DISSOLUTION POSSIBILITIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 896, 3 May 1889, Page 10

DISSOLUTION POSSIBILITIES.

Beviewino the present political situation in New Zealand and the prospects of the ap-

proaching Parliamentary session, we remarked that even if a much stronger case could be piled up against the Government than now seems possible, Ministers have a powerful bulwark in the Act reducing the numerical strength of the House by twenty-one members. The next general election means the inevitable relegation of twenty-one members to private life, because there will be no vacant scats for them in the next Parliament. If every member of the new Parliament should have been a member of the present House, that would still leave tvven'y-one hon. gentlemen out in the cold. And we expressed a doubt as to the likelihood of such a consequence being very eagerly courted by members. AB*against this view of the case it is asserted that the relegation of 21 members to private life is not quite so inevitable as we conceive it to be. The counter case is put thus :—“ In the first place, it is by no means certain that the defeat of the Ministry would involve a dissolution. It would all depend on what question they were defeated on. If it was on a matter of administration, or simply on the ground of want of confidence personally in Ministers, the Governor would have no excuse for granting an appeal to the country, no matter how urgently Sir Plarry Atkinson might plead for it. He and his colleagues would have to . go, and make room for men in whom tbe House had more confidence.

Of course, if ho finds his position at all insecure, the Premier will endeavour to choose his own battlefield, and manoeuvre so that if defeat is inevitable it may bo on some point which would afford him an opijortuniby of claiming a right to refer the issue to the electors. Such an appeal, even :f unsuccessful, would at least give the present Ministry a few months more of place and power. The Opposition will be very foolish to allow the Premier to select the issue on which the battle is to be gained. If it is strong enough, which we doubt, to get rid of him at all, it should be careful to do so ou a point on which the decision of the House will of itself be final. The duration of Parliament might then run its natural length. If a majority of the House determined to repeal the present Act, or to insist that it should be amended so that the proposed reduction of member should not take effect until 1891, the Premier would be powerless to prevent it. This would snatch the stock-whip out of his hands, and destroy the powerful bulwark behind which he flatters himself he is safe.” Now in this case, as thus stated, no fewer than three questions vital to the validity of the argument are “begged,” and in each case tho unsoundness of the assumption is easily demonstrable. The three questions are :—(1) That the Opposition (the existence of such a party being taken for granted upon what grounds does not appear) can choose their own battle field on which to engage and possibly to defeat the Government, and that Ministers would be powerless to prevent such choice. (2) That it is by no means certain the Government, if defeated, would a dissolution, as they might be beaten on a matter of administration or simply on the ground of want of confidence personally in Ministers, which would not constitute a just ground of appeal to the country. (3) That Parliament can prevent the reduction in the number of members taking effect either by repealing the Act or otherwise. Are these things so ? Let us see. How can the Opposition choose their own ground 1 Suppose they were to defeat the Government on the Property-tax question, or on a motion to repeal the Act which reduces the number of members, we presume no one will venture to deny that an appeal could and ought to be claimed on either of these points. But’ we imagine what is meant is that the Government might be beaten on a vote of censure, on account either of their appointment of Hallway Commissioners or of their action in the Te Kooti affair, or on their conduct as to the Excise prosecutions, or on some other point of administration. That is very improbable ; still it might occur. But what then? Immediately on the tabling of such a motion the Premier, as a matter of course, would declare it one of want of confidence, and on that basis the battle would be fought. The battle-ground then would cover the entire field of Minis ters’ acts and policy and proposals. This has been the traditional practice' from time immemorial, when an adverse motion is moved which a Ministry accepts as one of Confidence or No Confidence, then the question before the House and the country can be made virtually to embrace everything Ministers have none or propose to do. On that point of constitutional practice there is no doubt at all. Ministers can choose their own battle ground, and no matter how an Opposition may word their adverse vote, a Government can always decide that the battle shall be fought out on the wide issue of confidence or r\p confidence. The theory that “ want of confidence personally in Ministers ” forms no ground of appeal to the constituencies is manifestly fallacious, because such a question is all-embracing. There are plenty of precedents for an appeal on such a question ; but we need not go farther afield than the case of the Grey Government in 1879. Sir George Grey was defeated by an unprec9 dentedly large majority on Sir William Fox’s motion to amend the Address-in-Beply by adding a declaration that the Government had so mismanaged the affairs of the country that they no longer possessed the confidence of the House. It was on no question of policy, for both Bides of the House were agreed as to the main features of the policy which the Grey Government professed to advocate, but which they had taken good care not to carry. They were beaten because they had “ mismanaged ’ * the affairs of the Colony

(that is to say, as a matter of “administration ”), and because they had therefore incurred “ a want of confidence in Ministers personally.” Yet Sir Hercules Bobinson, one of the ablest, most wary, and most constitutional of New Zealand’s Governors, promptly granted on these grounds to Sir George Grey the dissolution which he claimed as his right in such circumstances. That is a direct precedent in point. But apart from this aspect of the case, it may be taken for granted that such experienced campaigners as Sir Harry Atkinson and Sir Frederick Whitaker will take good care to be provided with quite sufficient of a policy to go to the country" upon if necessary. The supposition that a dissolution could be avoided ia the manner suggested is clearly fallacious. Equally vain is the hope that Parliament could yet prevent the leduction in the number of members. That reduction is now the law of the land, ‘“llepeal it then ”we are told. Bub how? The Government would resist, as a motion of want of confidence, any such attempt, and would go to the country on it if carried. On such a question as this an appeal could not possibly be refused to them, except by a grossly unconstitutional and improper act on the part of the Governor —an act very unlikely to be committed by a public man of Lord Onslow’s training and experience. No one can pretend to deny the gravity of tbe issue, affecting, as it does, the very constitution of Parliament itself. Nor can it be denied that the voice of the country at the last general election was given most emphatically for the reduction, which a large majority of the members stand pledged to support. If they were to turn round, as it is suggested that they should, and vote directly against the views of their constituents, and against theirownpledges,and sbouldthuscompass the defeat of the Government, unquestionably Ministers not only would be entitled to an appeal, but would be bound in duty to the country to demand one, so that it might be ascertained whether the electors as well as their representatives had changed their minds on the point. But we have no reason to believe either that a majority of the members have turned their coats, or that their constituents have done so. If the Government are defeated next session, which is exceedingly improbable, they will, without doubt, claim an appeal to the country on grounds which cannot be constitutionally impugned, and a general election will take place on the basis of a Parliament of 74 members.