THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UPPER HOUSE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 45, 2 December 1871, Page 2

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UPPER HOUSE.

[lndependent.] The proceedings of the last session of Parliament evidently point to the fact that a change in the constitution of the Legislative Council is absolutely necessary and should not be much further delayed. In the earlier period of our constitutional history no doubt the Upper Chamber fulfilled, to a great extent, the functions for the discharge of which it was created, and a limited number of Crown nominees selected upon the basis of political experience and general ■« savoir /aire " of matters colonial, and possessing individually a considerable stake in the colony, acted beneficially as a check upon hasty legislation on the part of the elected House, and as a medium through which hastily digested measures received the cutting, pruning, and filling out frequently necessary to render them effective for the objects desired. In the year 1859, Mr Swainson, of Auckland, then, we believe, a member of the Ministry, wrote as "follows bearing out this view of the question: — The value of a double Chamber has never been called in question by the New Zealand colonists; but, in the first instance, the importance of the Legislative Council or Upper House was, perhaps, somewhat under-rated. Being few in number, and having no constituents, the members are under no temptation to indulge in declamtaory speeches for the purpose of making political capital, and the oratory of the Colonial Parliament was confined to the popular branch of the Legislature, which, for a time, absorbed public attention : but when the real business of legislation was to be done; when it was seen that the proper business of the Assembly, as a law-making tribunal, excited little real interest with the members of the House of Eepresentatives; that it was rapidly hurried over; that the bills, as they were passed by that body, were frequently in an unfit state for actual operation; and that for their practical efficiency, they were indebted to the painstaking care and business-like proceedings of the Upper House; . the value of the Legislative Council, even before the close of the first session of the Asoembly, began to be more justly appreciated. During the last few years, however, we find the state of things entirely altered. The Legislative Council, outgrown as to numbers, filled with the nominees of a defunct Ministry, has consistently arrogated to itself political functions entirely inconsistent with the intention and principles of its constitution. Party ieeling has been carried out to an intensity hardly known in the House, and during the last session it is a matter of fact that the insignificant minority of the representatives who formed the Opposition endeavored to upset the Government financial policy, through the majority of the old adherents and nominees of Mr Stafford in the Council. Representative institutions are a mere farce if such a state of things is to continue. An outgoing and defeated Ministry have only, as their last act, to pack the Council with devoted friends, and the action of their suecesssors in office is paralysed, unless they take the unprecedented course of so swamping the Chamber as to render it palpably the farce which it already begins to appear to be in the eyes of all thoughtful politicians. There are other very grave questions involved and which cannot be any longer evaded, bujt must during the next session, be satisfactorily adjusted one way or the other. The Council distinctly claims the right to interfere in money bills; relying upon the rather vague construction of a clause in the Appropriation Act. The same clause, if it means the giving of such a privilege, goes further still, and gives the power of initiating taxation. Not a day should be lost in setting this matter right. If the law is so, the law must summarily be altered. It is a monstrous thing that the people should be for a moment subject to be taxed by Crown nominees, or that the appropriation of public monies should be subject to their interference. These are the legitimate, proper, and peculiar functions of the representatives of the people wherever constitutional government exists, and if not left entirely in their responsible J hands, imminent danger must arise to ~ the very existence of the commonwealth. "We do not desire to in any way ingpress our readers with the idea that the Council, as a body, is unworthy of its legitimately high functions, or that its members do not possess qualities in accordance with the possibility of usefulness. But we would place distinctly before the country the fact that these legitimate functions hay©

been overstepped ; and that, especially during the last two years, all ideas of usefulness in their own proper sphere have been by many of the members merged in the passion of party faction. In maintenance of their self-arrogated privileges they have wantonly interfered with finance bills, settled, after due deliberation, by those responsible to the people, and have from first to last set themselves steadily opposed to every measure which has been introduced having for its object the furtherance of the settlement of the country by a more j liberal policy with regard to the acquirement of land. The records of last session will prove this most clearly ; the grossest case being that of the Otago Waste Lands Act Amendment Bill, which, having passed the House by considerable majorities, was duly sent to the Council, where it was refused even consideration, having been ordered to be read a second time—not fairly and openly—"this day six. months," but at a date when it was well known the Assembly would stand prorogued. The , Council, then, has it in its power, not only to embarass Ministers and mutilate their policy, but to directly .interfere with the placing men and women upon our lands, and we assert positively that it has most unscrupulously exercised these powers, and in the most unreasoning and arrogant manner. The arguments of such men as Mr Holmes, Colonel Whitmore, and others of the same complexion, amount very much to this : " We shall not trouble to reason out our case, but we shall vote, and vote they did." There is another very important interest which fores but badly at the hands of the honorable Councillors, the goldfields. They seem to view with the greatest alarm and suspicion any legislation which would seem to tend to their development and progress, and have established apparently a very convenient system of rejecting all propositions to this effect without taking the trouble even to discuss the matter, eg., upon the motion of Mr Holmes, entirely unsupported, we need hardly say, by argument, the water supply to goldfields clause in the Immigration and Public Works Act Amendment Bill were struck out; and it was only when the l absurdity of the thing was pointed out j in the free conference that these were | reinstated. The idea evidently was that, j by the expunging of these, the whole system of subsidising mining enterprises would be abolished, whereas the amendments proposed in the bill of this session would simply have the effect of narrowing the powers of Government in dealing with a portion of the loan already set aside for a specific purpose. We will give one other pertinent ex ample of ignorant and impertinent interference with the expressed views of the people. It is a case near home, and therefore easily to be understood. The Wellington Reclaimed Land Bill—the principles of which were sanctioned by the Provincial Council, and by the corporative parties intimately concerned, and consequently assented to by the House of Representatives —was so hacked and mutilated by the mere personal action of two or three members of the Council, that it very nearly had to be abandoned, and eventually : was passed with a clause actually inoperative, but intended to be of such a character as to render the measure entirely useless. Lookiug at the matter as we should do, entirely impartially, we must confess that it seems to us that the worthy Councillors take a sort of malignant pleasure in upsetting all attempts at legislation, which are in the direction of progress and settlement, and that they have thus placed themselves in direct opposition to public opinion. If we are not much mistaken, public opinion will very soon decide their fate in a very unmistakeable manner. So long as the Council kept its place and confined itself to its functions as a deliberative and revising body, no one would have desired to interfere with its personelle. so long as it was moderately respectable in intellect ; but when such important privileges are claimed, and such enormous powers not only arrogated, but attempted to be exercised, we have a right to ask, " Who are these men who would rule over us?" "Are they the men we would choose if we had a voice in the matter ?" Is it not a farce that in our general elections we scour the country

to get the very ablest men to represent us in the House, whilst all they can do is as nothing in the face of a handful of nominees, remarkable for nothing, that we are aware of, except obstinacy and the reputation of wealth. Let the country look to this. Let it see the effect upon legislation. Let it consider that these " lords of the soil" are not above taking their hundred guineas a session from the poor taxpayer, and let a unanimous voice be raised from one end of New Zealand to the other —" If the colony is to progress give us an elective Upper Chamber!"