho extension of the suffrage, it must be admitted that it has broughb into the circle of electors a vast number of inferior minds and characters. It is not for a moment contended that poverty is necessarily associated with lack of either intelligence or fitness for the exercise of public duties. But, as a practical matter of fact, it seems to be. This may come from the want of means or the want) of leisure on the part of those who aro short in this world's gear; but from whatever cause, the extension of the franchise has always been in the direction of those who are generally inferior in most of the qualities that make one man better than another. This of course applies in no way to the woman franchise, the grant of which in one swoop embraced the intelligent and the ignorant in the same proportion existing among men oleotors. Bub in the case of all other extension of the electoral franchise there has boon the taking into tho sphere of active politics a lower and les3 intelligent and less public minded class. These, compolled by the necessities of their lives have been accustomed to confine thoir thoughts to tho narrow range of their own employments and cares, and naturally have acquired no capacity for grasping the great ideals of public lifo. It thus comes to pass that tho extonsion of popularcivilrightshashad the effectof bringing into politics a lower and more degraded form of social life, and" ib has had to the same,degree tho effect of dragging down political life to a lower plane. No doubt when the masses are ■ educated up to the level of an intelligent and comprehensive view of public things, the tone and tho thought of public life will be raised, and democracy will be the great and noble thing it ought to be. - But at the present! time the effect has been bub the degradation of 'the plane of public life the meanest and the narrowest and the most selfish principles put themselves forward in evidence, and in accordance with life's training the clamour is for everything thab tonds to the aggrandisemono of personal and class interests, without consideration for the goneral good, or even the capacity for comprehending it. On the other band, those that seek the suffrages of such, must naturally take cognisance of these characteristics, aud foel bound to doscetid to the same . piano, if not there already, and as a] consequence, the tendency must be towards public life falling to the'hands only of the scalawags of the community. These circumstances seem to clearly eiiuogh explain the decadence of Parliamentary life, in this and in every .other.country, with popular institutions ; . the laudable desire to extend the privileges of .citizenship to a wider and wider, class, bringing into the. sphere of politics an inferior order of intelligence and character,' which instead of, being lifted up to a higher plane in the process, appears to havohad so far the effect of dragging down political and parliamentary and public life to its own degraded level. ■'