Mischief-Making.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 860, 24 August 1888, Page 27

Mischief-Making.

A KOYEif and extraordinary form of obstruction was brought > nt o play yesterday week by Sir George Grey and Mr Seddon. No? tradition of Parliamentary etiquette and practice is more definitely established and clearly understood than is the custom oi offering no opposition to the introduction of any Bill by any member —provided only that sucli Bill do not contravene the Standing Orders of the House —and that the first debate on the principle of the Bill shall take place upon the motion for its second reading. The Bill is not supposed even to be printed until the application for leave to introduce it has been acceded to by the House. No matter what the Bill' may be, within these limits, leave foi its introduction is always accorded as a matter of Parliamentary courtesy . and practice, even if it is certain to be kicked out by the vote of every member excepting its mover. Such being the general rule it, of course, applies a fortiori to the case of a vital measure of a Ministry’s financial policy, such as a Propertytax Bill under which revenue to the amount of some £380,000 is to be raised Yet, when the Premier moved for leave to introduce the Pro perty-tax Bill yesterday week his motion was met with a series of frivolous and ill-timed amendments, moved respectively by Sic George Grey and Mr Seddon. That this course was taken for the mere purpose of obstruction is sufficiently manifest. Nothing could be more certain, or more plain to everybody possessing a particle of intelligence, than that the course pursued must necessarily be absolutely futile so far as any practical result was concerned. The obstructive members could not fail to be thoroughly aware that nothing could possibly come of their amendments, which were preposterously out of place at that stage, even had (he amendments themselves been reasonable. It was shrewdly suspected that the real object arrived at was simply the procrastination of business for the purpose of throwing further obstacles in the way of the Crown ano Native Lands Bating Act Bepeal Bill, whose chances are undoubtedly injured by every day’s-delay before it comes on, because the nearer it is driven to the end of the session the easier is obstruction rendered. Sir George Grey, of course, never dreamed of carrying his obstructive amendments, but bad he, through some mischance or misconception, succeeded in doing so, the effect would have been not to substitute some other form ot taxation for the Property-tax, but merely to create a new deficit of nearly £400,000. This is a specimen of the mischievous andutterly reckless proceedings in which some members seem to take a delirious delight. It is satisfactory that they were decisively dealt with by the House. As for the ostensible purport of the amendments —the abolition of the Property-tax - we have no sympathy with it at all. It simply means removing taxation from the shoulders of those who can best afford to pay it and placing the burden on those who are least capable of sustaining it. It is not easy to understand, how such an endeavour can appeal to any sympathy unless it be that of “ bloated capitalists. 8o far as the general public aro concerned, and particularly what is known as the “ working class,” the Propertytax is the fairest, least oppressive, and most efficient mode of raising revenue that has yet been devised.