The Politician.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 360, 4 January 1879, Page 6

The Politician.

THE PREMIER AT THE THAMES. (From the Timaru Herald.) The Premier's speech to the Thames electors is such an extraordinary production that it is difficult to know how to treat it. A good many people regard it merely as a screaming joke on the part of a facetious old gentleman who for want of anything better to do chooses: to poke.fun at the colony of New Zealand. Others, again, declare that the Premier must have some deeply-laid bcheme in his mind, and that like the Koman of old, he is passing himself off for an imbecile in order to disarm the suspicions of his antagonists. There aro also many who are beginning to think that,, after all, there is nothing in Sir George Grey; and who believe that this feeble, inconsequential hash of stale declamation and thunder and small beer, is really the best that he is capable of now.- Regard the speeoh how we may, however, it ia impossible not to condemn it utterly, or not to consider it an iasult to the intelligence and self-respect of the whole colony. If it is intended for a joke, it is certainly a precious poor one, and one moreover, that the public are in no humor just now to have played off upon them. The speech of the Premier to his constituents is commonly looked upon as the most important political address of the year. It is understood to con- * vey the opinions of the Government on the events of the last session, to furnish authoritative information as to the present state of the country, and to forshadow the policy of the future. The public have a right, indeed, to expect that it shall do all this in a greater or less degree. They have been accustomed for many years, and by a succession of Premiers to have thoso conditions fulfilled ; and they are sure to resent a sudden and rude departure from so useful and highly valued a custom. Sir George Grey's speech does not attempt to deal intelligibly with the past, the present, or the future. It is a jumble of worn-out stump platitudes, of which everybody has long been heartily sick, with claptrap appeals to the worst passions of an unthinking mob, garnished here and there with the moat preposterous assertions, alternating with puerile stories about irrelevant matters. The whole of it, however, revolting as it is in point of taste, and superbly contemptible in point of political ability, is yet arranged with the utmost ingenuity, in such a manner as to leave nothing that can be taken hold, nothing in the shape of a tangible expression of opinion about anything. It is full of covert threats and covert promises ; all.of which are calculated to make a strong impression in the direction to which they are addressed ; yet any of which may be disclaimed or repudiated or explained away with the greatest ease.' The speech, in short, displays a mixture of vindictiveness, and senile obscurity-; tinged throughout by a treacherous cunning, that is perfectly appalling to any - honest mind. Compared with those manly, enlightened, exhaustive, farseeing, unselfish speeches with which Mr. Stafford used to -•uide and encourage the colony, this thing seems the work of some superannuated vestryman Compared with those elaborate, sanguine, fearless orations with which Sir Julius Vogel was wont periodically to astonish and dazzle the people, this speech seems the sinister grumbling of some malignant dwarf. Compared even with Major Atkinson's cold, narrow, and unsympathetic, yet logical, accurate and outspoken statements, this seems the wandering of one demented, with just wits enough left to maintain the trick of deception. The Premier not only gives the publio no information whatever about public affairs, but he does not appeartoknowanythingabout them himself. Publio affairs, indeed, in the broad sense of the term, are entirely left out of sight in his speech, which treats only of a few subjects, some of them exceedingly paltry, in which he happens to be personally involved. It is satisfactory to learn from him that he knows he is generally regarded as a thorough actor, but it is nevertheless strange that he should freely admit it himself. It is, however, one of the most

singular traits in his singular character that he has not the smallest shame of parading vices which ninety-nine men Gut of a hundred would blush to be suspected of. In his introductory remarks on what he is pleased to call his general policy, he said, " In entering on this subject I will say Ave have heard such language as-' Grey will make a fine speech for you, but that is all'—I do not consider you so weak in intellect that you will be led astray by a fine speech. Grod has endowed every one of us with different faculties, and if a man makes a good speech, the power is not his own, but the gift of God." If the Thames electors were led astray by blasphemous twaddle like that, they must indeed be weak in intellect, or what the vulgar call " green." It surely cannot be the Deity who inspires the Premier's utterances. On this occasion certainly " Grey" did not make a hue speech, or a speech that was capable of leading, anybody astray, unless they were particularly willing to go astray. It was witheut exception the weakest and worst speech that he ever made ; and if he makes many more like it, he will unquestionably lose the last shred of reputation that he still enjoys, namely, the reputation of being a .p-ood public speaker. We have delayed our comments upon it because we wish to observe the opinions of many others first. We find that even the Premier's ordinary clacqucurs cannot praise it, but are driven to apologise for it ; while the tone of the independent Press concerning it varies from bewilderment to indignation and disgust. We shall presently endeavor so frankly and carefully to examine it -that our readers may know unmistakeably what manner of politician is now at the head of affairs in New Zealand.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO A DISSOLUTION. (From the Press.) Along with the other subjects referred to by Sir G. Grey, and to which he came back more than once in the course of his speech at the Thames, was his inability to obtain a dissolution. The Premier was evidently anxious all through his remarks to make it appear that he had not been vested by his Excellency with those constitutional privileges which are always understood to belong to the first Minister of the Crown. At Home, he tells us, it has long passed into a tacit understanding that whenever the Prime Minister considers that his position on the Government benches is such as to require a dissolution, the Queen accords it as a matter of course. Under different forms of expression Sir George lays down this principle more than once, and refers to the results of a careful search which has been made among the writings of modern •statesmen as conclusively establishing this principle. Now, we deny this principle point blank. It is not understood to be the constitutional right of any Minister, whenever he conceives that his party interests require it, to demand a dissolution, and it is not under all circumstances held to be constitutionally binding upon the Sovereign to grant it if he chooses to do so. And we go further. We assert that in so far as it is true at home that •the right and the duty do constitutionally arise, the circumstances in which they do so do not form absolutely binding precedents in the case of a colony. It is no use in a question of this character to refer to isolated speeches or scraps of sentences from the utterances of this or that statesman, or some one or other political writer. We have read, of course, the correspondence between his Excellency and Ministers upon this question of dissolution, .and we must own that we are surprised at the extreme weakness of the arguments employed by Ministers. The authority quoted by the Premier consists of perhaps a dozen sentences, or rather parts of sentences, in which Disraeli, 'Todd, and others undoubtedly use language amounting to a general expression of opinion that if the Prime Minister saw it to be his duty to advise a dissolution, the Queen might "be expected to grant it. But such sentences as these, taken without their context, prove just nothing. What is wanted to be known is the circumstances which the speaker or writer was referring to when the Queen's concurrence in the desired dissolution was thus confidently anticipated. We undertake to say that no precedent can be found since the date of the Reform Bill in which a sovereign, personally desirous to refuse a dissolution, found himself nevertheless compelled by his constitutional position to grant one at the instance of a person who owed his position as Premier to the accident of a snap majority. 'The truth is that at Home it is almost of course for the Queen to grant a dissolution when the Ministry desires it ; and the reason is because ,at Home the principles upon which the power to dissolve may be constitutionally demanded have become so well settled by established usage, and so well known amongst all those who take active interest in party politics, that a dissolution has never in fact been pressed upon a hesitating sovereign, unless the right to claim it has been constitutionally clear. And this marks the grand distinction between such a colony as our own and the mother country. There everything is settled : here everything is tentative. A Minister here cannot certainly be depended upon to ask a dissolution only when he ought properly to do so, and the • Governor must bring his own experience to bear in order to aid in deciding the question. In Sir George Grey's case he has been notoriously regardless of anything in the shape of a constitutional restriction when it happened to stand his way. The well-known facts which have displayed this part of Sir George Grey's character to the whole colony, have no doubt happened since the Governor's refusal to grant the dissolution; but they afford ample evidence of the kind of man with whom his Excellency must have felt that he had to deal, in accepting or refusing to be guided by his advice. In the course of one short session the Governor was asked by Sir G. Grey to create members of the Upper House out of the ordinary course, and to veto a Bill supported by his own Government and passed by both Houses of the

Legislature. What everybody knows now, we may be sure that the Governor knew well beforehand, and in refusing the dissolution to Sir G. Grey his Excellency was amply justified, not only by the entire absence of any constitutional precedent for accepting such advice in the actual case before him, but by the inevitable distrust which any advice emanating from that quarter must necessarily have created. Sir G. Grey would apparently have us infer that it was not in this single instance only, but that ever since he has been in power he has been in need of a dissolution, and that it has been of no use for him to claim it of the Governor. This is a question of fact, and on this again we are compelled to express our entire disbelief of Sir George Grey's statement. The notorious facts point entirely the other way. During the last session his Government did not need a dissolution. Before it commenced the result of several elections had placed in his hands a sufficient working majority, and the Opposition—if we may so term them—steadily refrained from all those tactics which might be expected to embarrass the Government. It is well-known fact, too, notwithstanding the Premier's assertion, that the Grey Cabinet, during last session, were strongly averse to a dissolution and an appeal to the country. What demand there was came notoriously from the independent members. Sir George was repeatedly challenged by them in the face of the House to dissolve, and up to this moment he has not done so. The truth is, that he is conscious that he has exhausted his popularity and fears the result. What we are saying will not be denied either by the more respectable amongst his own supporters, or by the more respectable portion of his own Cabinet ; and the denial of it by the Premier himself can hardly be regarded as in the slightest degree helping us to arrive at the exact truth of the matter.

THE SELF-RELIANT POLICY. (From the Weekly Herald.) Was it appropriate or inappropriate that Mr. Macandrew, in his capacity as Minister of Public Works, should have lectured the settlers of Whangarei, our typical Northern settlement, on the benefits of self-reliance ? It was both. At all events, few will dispute that it was a bold—even audacious—step for Mr. Macandrew to take. The North contains some 25,000 inhabitants, with a capacity of extension existing nowhere else in the colony, and we feel sure that no other district of the same area, with the same number of inhabitants, has so little to show in the matter of expenditure from the Public Works loans since 1870. The reply may be made that it paid better to make railways in Otago and Canterbury than in the country to the north of Auckland, but allowing all due weight to that argument, there are two or three other considerations to be taken into account. The money was borrowed to open up the country ; that has been done in the South, but not in the North. We contend also that if there were any large district, with (say) 25,000 inhabitants, where it was difficult to make railways, it ought to have had a pi'oportional amount of expenditure in the way which would best serve the settlers and open up the waste lands of the Crown. Take it any way whatever, the country to the north of Auckland has not been fairly dealt with. It has, we fear, but little chance now of making up lee-way in Government expenditure. Jupiter will not descend in golden showers to woo it now, simply because it is not so easy to raise the money. And this brings us to the point of saying that there was an appropriateness in Mr. Macandrew urging self-reliance, seeing that the Northern settlers will have little else to rely upon. In answer to the remark in the address, " Considering that we are situated in the far North, remote from the prospering influences of political favor, we have not been altogether idle," Mr. Macandrew in the coolest possible manner replied, " I think it is well you are so, as I think the less you have to do with political favor the better. You should encourage a spirit of self-reliance, and I have no doubt that, as Sir George Grey says, there is a great future before you if you rely upon yourselves." Does Mr. Macandrew imagine that it would have been better for the residents of some parts of Otago—Tapanui, for instance —if they had not had political favor, or political power, enough to get railway lines, and that the Whangarei people would have been worst off if they had had political favor sufficient to have obtained, say, their fair share from the public works expenditure ? This doctrine of self-reliance, which Mr. Macandrew has become so suddenly enamored of, we do not remember to have heard him preach in Otago ; and self-reliance, like charity, should begin at home. At all events the settlers of Auckland province must be excused if they manifest some impatience when people from the South, where everything that can be desired in the way of public works has been made at the cost of the colony, preach that they should encourage a spirit of selfreliance.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL EXPERIMENT IN VICTORIA. The practice of students of medicine is, to make experiments "in corpore vile." I do not know whether the persons who framed the Constitution of Victoria had thi3 axium in their minds at the time, but they have, certainly, succeeded in affording to the world an example of what a Constitution should not be, and have presented the means of instruction to any other colony or community which is not too proud to profit by the misfortunes of others. It is not, I think, generally understood that the Constitution of Victoria is unique, that is, it possesses a feature which broadly distinguishes it from all other institutions framed for the British colonies, or devised by the various States of North America. The intention was, no doubt, to produce in Victoria some resemblance to the relations between the House of Lords and the House of Commons—that is, to condense into a few lines of an Act of Parliament all the moderation, wisdom, and ex-

perience which go to produce the practice of the British Parliament as we now see it. That such an undertaking should ever have been entered upon by sane men in the colony must be regarded' as a matter of surprise, but it is more astonishing to find the project sanctioned by the British Legislature and calmly approved in a few well-meant words of advice j by Lord John Russell. All students of his- \ tory know that the relations between the Lords and the Commons are the results of years and contention, and that at times, as in the reign of William 111., those relations have been so strained as to threaten the subjugation of one branch of the Legislature. Hallam considers that it was " the public voice of a reflecting people," which prevented the Commons pushing their claims as they were at one time inclined to do, for nothing can be plainer than that the Commons did succeed in coercing the Lords on several occasions, and notably upon the question of the Irish land grants to the followers of the King. In the face of these facts, known to every reader of history, the old Legislative Council of Victoria resolved to try to reproduce the British Constitution in that colony, and her Majesty solemnly gave her consent to the experiment. The Constitution Act provides that the Legislative Council shall have power to reject, but not to alter, money bills, this being supposed to be the state of the relations between the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Thus the Council in Victoria was placed in a position utterly unlike that of any other Upper House in any Anglo-Saxon community, and unlike any other in the world, that of the Netherlands alone excepted. There the functions of the Upper House are restricted to the approving or rejecting of new laws, without power to alter, something after the fashion of our own Council, minus, however, the peculiar logic of the Assembly. There are no deadlocks in the Netherlands ; because, I presume, the Lower House has not yet discovered that the power to reject gives the Upper House the control of the Government, as the Assembly in Victoria professes to see, or the Dutch are less excitable, and contrive to amicably adjust their differences. However, the fact is, that the Council of Victoria may be said to be in a unique position, and has been the subject of a very curious, very instructive, and very costly experiment. It has been put as a barrier to dam back the fierce tide of action in the Assembly, and it has been left to throw the whole country into disorder, or be practically annihilated itself. Such a state of affairs is not surprising when we look I at the peculiar relations of the two Houses, but it is very astonishing that British statesmen did not see that what was true of America and Europe in general was likely to be true of Australia, that the limit of power would be the only limit of action. In other words, if the Assembly had the power to coerce the Council, the Assembly would surely exercise that power sooner or later, and make it a point of honor to maintain the so-called rights of the House. Every Court has a tendency to widen its jurisdiction, every public body is ready to magnify its office, and none more so than those bodies which claim to be the representatives of the people and the guardians of their interests.

From this it will be seen that the Council in Victoria is placed at a greater disadvantage than any other Upper House in the British colonies, or in the United States. It has the nominal power to reject, but attached to that power is the penalty of throwing the whole colony into confusion, if the Assembly chooses to tack its particular desire to an Appropriation Bill. Payment of members is, beyond question, a debatable subject, but how can the Council debate when it has to choose between public disorder and the granting of the money ? Impartial persons will say that the Assembly which forces the Council into this position is responsible for the results which may follow, but the great body of the people only look to the effect, and not the cause—" the offender's scourge is weighed but never the offence." Consequently, the Council comes to be regarded as the House which stopped supplies, and few think of blaming the Assembly which could get supplies in twenty-four hours by removing the obnoxious tack. It is easy to see that a Constitution framed like that of Victoria must lead in the end to Government practically by one House, for no Upper House could exist for long under the pressure of public odium, no matter whether it be justified or not, and nothing is more certain than that an Assembly which has, so to speak, once tasted blood, will never cease to long for this exciting diet and never rest until it has that of the Council. This is illustrated by the way in which the case ha 3 been put sever-al times, when the Council has been deluded by fine phrases, which meant one thing to one body and quite the opposite to the other. Conferences have been held at various times, at which a great deal of excellent feeling has been displayed, and if words could have settled the relations of the two Houses they would have been settled long ago. In regard to money bills, the Council is quite willi ig to follow the practice of the House of Lords, and the Assembly is quits willing to let it do so, whilst the Council concedes and the Assembly accepts the proviso that the Lower House shall follow the practice of the House of Commons. Here is a basis for an agreement. What more could be required than this ? Differences are all adjusted, and the pastoral larnb in the Council is cheek by jowl with the carniverous wolf of the Assembly. At first sight there does not appear to be room for further dispute, and, indeed, the committee of the Council some years ago reported to that effect ; and yet the dispute rages more wildly than ever, and the Assembly will listen to nothing but absolute and immediate surrender. Once more we see that the real meaning is government by one House, as the Assembly declares that it will tack what it pleases to the Appropriation Bill, and has resolved that such a Bill must never be rejected. This is not the practice of the House of Commons, at all events, and the observer has to scout in order to discover how the Assembly can reconcile the two positions.

He even finds that it is as easy a,s lying What the Assembly—that is, the majority—means by the pz-actice of the House of Commoms, is all that that House has ever affirmed as to its supposed rights in regard to money matters, not what it actually does. The Assembly holds that it is at liberty to go back to any date, and there it finds an assertion of power to take that as the practice of the Commons. So much for its own claims. When it comes to deal with those of the Council it takes a more narrow view, and discovers that the word practice has quite another meaning.. Naturally it would be supposed that the Assembly having resolved to follow the Commons, the Council would be allowed to follow the Lords, who *have rejected tacks many times, and have on record a resolution declaring the addition of foreign matter to money bills to be subversive of the Constitution. Sir Erskine May says that such tacks have been resisted by protest, by conference, and by the rejection of thebills,and it is therefore quite clear that the Lords have done precisely what the Victorian Council has found it necessary to do in order to save itself from absolute coercion. But, it is replied, the Lords have never rejected an Appropriation Bill, which is true, the very sufficient reason being that the Commons have never tacked a disputed measure to such a Bill. The tacks made by the Commons have always been to Bills of supply —that is, bills by which taxes are imposed, the Appropriation Bill being quite another affair. After the rejection of the Bill to abolish the paper duty, in 1860, the Commons put a scheme of taxation into one Bill, and the Lords were left to accept it or reject it as a whole, the result being that the Lords did not venture to throw out the whole scheme. The true state of the case, then, is this : that the Commons have on record their claim to the sole right to deal with money matters, in which, however, they recognise the power of the Lords to reject money Bills; whilst the Lords had recorded their objection to the introduction of foreign matter into money Bills, and have many times rejected such Bills. The result is the virtual adoption of a practice under which the question seldom arises. Now, if the Victorian Assembly would really follow this practice, as it professes to do, there would be no deadlocks, because the Appropriation Bill would never be made the vehicle of a disputed question, and foreign matter would rarely, or never, be added to a money Bill of any kind. But the colonial Assembly wishes to put into practice all the claims of the Commons, while it insists that the Council must not act on the claims of the Lords, and the result is, an illustration, on a very large scale, of the fable of the wolf and the lamb. The moral which the unbiassed observer will deduce from this state of affairs is this: that it is mere folly to rely upon the forbearance of a popular body. Further, that to place an Upper House in a position in which it can only resist at the expense of public disorder, is virtually to say that it shall not resist at all, Some persons hold that the Council should not have any power over money bills, and draw a broad, but fanciful, distinction between financial and other measures. As Lord Brougham has pointed out, even in the case of the House of Commons, the distinction has no real meaning in these days ; and I may safely say that its only meaning is a mischievous one, so far as the colonial legislatures are concerned. What these persons really mean is a system of government by one House, because, if the Lower House can always coerce the Upper House when it pleases, the Upper is, of course, a mere cypher in legislation. The experiment tried in Victoria, for it is in reality nothing else, has demonstrated two or three important principles. We now know what we might very well have known before, that to give an Upper House only a power of resistance based on public disorder, is to provide for the downfall of that House. Secondly, that a popular body will push its claims to the wildest extremes, whilst it will unblushiogly deny to the opposing House the right to observe the very rule on which its own power is based. These principles are true at all times and everywhere, and should be kept distinctly in view by every man who is concerned in the difficult task of passing laws to regulate the legislative functions of pubiic bodies. It has taken twenty years or more to find out that the constitution of Victoria was an experiment, and the time seems to me to be a considerable one. Had there not been great moderation for many years, the experimental nature of the Constitution Act would have been discovered before, but when the McCulloch Ministry undertook to tack a tariff to the Appropriation Bill, it was plain that the end could not be far distant, because there were sure to be plenty of adventurers to follow the instruction. We can. now see that there is no choice between government by one House, or the giving of the power to the Upper House to amend money bills, for if it has not that power, it is powerless to resist repeated attacks. Sooner or later what can be done will be done, and there cannot be a question that the experiment of trusting to the moderation of a popular body has failed, as it will fail always and everywhere. The wonder is, that nobody saw before that an experiment was to be tried. I do no think that such a one will be tried again. H.