The Oamaru Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10514, 23 July 1910, Page 3

The Oamaru Mail. SATURDAY, JULY 23, 1910.

The need or otherwise For ;i second chamber in Hie Legi.sThe Second fotnre is a great quex- ' Chamber. 'Aim the debating '.I which is endless. One [thing however is scarcely debatoable.: namely that if any change of the constitution is to be made it must be under the auspices of the Government. The matter is.too important to leave to ;iny private member. Sir William Steward once induced the House of Representatives to forget this principle so far as to send up a Bill for' the reform of the Council, to that body for its consideration. But the Council bad not the same reason for turning its back on principle, and the Bill was heard of no more. The other day Mr .Russell obtained a second reading of another such measure; hut it may well be doubted if the House will so far forget the right principle in his regard as to pass the measure through the remaining stages. In any case the question of this Bill is not likely to have more than academic value at the present time. That value can scarcely be said to have been raised by the debate of Wednesday night. There was a good deal of tumbling about among the various bases on which second chambers are erected in various countries, nothing of which was either new- or convincing Mr .Russell and his friends seem to have forgotten that this country is governed by the party system. The party would nominate the members of the Council under the new system, and the mouthpiece nominating w r puld be the Government of the day. It would be better to leave the Government of the day to do the business direct without any pretence of angling for the votes of the House. When the Elective Executive Bill becomes lawthere will be something more in favor of the election of the Upper House by the Lower. But even then the. relations of the two Houses would not he the best. One would be apt to domineer and the other to fawn, and between the two there would be nothing to be said for the Second Chamber except abolition. The best system yet devised is the nominative—nomination by the chiefs of the party responsible to Parliament. This system we possess here. That it has worked well our history attests with remarkably cogent effect. It is a success obtained in the teeth of difficulties which tried the system sorely. One fault, committed with the worst intentions but happily not attended with any evil results, was the wholesale nomination by a Governor at the instance of a defeated Ministry. But that was a constitutional blunder on the part of the Governor, not a blot on the nomination system. Moreover, the Crown took such steps iu that case and the sister case of the refusal of the Governor's successor to take the advice of a Ministry firmly seated in power that made any repetition of such a blunder impossible. Furthermore, the seven years' limit has removed whatever objections were left to the nominative system. That system now may have the benefit of the ripest experiences without being compelled to suffer the obsession of the superannuated. The last point in this connection is the most important. Iu the event of the Second Chamber resisting the popular will, the nominative system arms the men who are giving effect to that popular will with a means of making the Chamber do its duty. Under the nominative system there can be none of the deadlocks which enable minorities to rule in countries dependent on the elective system. In the face of these considerations- what has been advanced for any change? Nothing but froth, illusion and inaccuracy, and unworthy personalities which react on the makers of them. Clearly we should remain as we are.