MR. VOGEL'S THEORY OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 1162, 7 March 1874, Page 1

MR. VOGEL'S THEORY OF REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT.

So long as Mr Vogel, when addressing his sympathetic Nelson audience, confined himwelf to sneers, more or less covert, at his hosts, we can afford to contemplate the spectacle of Nelson's humiliation with tolerable equanimity. We can, indeed, partake of that secret pleasure which the best regulated minds are apt to feel when, fully insured themselves, they look on at the burning of their unprotected neighbour's cottage. It is by no means likely that so shrewd a tactician as our Premier will fall foul of Otago in like fashion. However great a man he may feel himself " among egg~i with a stick," he knows better than to run his head against a stone wall.

But a part of what Mr Yokel said was avowedly addressed to the whole Colony, and his amazing theory as to the duties of representatives deserves, and shall receive from us, more serious notice. To do the speaker justice, he put the matter in the plaine.-t possible way. There was no mistaking his meaning. It is the duty of the representatives of the people, it seems, not merely to .subside at once into the position of simple delegates — this would bo far from satisfying our dictator — they must go to Parliament pi- clgcd to the present Government, and .must " bind themselves to vote with them on all occasions." Further, it appears that the Ministers here, who have, poor fellows, infinitely weightier matters to decide than the Secretaries of State, to whom is entrusted the contiol of the comparatively unimportant affairs of the British Empire, must be treated with special tenderness and forbearance. Not only must members swallow, without making wry faces, the general principles of every measure sent down to them by Ministers — they must carefully abstain from embarrassing these already overtasked functionaries by presuming to suggest any, the least, alterations iv the Bills laid before them. Mr Yon el was even good enough, with a pleasantry that in a meaner man might seem laboured, to give us an illustration or two of the kind of thing he meant. Even "legitimate supporters," we learn, cannot, consistently with holding the true faith, make such trivial alterations as the .substituting of " whereas " for "hereafter." From the larger playgrounds of legislation they have been for some time excluded — the petty recreation of verbal quiblding is henceforth to be sternly denied them. Let anj r oiie who thinks that our statement of what Mr Vockl said is overdrawn re-peruse his speech.

Nor weie the arguments with which this insolent doctrine was supported unworthy of the theory itself. PieBinning largely — we will venture to predict, far too largely — on the ignorance, not only of his hearers, but of the whole of New Zealand, Mr Vooel ventured io draw a parallel between our House of Assembly and the House of Commons. Passing by the ludicrously inaccurate statement, that there are not in the Imperial Parliament ten independent member? — in tho Vogelian sense of the word — that is, ten mpn who aro not bound to vote on one side or the other on every possible occasiozi, we deny that there is the slightest aia'ogy between the two cases.

What did we find in the House of Commons before the late dissolution ? On tho one side, a Ministry upheld by a no means overwhelming majority, raad« up largely of men of various shades of political opinion ; on the other, a compact and organised Opposition, led by perhaps the most experienced and brilliant debater of the day, himself an ex-Premier, and in all probability soon to be a Premier again. But between these opposing camps was a, largo body of meuibors who si hIIp,sm£9 to either party eat Jkxw.'y ?ou

them. The majority of those independent members, though professing a general agreement with the views of Mr Gladstone, would have rejected with scorn the idea that they were bound to give him an unqualified support ulider any circumstances. Any slackness; even in so comparatively unimportant a matter as the exaction of satisfaction from the Spanish authorities in the Cuban affair, would have speedily taught Mr Gladstone that it was the duty and the intention of independent members especially " to see that the State suffered no harm." Nor would the most ardent of Liberals have been slow to show him that, as representatives of the people, they held their allegiance to their political head, — which Mr Vogkl makes out to be the chief end of memberdom — but a small thing, when the interests or the honour of the nation were put in the by lance.

Now, what have we had for some time in our political microcosm at all comparable to this? .So long indeed a,s Mr Staffohd letained the post of leader of an organised Opposition, however scanty in numbers it: might bo, something was left distantly approaching that wholesome check, without which the best of men will ( .sooner or later, be beti'ayed into irregularities and excesses. But, since Mr (Stafford's retirement, his mantle has, unfortunately, fallen on no ofchershouldors. Whatever else Mr Vogel may have to complain of hereafter, it will never be open to him to say that his Public Works and Immigration .schemes have nofcxiad fair play. For good or for evil, his policj has at any rate had '' ample room and verge enough." To our mind, not the least danger looming in the future is the entire absence of friction in the machine of State. There is at present absolutely no drag. And we earnestly hope that the day is far distant when the independent members of our General Assembly, already sadly too few, will be deterred by r the menaces of an overweening Premier, whom success is fast spoiling, from doing their plain duty to their constituents by watching narrowly the expenditure of the enormous sums, and the distribution of the enormous patronage, now placed at tho disposal of Ministers. 11l will it fare with this people when the members of our Assembly of seventy who dare to freely speak their minds on occasions are reduced eveu to the faithful ten with whom Mr Vogel is pleased to credit a Mouse of Commons ten times a.s numerous.