THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.} WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1894. OBSTRUCTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LVI, Issue 2213, 23 May 1894, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.}

WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 1894. OBSTRUCTION.

With which are incorporated *vKe Wellington Independent , ertattislied 1845 , and the Neiv Zeaian&er.

It hns come to bo gertefftity admitted that thero is too much 'Obstruction in the House of ItejkrCsChtellves. Outside the House that 'iv-«S admitted many years ago, but obstruction has continued to diminish the percentage of useful time session after session-. During the last nineteen years the Stonewall has become a recognised institutiCh as well as a nightmare. We renlonlber the first stonewall of any consequence VA the annals of our Parliament. It was the stonewall—the name ivas not invented until some .VCafS later—organised by the Provincial Party towards the end of the session of 1875. The country was taken greatly by surprise, and was disgusted as well as shocked. The question of the right and wrong was much discussed at the the newspapers and the streets. The doctrine was set up, we rOniembCr, fik Justification that the importance Of the action contemplated by a Parliament on the eve of a general election justified the minority in resisting by every means in their power. The other side insisted that after the ample latitude allowed by the forms of the House has been exhausted, it is the duty of every honest minority to acknowledge defeat and go to division, If minorities were to arrogate to themselves the right to stop all business,’simply because the intentions of the majorities displease them, where, it Was asked, Would chaos end? On that occasion the plea of the minority practically prevailed, for the majority agreed to fls the 'date for the coming into operation of the Abolition Act On a day after the next general eleotioih That gave the Provinoialists all. 111051 wanted, viz., the remission to the constituencies of an important constitutional change determined upon by a moribund Parliament, which had boon elected at a time when there was no thought of constitutional change Of any kind. The result was that the stonewall ended. Since then thefe has been no such grave constitutional question before Parliament-. Pub stonewalls have frequently obstructed the business of the House of Itopreaentatives, nevertheless. They have not only come to stay, hut they have increased and multiplied and developed into all sorts and conditions of obstruction. It now positively requires an expert to give their several names to the various degrees of the obstruction which is regularly and openly carried on by parties, by sections, and by individual members, The list of these degrees is long. It lies between its two extremes, of the party stonewall at the top with its blankets, its organised plan, its relays of talkers on one side who never say any-" thing, and of sleepers on the other side who never sleep, and with the angry man at the bottom of tho list who sots himself on the smallest pretext to "go on for ever.” The condition of things has long been unendurable, and has been endured only on account of tho impossibility of getting together the majority required by the standing ordeis before the standing orders can be amended. Obstruction has been endured in spite of tho needless weariness of protracted debates, in spite of tho strangulation of public bnsinesss, in spite of the scandalous waste of tho public time, and the glaring stultification of tho Parliamentary machinery. The cause of the trouble lies in the standing orders. Formed on a plan devised to protect freedom of, speech and freedom of action against the coercion and tyranny, first of the Crown, and then of an unscrupulous Oligarchy, the standing orders have become tho instrument for the exercise of coercion and tyranny, by minorities, and individual members. We notice that tho question of reform has been mooted in Ministerial speeches during the recess, and we are glad because reform is necessary. A new House comes to such a question without tho prejudices born of political combat. We trust the first act of the new House of 1894 will be to save the public business from unlimited- obstruction by limiting the license now permitted by the standing orders to protect true liberty from oppression. -i