THE PREMIER AND MR. MEREDITH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11801, 2 November 1901, Page 4

THE PREMIER AND MR. MEREDITH.

The scene irk the House on Thursday evening in which the prominent actors were Mr. Meredith, the member for Ashley, and the Premier, is a very melancholy one, as showing the decadence of Parliament and to ! what a level some of our public men have fallen. The Premier, it seems, had twitted Mr. Meredith with being a Sunday-school teacher. This, ol course, standing by itself, would be no taunt-, because the Hon. Mr. Chamberlain and many men who have taken leading parts in the public life of the Empire have been Sunday-school teachers. But the sting of it lay in this, that while Mr. Meredith was a Sunday-school teacher and was professedly a strictly religious man, he, to use Mr. Seddon's own words, "had come to him in his capacity as a member of a Board to which he belonged and had asked him to make him a present of £6000." The Premier was stimulated to make this statement, and was put out of temper by what had just before been said by Mr. Meredith, namely, that " he would father fifty times be a Sunday-school teacher than a West Coast publican." All this is despicable in the extreme, and must be humiliating to every colonist. But there is much that should lead to reflection in us who must remedy the political evils in which such deplorable scenes have their origin. The present Ministers have inaugurated a new system of administration, in which every Minister has entirely different powers from those lodged in the hands of former Ministers. Mi. Seddon is, as he states, a member of a Board, and in that capacity he could have made Mr. Meredith " a present of £6000," at the expense, not of himself, out of other people who cannot well bear the loss. And then see the position that every member is put into. Mr. Seddon's plain implication is that Mr. Meredith asked for this favour as a politician, it being understood that if it was not accorded Mr. Meredith s vote for the Government might be in danger. Mr. Seddon indeed says: " From that day to this Mr. Meredith's manner towards him, both in and out of the House, had considerably changed." The Premier, therefore, believes that by not granting the request of a member of the House he made an enemy. The whole discussion is simply a scandal, and we feel ashamed to quote the strong and abusive terms used on both sides. But it should bring to all of us the conviction that we ought to go back to old and proved methods of Government, and I

— -isssaj t-' reduce to a minimum the ties given to politicians to obtain pecuniary advantages. And yet tha whole trend of legislation is' in the direction of increasing the danger ot plundering the public by public men . Take the very latest case, which ire adduce because probably no wrong action has yet been done under it The State takes power to acquire coal mines, to buy mines, or to buy land on which coal may or may not be found, to supply themselves with coal, and to sell to the public. Why at every stage of the process there are openings for corruption. Do6s any man think, as human nature it constituted, that these opportunities can long exist without being take® advantage of 1 And look at ooy land administration, apart from the Premier being a member of the Assets Board. The Government may purchase the land of A and refuse to purchase the land of B, or indeed the}- can take B's land without giving him what he considers the market price. We are fast making pure administration an impossibility.