THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2848, 14 October 1908, Page 51

THE WEEK.

} " Xnaquam aliod natura, alicd tapientia diiit."— ! " Good nature nad jood $ense mutt ever join." — . POPE. Xow that-Parliament has at length been prorogued, preliminary to The its filial dissolution, ' a Performances glance back over the perof r»rH«ment. foiiuances of the session will most teitatnly prove instructive and illuminating. And the ! first thought which strikes the observant mind is the tremendous disparity be- ! tween promise and performance. For, taking it a 5a 5 a trui.-m that the promises of Parliament are like piecrust, largely made to be broken, it is impossible lightly to pass over the manifest insinceiity of a system which regularly sets out "to do what no ore in their cane senses ever imagines will be accomplislvcd. As is usually the case with the lest session of any Parliament, no legislative feat of any note remains to its , credit ; some few iteni<= of an amending and consolidating character have been 1 placed upon the Statute Book, and that ii all. Thanks to the perseverance of the Minister of Labour, the Arbitration Act, as amended, will be given another i tiial. but it remains to be seen whether the hostility excited against Mr Millar on the part of the Labour unions may not cost him his seat in the House. The Second Ballot Act, which at one" time promised to be the sensation of the sest sion, has, thanks to the attitude of the Legislative Council, been, largely shorn of iis objectionable, features-; 'but even as amended it may best be described, as - an electioneering 'measure to" assist in the return of as many Government candidates as possible. If the Education Act be exeepted, and the ill-considered and , hastily-digested measures rushed through 1 in the expiring hours of the session be

! allowed for, but little is left of the worli of Parliament calculated to permanently contribute to the wellbeing of the people. Which inevitably leads to the conclusion that it is high time the procedure of Parliament was remodelled upoD more* modern and businesslike lines. The preponderance of power possessed by the present Ministry virtually means that the once-vaunted rights of private members? have been reduced to a minimum. Pradtically the Ministry decrees what bills shall and what bills 6hall not pass into; law ; 6urely then there can be no object in the annual introduction of a host of measures only that _■ they may be slaughtered at the end of the session. ~lt is more and more beginning to be recognised that the members "who. perform the most useful work in the House are the •men who open their mouths but seldom, and who when they speak make the moss of a few words. For this reason the useless practice of the full-dress debate all about nothing, or all about everything, and which wastes so much tune at the beginning of every Session, might with profit be abandoned.

It appears that the General Election A no{ likely to, y be delayed ThePromls* 'lo'ngerthan the third week, of in November, which means tke t'olif ■* ' that in six or seven weeks • time the Dominion will once more be in the throes, of a generalekction. In the interests of the iarnnng community— a- community towards which, as ittr JMassey has pointed out, the present Government is not too lavouraOly, [ disposed— there rests the responsibility upon the electors of every constituency, to see that the right men are per-, suaded to seek their suffrages with th^ view of ultimately becoming their rejtrev sentatives in Parliament. For it wotdd 1 be a thousand pities should the outcome of the polling give tne Government i still more preponderating \ influence in? L the House. It has been v a matter o3 ' great difficulty for the Opposition witi* so slight a mimer-'cal following to effec- [ tuallv keep " check upon the Ministry [ and .its measures. It should, therefore, ! be the aim of country constituencies,; throughout 'Ofcago and Southland in paxticular, \o increase rather than deplete, I the number of members not pledged to; ; give the Government support. For the degeneracy in present-day politics iaseenf in the dangerous fact that so- many members are ' prepared to support theKi • party without any consideration of thuf underlying principles involved. In ordeii 1 to stir up opinion in regard to the grtiva I responsibilities involved at the polling t booths, we can scarcely do better thai? I quote from the words of that greaSr | parliamentary orator, Edmund Burke- 1 -;, s words extracted from a speech delivered^ upon a bill introduced into the House o a = Commons for the purpose of shortening the duration of Parliaments : — "To govern according to the sense and agreeably to i the interests of the people is a great" and! glorious object o,f government. This oly - jecfr-cannjot be obtained but through thai medium of popular election; and populatf election is a mighty evil. It is suctf • and so great an eviL that though there; ' are a few nations whose monar'chs were r not originally elected, very few are noitf L .elected. They ' are the distempers o5 etection that have destroyed all free>'i > states. To cure these distempers ia| difficult, if not impossible; the onl« thing, therefore, left to save the coioa- . monwealth is to prevent their return too J frequently. The object* in view are to, have Parliaments as frequent as theyj \ can without distracting them in the pro"' > secution of public business; on one haneff 1 to secure their independence upon tb<* people, on the other to stive them that* 1 quiet in their minds and that eefee in. their fortunes so as to enable them to. perform the most arduous and most paicful duty in the world with spirit, wiiV efficiency, with independency, and with experience as real public counsellors — ' not as the"* canvassers at a perpetual election."

Burke then, proceeds to picture poweT* - fully the standard oft , ,The Standard morals and character which! «f» |f«nlter each constituency shonldl and a Jin. seek in their representative .to Parliament, » standard to which *ye fear bnt few at-j i tain in these degenerate days :— "lt i« > easy to pretend a zeal for liberty. Those! k who think themselves not likely to btf* encumbered with the performances o£j 1 their promises, either from their known* ' inability or' total indifference about the 1 performance, never fail to entertain the ■ most lofty ideas. They are certainly the' most specious, and they cost then/ neither reflection to frame, nor pains to> 1 codify, nor management to support. The] task is of another nature to those win*," mean to promise nothing that it is notfl in their intention or may possibly be inf their power to perform, or to those who' are bound and principled no more to delude the understandings than to violate the liberty of their fellow subjects-Is , Faithful watchmen we ought to be over the rights and privileges of the people.^ But our duty, if we are qualified for it as l we ought to be, is to give them infqrma-' tion and not to receive it from them! We. are not to go to school to them to learnt the principles of law and government.; In doing so we should not, dutJfuHyj serve, but we should -basely . and sean..daloosly betray the people whc are not capable, of this - service -by. • nature, nor in any instance called to it -by the constitution. I reverentially look up to U» t opinion of the people, -and with an aw© .* that -is. almost superstitious. I should be ashamed to snow my face before them*, if I chanced " my ground,' as they eried 1 , i up- or cried down men, or things, or opinions; if I wavered and shifted about i with every change and joinrd in it or ODtK>s*»d as best answered any low in1 teresfc or nns^inn : if T held them up ' hones which I knew I ne\er intenclfd or

p»mised what I well' knew I could not perform. . . - Theory, I know, would suppose that every general election is to the 'representative a day of judgment, in which he appears before his constituents to account for the use of the talent with which they entrusted him, and for the improvement he has ; made of it for the public advantage. It would be so if every corruptible representative were to find an enlightened and incorruptible constituent. But the prac- . tice and knowledge of the world' will not suffer us to be ignorant that the constitution on paper is one thing, and in fact andjjxperience another. We must know that the candidate, instead of trusting at his election to the testimony of his behaviour in Parliament, must bring the testimony of a large sum of money, the ' capacity of liberal expense in entertainments, the power of serving and -oblig- j ing the rulers 'of co-operations, of win- ! ning over the nopular leaders of political clubs, associations, and neighbourhoods. It is ten thousand times more necessary to show himself a man of cower than a man of integrity at all the elect : ons with which I have been acquainted." i