AN OVER GOVERNED COUNTY. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2623, 22 June 1904, Page 17

AN OVER GOVERNED COUNT Y. (From Our Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, June 9.

Mr A. W. Hogg, M.H.R., who has just returned from a \ isit to Australia, writing in the New Zealand Times, says : — "The great trouble of the Commonwealth and its States at piesent is over-government. Imagine a circus with seven side-shows, each, side-show almost an exact copj- of the other, and you havo an idea of the txp-ensive farce for which the free, independent, enlightened, and heavily-taxed and indebted electors of Australia have to pay. " Don't you think it's a piece of tolly to have seven Houses of Commons and seven Houses of Lords manufacturing and cobbling the law^ for two millions of people, when one Houso of Commons and on© House of Lords manage to do the work for 40 millions in the Old Country?' was the question put to a political savant. " Yes !' he replied, ' 1 know it is a great absurdity, and the worst of it is thai we v. ore told the cost of government would be greatly reduced es soon as the Commonwealth was set up.' Btifc Ihe burlesqiio continues. It is doubtful if at any time, in any grossly mismanaged country, such a hydra-headed political monster has c\ cr been developed as is at present running the show for our Australian cousins. Here you have a central Parliament, located temporarily in Melbourne, the members and Ministers of whicu couiplam that, although they have been wrangling for months, they have done absolutely no work. Then, there are six Legislatures tumbling over one another and vainly trying to soothe ihe people, while, in order to retain place and pa3 r , they invent new methods of picking the people's pockets. No doubt the task of self-destruc-tion is disagreeable, and one cannot help sympathising the Cabinets, which, aft the mandate of their constituents, aro amputating their limbs and presently may bo compelled, like defaulting Celestials, to disembowel themselves or cut off their heads. But the duty of reduction and retrenchment apjoears impeiative, and must; be undertaken. No country can stand so many cooks spoiling the broth. Six Governors and a Governor-Genera! — all with, their retinues of aides de camp, lords in waiting, flunkeys, and servants, — -even Chief Justices and a largo company of puisne judges, seven Cabinets, with Premiers and Ministers of the Crown "looking forward to the capture of Imperial titles or distinctions, 14 Chambers, with 28 Speakers and chairmen of committe.es to keep them, in order, and then, above all, the central Legislature on wheels, as peripatetic as a Punch and Judy show, loudly declaring that it can't, do anything Lccau«-o it U hog located, aiul cannot fix c.i a ~ ; b>. Could! anything be imagined more. ai^aEi'n^ly ludicrous?"