NEW ZEALAND PARLIAMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14465, 3 September 1910, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEW ZEALAND PARLIAMENTS.

PAST AlsD PRESENT. BY SI'.XKX. New Zealand lias enjoyed—well, perhaps it hasn't always exactly enjoyed, but at any rale it has had parliamentary government of its own for fiftysix years. That isn't a very long time, when compared with the parliamentary experience of a good many other parts of the world, but even its comparative shortness has the advantage that it brings it within the range of. a single memory. There are not many people left, it is true, nowadays, who can remember the manners and customs, the men and their ways, who gave form and tone to our Parliaments; but there are still a few. As one of that small band I find myself taking a deep interest in noticing the changes that have taken place, and seem still to be going on, in the methods and manners of our parliaments. Forty or fifty years ago the Parliament wo were modest in those days and called it " The Assembly"— of New Zealand was admitted by everybody—even by visitors from the Australian colonies— to be by far the most dignified of all the legislative bodies in this part of the world. It was not that our members in those old days were less in earnest in their opinions, or less strongly interested in the policy they advocated, than they are in these latter timesmy own honest conviction is that they were much more in earnest than most of our members are now—the main difference seemed to be in the way they showed it. An Australian member of an Australian parliament once remarked that the difference between our Parliament and his own was that ours was,made up of gentlemen, and that they behaved like gentlemen; I sometimes wonder whether a parliamentary visitor would say as much to-day. In the old —the days of Stafford, Fox, Dommett, Wakefield, Fitzgerald, and a good many —parliamentary proceedings were interesting to watch, and instructive to listen to. Members apparently thought out in advance what they were going to say on any question, and said it well. A debate in those times was a thing both pleasant and instructive to hear, because it gave men, who had special knowledge of the conditions and needs of their own part of the colony, and, as a rule, had more than average ability, the opportunity of discussing questions that arose fairly from different points of view. This may have arisen in part at least from the character of the questions which used to engage the attention of our Parliament. The years of war, when the existence of North Island settlement seemed to be at stake, were not times to oncourago small bickerings and petty wrangling over local questions. The questions were too large, and their urgency was too extreme, to leave members much leisure for petty quarrels carried on in rather a petty way. The country was divided into provinces .then, which a good many people at that time thought stood in the way of a really national sentiment : the experience of a generation that has passed since the provincial councils and executives were swept away hardly appears to support this view. ! Throughout the sixties and the early seventies it may bo said there were practically only two large questions' before the Parliaments of the colony : these were the native war, with the many questions arising out of it, and the relations between. the general and provincial government* of the country. Both of these were large, and practically national questions, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that members and parties generally rose to the occasion. In those days, it is to be remembered, the Assembly and the Colonial Executive had nothing to do with local administration. They hardly interfered in the management or sale of native lands, though the Native Land Purchase Department was controlled by them ; they had nothing to do with the roads of the country, and very little to do with its harbours; any railways that had been madv> owed their existence to the government of the provinces where they had been constructed. It was a common ground of criticism then, by those who desired to centralise administration and to. discourage local administration, that we were too provincial in our ideas: but at least we had the advantage that our provincialism did not naturally find a footing in the Parliament of the country, or lead to our dealing with large questions in a small way, as is too often the case in these later times. If nothing else could have been said for provincial institutions, with their councils and executives—which is very far indeed from being the case—this at least they might claim in their favour : they formed the training schools and the practising grounds for the men who were to do the main part of the general legislative work of the colony. At the very first, it is true, there were a few men who would not condescend to the level of provincial councillors, and among these were some of the earliest leaders in colonial politics; but after the first few Parliaments the new men who, for the most part, took the places of the men elected at first, had served their apprenticeship in the provincial - parliaments, and had proved to the satisfaction of the electors of their own districts their suitability for a wider field of political life. In both ways the colonial Parliament was the gainer. The men who came there to 'represent the various electorates were well known to the people who sent them, not only as neighbours, but as men who had already done them good service in their local parliaments, and shown that they could think sensibly, and speak clearly on the subjects that came before them; and this was by no means all. . The men themselves had been trained both to think and to speak on public questions, and, as the methods and procedure of the provincial councils were framed on the old English, parliamentary models, they had grown accustomed to the use of these methods. It is not surprising that with a training of this kind the men sent to the Pa rliaments of thirty and forty years ago impressed strangers as being superior, both in natural talent and in the way in which they conducted themselves in the House, as it is to be feared their successors would j not do to-day. I This may be unfortunate, but alter all, it is hardly the fault of the present members. In old times a candidate was usually elected because the voters knew the man, and knew also that he had been a more or less leading man in their local parliament; they have no such means of judging of candidates now. It is the man who can make an effective speech on a platform, in which he declares himself a supporter or an opponent of the Government in office; the man who declares that the grand question of the hour is, and ought to be, what he calls "temperance" ; or the other who appeals to the electors for the workers' support, who generally obtains the applause, and eventually secures the seat. For the most part they have absolutely no political training, and they are generally quite satisfied thai they need none. Such representatives go to Wellington with very few political ideas, and absolutely no political training. For the most part they are little more than tools in the hands of the little cliques of more experienced politicians who represent, or profess to represent, the general views on which they were themselves elected. Can it be any wonder that the practice as well as the material of the House has deteriorated ? Is it at all surprising that a spirit of real parochialism, far more pronounced ana injurious to the country than ever was dreamt of in the old times, should crei .vail sessifio after session Iv