PATRONAGE

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9091, 9 July 1915, Page 4

PATRONAGE

We have now in power a party which has set its face against patronage of all kinds, after making a charge of patronage one of the strongest points of its indictment against the other side. Wo can test this position by the Legislative Council’s election of their Speaker. In every service which aspires to maintain efficiency by justice of promotion, merit is the chief cause of promotion always. And what is true of Public Services must be true of Legislatures. In this case the ordinary course of promotion would have replaced the retiring Speaker hy the promotion of the next in office, provided other things were right. The Chairman of Committees was the next in office. He had shown his fitness for that office in every way possible. More than that, ho had frequently occupied the Speaker's chair, and therein had behaved in a manner which proved him a diligent and successful student of the rules of procedure, of the principles that govern those rules, aud of the precedents of which the history of the procedure is composed. Still more, he had shown that he possessed the*personal qualifications of impartiality, firmness, ability of reasoning* and common sense without which the knowledge of precedents and procedure is nothingThere was no reason, therefore, why the Chairman of Committees should not in the ordinary course have succeeded to the Speakersmp for which he had demonstrated his fitness. But the majority in the Council selected another for the position—a gentleman estimable in every way, that goes, of course—who, however, had not done any service of the kind required in the high office of Speaker; whose record was in comparison with the record in the Council of the Chairman’s services, nothing. Now, the majority in the Council represents the party which has declared, with double emphasis of' declaration and criticism, against all bias of party in the matter of patronage, using the word in connection with the appointments in its power. And this majority, turning its face against the proved merit of the candidate not of its pai-ty, the candidate whose record of the special service demanded was, as we have said, in comparison with tho record of the other, nothing. But this candidate was of the party of the majority. It is imjiossibl'e to resist the conclusion that the majority elected him for that reason, and for that reason alone ; rejecting proved merit because of its political colour. Patronage has' clearly gone with party bias. The fact is a' commentary on party profession which requires no stressing.' It reminds us of the early days of Liberalism in which Sir George Grey was ever protesting against the dominance of powerful families in New Zealand, of one of which the new Speaker of tih© Legislative Council happens to he the head. It does not stand alone. On the contrary, the appointment takes its place in a long list of members of public bodies, land boards, harbour hoards, and others too numerous to mention, made since the present party came into power. It is emphasized hy another fact, the striking fact, that one honourable member who once led on the Liberal side, and worked hard in many campaigns side hy side with the candidate who had merit on his side, gave his vote to the candidate with no record, and at the same time a lifelong supporter of tho party he had spent his political life in opposing. The strength with which the "Reform” party cleaves to the patronage it pretends to discard must indeed he remarkably great.