Spirit of the Press.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 421, 6 March 1880, Page 23

Spirit of the Press.

“ Liberalism,” the term wherewith the Democratic party in Victoria have attempted to dignify their tactics, and have arrogated to themselves as opposed to what they term the Conservatism of the part} r arrayed against them in politics, has been again weighed in the balance, and found wanting. The experience of New Zealand electorates, gained a few months since, has been repeated in Victoria, and blatant demagogues find their revolutionary intentions again frustrated by the common sense and self-respect of the people, in whose advocacy they profess so much, but in professing do so little. The defeat of the Berry party on Saturday last marks one of the most eventful epochs in colonial history. It proves that in a colony which has been generally credited with ultra-democratic proclivities, the chief apostle of loudly vaunted “ Liberal” reforms has been defeated in an appeal to the people, and he and his immediate satellites relegated to an obscurity from which, politically, it is now a matter of regret they were ever permitted to emerge. The issue on which the general eleci tion in A T ictoria has just taken place was this : A Bill for the reform of the tipper House was not carried in the Lower Chamber, and an appeal was made to the Governor for a dissolution. The Marquis of Normanby granted it on the specific measure, namely, the Beform Bill as rejected by the Assembly, and which contained three main provisions, ie ., that a majority of the Assembly should have power to vote money, of themselves ; that the plebiscite, already adopted for certain municipal matters, should be also adopted in the ordinary legislation of the colony, and that the country should be appealed to whenever the two Houses could not agree; and, thirdly, that Ministers should have the power to nominate the Council instead of its continuing to be an elective Chamber, as at present. It will be remembered that the Berry Ministry got defeated on this lastnamed proposal, and that although the dissolution was granted on the specific measure embodying the three proposals in their entirety, Mr. Berry dared not go to the country except on the first two named. He asked, in fact, that the country should endorse the principle that the Assembly had a right to incur unchecked public expenditure, and that whenever the two Houses disagreed between themselves or chose to differ with the Executive, they, the Ministers, might exercise the privilege of taking a plebiscite, or in other words, appealing to the people to uphold them in any action against which the chosen representatives of the people might raise demur. This was promulgating “ Liberalism” with a vengeance, and there is little surprise that Mr. Berry has overshot the mark, and in attempting to fool an apparently credulous public, has deceived himself, and covered his party with confusion. What he asked amounted to this, he proferred the people the right to interfere in legislative duties, but refused them any direct control of the money they contribute to the public purse. The Opposition have avoided any tendency to the hare-brained schemes of the “ Liberal ” party, and in lieu of the plebiscite they have proposed that for the avoidance of a dead-lock both Houses should be dissolved when disputes arise that cannot be otherwise settled ; and that to popularise the Council or Upper House as an elective body the qualification of members should be reduced, so that the honor of the responsible position might be possible of attainment by any good man and true. These proposals have found evident favor among the Victorian constituencies, and the deathknell of Berryism has sounded. Our latest telegram states that the Hon. Geaham Beret has resigned, and that Mr. Service will be asked to form a new Ministry. Of politicians it is perhaps but fair to say, as of defunct mortality, demortuisnrlnisibonum , but at least a moral may be deduced from the downfall of the Berry administration, the embodiment of the so-called “ Liberalism” of a young

nation. A mistake has been committed in estimating the general intelligence of the people at too low a standard. Mr. Berry, like Sir George Grey in this colony, has trusted to claptrap oratory, special pleading, and plausible generalities; he has sought to set class against class, to perpetuate prejudices, and foment distrust. Sir George Grey may be at least credited with good intent, though a visionary enthusiast; Graham Berry, on the other hand, was never free from the suspicion of ulterior designs, the feathering of his own nest, the aggrandisement of his particular friends at the expense of a confiding public. But the public grew weary of confiding ; they had waited patiently for promised results, and, in waiting, learned wisdom; the scales were removed from their eyes; they saw that Berry and his associates held them too cheaply and they became indignant. They saw through the fallacies of the creed preached by the “ Liberal ” prophet, the hollowness and sham of his pretensions, and they hailed as news of great joy that an opportunity a t last offered for the dismemberment of the Assembly which had so long dallied and fooled with the duty of true reform—an Assembly which did no credit to the intelligence of the community, and whose requiem has been appropriately spoken by the Australasian in the words of the Church of England Liturgy, thus : —“ The majority have 4 followed too much the devices and desires of their own hearts;’ they ‘ have left undone those things which they ought to have done ; and they have done those things which they ought not to have done ’; and there was no health in them. ”