THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1903, 24 July 1890, Page 23

THE WEEK.

" Nonqnum aHail mtura, aliud suplontta dlxlt."— Jutimal. « Qood Datura and good sense must eyer Join." --Pop*.

The Hon. Captain Russell, the last new Minister, is daily justifying last more and more the wisdom NotLoast. 0 £ sir Harry Atkinson in

strengthening his otherwise not very robust Cabinet by the admission of the new Colonial Secretary. Captain Russell's speech was perhaps not the best in the recent debates on the financial policy of the Government, the honours of which in that way were divided, we should say, by Mr W. P. Reeves on behalf of the Opposition, and Mr Scobie Mackenzie on the side of the Ministry. But it is not too much to say of Captain Russell's speech that it was the first which turned the main current of the debate, and brought out the Government side of the j public questions of the day in a light which put instant heart and energy into Ministerial supporters, and checked the growing bumptiousness of the Opposition. Sir Harry Atkinson, no doubt, would have done this I even better than Captain Russell, but then ! unfortunately be was not in a position to do anything at all; and it must have been evident to the most ardent opponents of Mr Ballance that the other Ministers were not doing very well in debate. Mr Richardson was extremely unwell — recent suffßrers from la grippe will perhaps be able to form a sufficiently vivid mental picture of what it must be to have to make a critical policy speech in reply to a formidable attack while in the clutches of that fell malady— and Messrs Hislop and Mitchelson were out of their element as Parliamentary tactioians. The one is too cynical, and the other too gentle for the work, and the choice of Mr Richardson to answer Mr Ballance was a wise one, though unfortunately discounted by his subseqaent indisposition at the critical moment. At any rate, nothing was really done on the Ministerial side at all until Captain Russell got up, and in a modest, manly, and determined way, put the case of the Government clearly before the House and the country. Then the capable speakers took heart of grace, and the debate instantly emerged fromits previous hopeless dulness— adulne'ss due to the fact that the Opposition had so little to attack, coupled with the other fact that the Government were making the very worst of a very good defence, and were hanging their heads in the face of the accused when they might all the time have been successfully defying him to convict them of any guilt whatever. Sir George Grey has brought in a bill to provide that in future every I » w » man may be not only his own Agntnat lawyer, but also everybody i,awj»«. else's, for the mere trouble of calling himself one. Mr Verrall, a gentleman who babbles innocuously of State banks on all possible occasions, and who has babbled so often and so monotonously that he cannot now raise even a- solitary chuckle in the House, has supplemented this by another bill, which declares that everybody may be a lawyer except a member of Parliament, or that everybody may be a member or Parliament except a lawyer, which is much the same thing. Our Wellington correspondent, who usually has something to say about hon. members who bring in bills, has, we observe, been so taken aback at the bare notion of Mr Verrall being delivered of a bill that he has found nothing better to mention in connection with the interesting event than the solemn little comedy which .goes on every time anyone perpetuates a thing of the kind, and which has been going on in the New Zealand Parliament ever since the mace was first laid on the table. A member who is ambitious of adding to the Statute Book puts a motion on the paper for leave to introduce a bill, and this on being called on is usually carried. Whereupon the Sneaker sternly calls upon the author by name, and the latter (who has usually left his bill in the library or given it to the record Olerks or something) frantically grabs the first bit of paper he can lay his hands on in bis vioinity, and with the unblushing coolness only to be acquired in legislative

circles, mendaciously replies, " I have a bill, Sir." The Speaker (who knows perfectly well that the hon. member has nothing of the kind) is ready with the official response, " Bring up the bill," whereupon the legislator walks up and solemnly deposits his dummy bill, which as likely as not is a letter from his wife or a pen-and-ink sketch of some prominent lobbyist, with the clerk. He then moves that the bill be read, and the clerk, holding the dummy up to the light and adjusting his spectacles, mumbles a few words and sits down. Then the author moves that the bill be printed (which it usually has been about a week before, but it is quite bad manners to hint at thiß ciroumstance) and the play is over. Our correspondent is right in implying that this kind of ceremonial plaisanterie is likely to have every bit as muoh importance as Mr Verrall's bill, or for that matter as Mr Verrall himself; and though fair George Grey's measure cannot fairly be described as equally ridiculous, it is pretty certain that in operation it would be even more mischievous. It is questionable, all the same, whether the lawyers in the House do not rather favour the chances of the bill passing than otherwise by the almost fanatical onslaughts they combine to make upon it. There are good and convincing reasons enough to urge against the bill without harping so continually upon the point that the legal profession is already overcrowded, an argument which is neither good nor convincing, however true the allegation may be. Sir George Grey and Mr Verrall, however, it may be hoped, will give way to the business of the country for the present session, which is really too important to be hampered with fads of this aggravated character even for the 10 minutes of comedy " business " with the Speaker.

Honourable members of the Legislative Council have been filling up

upsuira. spare time —an occupation, by the way, which may be paradoxically described as absorbing most of their labours— in discussing the question of a reform of their august body. The reform, whatever it may be, was carried by a large majority, but the odd thing about the Upper House is that things which are carried by large majorities there frequently expire thereupon, exhausted probably by the operation. Hence it may be possible that notwithstanding its self-imposed penance and reformation our House of Peers may yet retain its affectionate hold upon the hearts of the people unchanged from its existing form. What the source of that clinging affection is was ingenuously pointed out during the debate by the Hon. Dr Grace, a gentleman recently distinguished by his diplomacy in connection with the Wellington tramways, and who is understood to have kissed the blarney-stone with unusually complete results at a very early period or his career. Dr Grace accounts for the present perfection of the Upper House — a perfection which we all of course admit., and have long wanted to see explained — by pointing to the simple fact that it contains not only all the best people in the country, but all the-gdod people there are. "He looked beyond the Ccuncil Chamber, and failed to see where they were to find successors to those old pioneers who in former dajs as well as at the present time held seats in the Council." Now this is a very grave and important problem. Those who "at the present time hold seats in the Council" cannot last for ever, and where are we to j look for people fit to take their places ? Why is it that the infatuated members of the Lower House are wilfully bestowing their attention upon such trifles as the Financial Statement, the educational interest of the country, administration of the land, and so forth, when an appalling problem like this is staring them in the face 1 It is like Nero fiddling when Rome was burning. And be it remembered, Dr Grace is not merely an Honourable and a Councillor, he is also a Count, and consequently a true aristocrat, and therefore a man whose words cannot be lightly esteemed , The Pope has made him a Count ot the Holy Roman Empire ("regardless of historical pretences as to the collapse of that empire several hundred years ago), and it behoves us mere commoners to list to his revelations with bated, breath. No wondei Count Grace was against the reform of a Council which he believes to be unimprovable, and no doubt it is Count Grace's speech which has produced that feeling of profound security in the country as to the result of the debate which it is so easy by ill-natured people to describe as indifference. Christchurch, being a flat kind of place in more ways than one, and A considerably under the domiDel(1 nation of what is known as i, eTe i, the " churchj " element in society, languishes sadly for want of a central figure of attraction. The City of the Plains— or of the plain, as some of the Dunedin young ladies wickedly christened it after they had entertained a bevy of its best beauties at the Exhibition — was all right as long as it was represented in Parliament and before the world by Sir Julius Vogel. True, our Sir Robert held the title of Premier in the Midland Ministry, thus giving Otago a vexatious predominance in that ill-fated combination ; but then there were many palliative circumstances. In the first place, our Sir Robert was not Sir Robert for some time afterwards, but was merely plain Mr Stout— a title which many of his democratic friends still profess to think he should never have relinquished for the dazzling ribbon and star of the associated saints. Then, again, though Sir Robert (an Otago writer really cannot get; his pen round j "Mr Stout " at this time of day) was nominally Premier, there was a gratifying consensus of opinion in all directions, made evident from both press and platform, that the real office was in possession of the Christchurch representative. "We will give " said the residents of that city, keeping their heads as level as its exasperating streets, " the name to Otago and its Stout, but we will keep the thing itself for our own. That will amuse them, and won't hurt us." Lastly, an official imprimatur was conferred upon the Christchurch pretensions, by the solemn announcement in the Government Gazette— a publication which contrary to what might be takepi to be implied by the faot, has no column for faoetia

such as is reserved weekly at the end of the Witness for announcements of this description—that the Ministry had been formed under one Premier on condition that another should take charge of it, without the name, but " with precedence." What " precedence " meant and means as applied to a subordinate Minister remains to this day a State secret, and it may reasonably be doubted if the Astronomer Royal himself, or Pnfessor Gibbons, or even if it comes to that our Sir Robeit in person, could solve it now. Suffice it to say that under its benignant influence Ohristchurch throve and got, its Midland, and would thrive to the present day, but for the disastrous fact that the colony became tired of both these distinguished rulers, and got rid of them with entire impartiality and without any " precedence " at all.

Wo have referred to the above piece of ancient history, out of kindly Th. Rani am * lenient consideration for lumber for the present evidently deschrutoimrcii. perate social and political condition of, our neighbours in the next-door city. They have lost their Vogel, and got— well, we prefer to put it that ninety nine people out of a hundred, being sharply asked the question, "Who are the members for Christchurch in the present House?" would scratch their heads and 1 fumble anxiously round for a Parliamentary card. There is, however, a still further dis.tinction, which the vanished glories of " precedence" fail* to palliate. Sir Julius Vogel is at the other end of the world, forgetful of Christchurch and everything else that is onimportant enough to be in existence prior tio A.D. 2000, and unable to do anything more sensational for the paragraphists of the present century than falling out of a cab. On the other hand, our Sir Robert, though also, from over which he has no control, a stranger to " those benches " or any in their vicinity, is keeping himself and his objectionable little Arctic province almost as much before the public as ever. His opinions on public affairs are obtained in three columns by an interviewer and refuted in two by an official commitivque the next day. He is unanimously asked by the Opposition, including its leader, to take charge of its somewhat draggletailed affairs, and it is not on record this time that Mr Ballance even stipulates for "precedence." He is addressing political meetings at Oamaru and Invercargill, and generally sandwiching his unapproachable achievements in the law courts with a very considerable spice of political manipulation. True, there is (frcm the Christchurch point of view) one grain of comfort— our Sir Robert refuses to-be "ours," and will represent an Arctic constituency no more. He^ abandons perfidious Otago, and flies forja" following to the sunny clime of the North. Still the Level City is left behind ; and hence — for all this has so far been as much a digression from our real subject as the recent Parliamentary debates have been from anything whatever of any real interest to the country— the desperate fashion in which she pins her claim for present distinction to the clerical coat tails of Mr Arthur Olampett, alias— as with uncommon frankness that evangelistic person signs himself — "G. T. Sullivan." It is difficult to define just how far the momentous descriptions of his " complicated state of minu"— to ■ quote 'a. phrase made famous by the tuneful neatness of another and greater Sullivan— which Mr Clampett-Sullivan , supplies to the New- £&aland press, are encouraged by the bulk of public opinion in Ohristchurcti. But it may be permitted £o outsiders to regret the absence of some healthy and wholesome repudiation of this nauseous stuff from tha sensible people who, we are quite sure, are sufficiently abundant in the neighbouring city. Have they no religious people there who can create an interest in the masses without getting drunk and then trading on the circumstance ? Have they no reformers who can trust to achievements more attractive than the convenient annexation of an alias ? Can they not afford any "precedence" to ,a spiritual leader who has failed to appeal to their affections by first extracting £1000 from their pockets under false pretences ? And finally, when anyone wants to stand well with them is it really essential that he should publish strings of hypocritical snivellings about his remarkably profitable sins 1 Mr Clatnpett, we observe, has taken himself and his alias off to Sydney, leaving his admirers lamenting. We hope the Christchurch people will avail themselves of the opportunity to acquire a new and more respectable sensation.