REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 916, 20 September 1889, Page 28

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

Representative constitutional Government in New Zealand is neither better nor worse than

in other places where it prevails, and is subject to .similar defects and weaknesses which have during recent years so emphatically stamped it as imperfect. It would bo remarkable, indeed, if this were not the case. The Government is of the people, democratic, and just as the people are so must be Parliamentary proceedings and legislation generally. Given intellectually and ethically advanced constituencies, animated by high principle, and the conducting of all their legislative and administrative business will be on the very highest lines. But as long as the people are only a quarter educated and have not developed any particular aspirations beyond every-day wants, so we shall find their representatives to be as ephemeral in their characteristics and incapable of entertaining those higher aims that mark the advanced man. Narrow, narrow all, nearly, with no conceptions, right and left, of the particular grooves in which they have lived and had their being. Like so many political Topsys they have “ growed ” in a certain direction, and are deeprooted in singularly tough prejudices and ignorances, their intelligence cramped ami stunted, while selfishness and political craftiness have received abnormal development. That there aro men in Parliament, both here and elsewhere, who soar sky-high above this estimate we are pleased to admit. But the majority are as we have said, and auyono who notes the Parliamentary proceedings of any of the Australasian colonies muse coincide with us in the matter. Admitting this, it is evident that a Parliamentary training without the support of sound and liberal education is not conducive to the development of etatemen or high el aro government. It merely hardens and confirms politicians in their imperfections. But with a general educational advance, and the disaasneiation of purely local legislation from the central Parliament, marked elevation of polities and administration may be reasonably antici pafced. In fact, both must ensue if the people are progressive and not retrogressive. The doings of successiveParliament.3 of New Zealand are not reassuring as to progress and the expurgation of political shortcomings. It seems to

us that session after session tends to the transmission of the worst features, of predecessors, and the development of new ones even more objectionable. Hence, the necessity for more stringent rules of procedure, and the cultivation of a most undesirable political expediency which recognises and adopts any means to the end and justifies the course as indispensable. A leading politician will naturally retort under reproach that he is coninelled to make the best he can of the material at his command. And probably he is right ; he may desire—very likely does earnestly wish he had —better ways to bis ends, but all the good ways are blocked by the inherent imperfections of the political system of which for the time being he is director. The system nob only wants amendment but it wants controlling, and as there are always advanced minds in every Parliament to whom the application of a powerful brake may be entrusted, it will be well when efficient; brakes are provided and kept in proper working order. For it is a fact, palpable and incontrovertible, that these latter-day Parliaments contain elements of misrule and disorder only to bo repressed by the strong hand of authority. Those who are in closest contact with Parliamentary proceeding are most keenly alive to their defects, and an intense desire for a lessening of the cause is but a natural expression. Hence the openly-expressed convictions we have so often heard lately of benefit to the Colony if it were subjected to the direct administration of the Crown for a few years. And only last week the Premier himself suggested, by way of argument, giving the Colony a whole year’s political rest by skipping a session. And he was right; his suggestion, though but argumentative, was dictated by a sound knowledge of r.he position. The country does want political rest—-would be a thousand times the gainer if protected a little from the yearly political harrying to which it is subjected. We do believe that sessions ‘in alternate years, instead of every year, would be great gain to the land, providing that proper brakes of procedure were available to control disorder and mere senseless party obstruction, that is now so much in the ascendant, and forward the work in hand. llow very palpable were defects during tho recent session ! Necessary legislation was thwarted and strangled at every turn. Not what was best for the country met with entertainment, but what was demanded by party exigencies. Voting for party against honest conviction, and in direct defiance of the general welfare, has become a political scandal of late years. It is admitted on all hands as something impossible to avoid, as something that must be truckled to. But the practice is a ruuning ulcer in evei’y Parliament, and, more than anything else, brings free Parliamentary institutions into contempt. That party cohesion is essential to the proper conducting of representative government;, as it is practised, is indisputable. There must be well defined sides, each standing by certain general principles on leading questions, but the cohesion ought to be governed by a liberal intelligence that would make both sides as one man, when questions of legislation necessary for the well-being of the common country were presented for consideration. But the very reverse of that is the case. We know that during the periods of greatestfriction during tSie recent session, members recklessly violated their judgment by deliberately voting against their conviction as to what was best for the country. And the worst of the position is that Parliament is not one of a couple of well-defined battalions, but of numerous discordant fragments bands of free lances, acting with reprehensible independence and prancing foolishly about the Parliamentary arena. Wnat but a political ‘‘ cussedness ” of the most aggravating kind led to the rejection of necessary legislation for the Otago Central Railway, the Property Assessment Act Amendment, the extension of the WestportNgaukawa Railway, the Public Health Amendment, Bankruptcy Act Amendment, the Local Government measure, placing the administration of hospitals and charitable aid on a better footing; and other things that might be mentioned? These were ruthlessly thrown to the winds. Let us suppose they had received due meed of consideration and proper adjustment in the best interests of the Colony, why then legislation might have held its hand

for a couple of years, and the country been permitted to take the legislative holiday it so much needs. But still better than breaks of tho kind are yearly Parliaments conducted on the right lines of common sense, and an intelligent appreciation of what the couutrv most requires.