The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1910.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 55

The Otago Witness, WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1910.) THE WEEK.

“ Nnnquam aliud natara, aliud sapientia dixit.”— Juvenal. “ Good nature and good sense must ever join.”— tope.

At the present moment the utmost interest centres around the result of the General Election in the United Kingdom, now in progress. So far the reports- to hand of the polling would seem to indicate a fairly close contest. although it is improbable that the Unionists will be able to recover sufficient of the ground lost in 1906 to give them a working majority. The only forecast of the situation likely to bo anywhere near the mark is that either Liberals or Unionists may have such a- small advantage. the one over the other, s s to give the Irish Nationalists the preponderating position, and the price of power to either party may possibly prove to be the granting of some measure of Home Rule to Ireland. When the Imperial Parliament was dissolved just four years ago. the Unionists had a- nominal majority, of 74 votes. The result of the election which followed gave the- Liberals, with the aid of the Labour members and the Nationalists, a majority of 354, which was subsequently reduced to 334. At the dissolution at the end of last year, the Hons© of Commons was constituted as follows;— 1 Liberals 365, Labour 54, Nationalists 83, and Unionists 168. The ILcmdon, Times.

The British Elections.

in forecasting the outcome of the election, estimated that 131 seats would bo transferred from the Liberals to the Unionists. This would reduce the number of Liberal members to 234, and increase the Unionist strength to 299. which would mean that the combined forces of Liberals and Labour would total 28b, or eleven less than the Unionist members, leaving the Nationalists, with their 80 odd votes, to turn the scale in whichever direction it suited them. There were, however, some 40 seats regarded by The Times as of doubtful issue, and' the capture of the whole 40 by the Unionists—by no means a probable occurrence—would give the Unionists a clear majority of eight or nine votes over the combined forces of the Liberals, the Labour members, and the Nationalist party. Even this would not constitute a working majority, and the forecast goes to indicate the extraordinary Interest attaching to the present contest. By way of comparison and also as revealing the uniqueness of the political situation, we append the figures giving the party majorities at the General Elections in the United Kingdom for the past 25 years: —1885, Liberal majority 172; 1886, Unionist majority 116 ; 1892, Liberal majority 40; 1895, Unionist majority 152; 1900, Unionist majority 134 ; 1906. Liberal majority 354. Thus, although the 1910 election does not promise to produce anything approaching the debacle of four years ago, yet it is calculated to give rise to issues of an exceedingly important and far-reaching character.

The present election, for keenness of partisan feeling and gravity of issues involved, has been continual!}' contrasted with the struggle which preceded the passing of the Reform Bill of 1832. But, although in some points similar, the conditions surrounding either case are en tirely different. This will be seen in the following extract from Professor Masterman’s handy little book on “The House cf Commons,” and ; ts place in national history, taken from the chapter which deals with “The Reform Bib of 1832.” After reminding his readers that the first Ref** m Bill brought in was amended to such an extent that the Ministry dissolved Parliament, coming back with a very large majority in favour or Reform ; and that "the second Reform Bill, brought in like the first, was rejected by the House of Lords, causing the resignation of the Ministry and the ineffectual attempt of the Duke of Wellington to form a Ministry, Professor Masterman continues : “So the Ministry came back and the King promised to create as many Peers as might be necessary to pass the Reform Act through ~Parliament. . . . The Reform Act passed successfully, and Great Britain embarked on a new chapter in ate history, for it had now become Great Britain through the Act of Union with Scotland in the eighteenth century, and the Act of Union with Ireland at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Now the first result of the Act of 1832 was a very striking series of reforms of really first-class importance. I often find that students of history are not nearly sufficiently alive, to , the quite extraordinary value of the work that was done in the few years that followed after 1832; the reform of the Poor Law; that most, important change in the municipal corporations in England, a change, perhaps, even more far-reaching than the Reform Act itsdf ; grants for education, doled out with a rather niggardly hand by successive Governments ; then the Factory Acts. I need not go any further, but this long series of really first-class reforms was the outcome of the stimulus given to Parliamentary action, bv the Reform Act of 7832. What did it really do? What it did was to transfer the government of the country from a few great Whignoblemen, who had practically been the governing power, into the hands of the middle class in England ; and the period of 1852 to 1870, or a little after, may be described as the period of middle class government in England ; and it is not a period of which the middle class of England has anv need to be ashamed. But the effect of all this was to create in the minds of the mass of the workers a certain f eeling of disappointment. The middle class had gone into the Garden of Eden, so to speak, and they had been left outside, whereas they quite understood in 1852 that they were all going in together. So in a certain sense they felt they had been defrauded This disappointment took two forms, or, in other words, the movement among the workers from 1832 onwards took two directions. There were those who said that the workers in England must work out their own salvation for themselves, independently of Parliament, and that class threw itself into the work of organising trades’ unions. On the other hand, there were those who said bur first need is to gain control over the machinery of government. iand that class organised the movement we call Chartism. Chartism was the deliberate claim to modify political machinery, so as to give the workers of the country control over the machinery of government. In a sense it failed. But in a far deeper sense it succeeded. . . . Chartism was the first wave of a great movement that has not yet spent its force in English life. I cannot trace for you all the events that led up to the second Reform Act. Disraeli’s great Reform Act of 1867 was the first of the two great steps by which the mass of the workers gained a share of the control over the political machine. Roughly speaking, it may be said to have enfranchised the artisan of English towns. Here are some figures which may be of some use. In 1831 the total number of electors in England was 300,000. Just before the Reform Rill of 1867, the num#>®r was 1,370,000. Immediately after the Reform Bill of 1867. that number had to 3,000,000, so that the effect of

The Story ef the Past.

Disraeli’s bill was, more than to double the size of the electorate. . . Lastly, the Franchise Act of 1884 enfranchised the great mass of the country workers, and gave uniformity to the franchise throughout the country, practically abolishing for all ordinary purposes the distinction between country and borough members About 2,000,000 more voters were added by Mr Gladstone’s Reform Act of 1884 to the elective body in England. That is roughly speaking the story of the way in which the people of England as a whole gradually acquired control over the House of Commons.” The issues at stake in 1910 are every whit as great as in 1832, and The Issues whatever be the result of Non at’Stake. the polling, the outcome , must be far-reaching. For the people of England, having gradually acquired control over the House of' Commons, will, if guided by Liberal counsels, proceed to attempt to acquire the control of the House of Lords. At tire present time over seven and a-half million people are | entitled to vote at Parliamentary elections ! in Great Britain, and at the last election I the Liberal majority of 354 members was ' elected by a majority of 836,418 votes. Although' Mr Asquith has accepted the , challenge thrown down to him and bis Government by the House of Lords in i the rejection of the Budget, by appealing to the country; yet in the event of the j country responding to the appeal, and I reinstating the Liberals, there is likely I to be a considerable difference of opinion I as to the best, and wisest method of rei forming the Upper House. Further, the : return "of the Liberal party to power is ■ almost sure to carry with it some measure !of Home Rule for ‘ Ireland. It must also ; mean a memorable advance along the line I of Labour and Socialistic legislation, if Mr Lloyd George lias his way. On'the other hand, the accession to power of Mr Balfour and the Unionists must mean the departure on. the part of Great Britain 1 from the well-trodden path of free trade, and a momentous essay into the perilous ways of protection and tariff* reform. In addition to which the knotty problem of finance is certain to cause a Unionist 1 Administration much cause for concern, I in view of the tremendous demands made j upon the National Exchequer by the programme of National Defence and Old Age Pensions. f!o that even when the I results of the polling are announced, the way is bv no means clear and the political situation in Great Britain is certain to engross attention for some long time to come. Doubtless we are on the verge of momentous changes, and. a.s indication of some of the things which, openly advocated,- find favour with many, we may quote the concluding portion of Professor essay. “We reach the point now when the control- of the people over the House of Commons is growing very nearly complete. It is not quite complete yet. for there are at least three steps to be taken before we can claim in England that our House of Commons is in the fullest sense representative of this country. And the first s+eii. I ' i eed hardly say, is the extension of the franchise to that I a rane class of the community that pays taxes like the rest of us. to which is committed the chief share of educating the citizens of the future. -Secondly, we cannot claim to be reallr- possessed of a. representative svetem until such measures are taken as shall make it possible for the poorest man in England to devote his services to the public welfare if the public calls him to do bo. Then, lastly. I personally feel, though yon may nob agree with me. that if the public is really to be in effective control over its own 1 destinies, there must be some sort of I wav whereby the' verdict of the public on | certain great issues can be taken in case j of need ; that -some kind of referendum I is n necessary element in any really demo- | cratic community. Power has passed first j from the King to the Ministers of the Grown; and then it has passed from the ! Ministers of the Crown to the House of Commons. And now it has to a large extent passed, or is passing, from the House of Commons to the people. Therefore we are face to face to-day with a situation unlike anything in the past history of the world, as far as T know it; we are trvin.g, in .a vast community. I covering a large area, an experiment not | tried in the same kind of way since the early days of the Greek Republics, and I even then not tried, for those Greek | democracies were really hisdtlv-tmincd j aristocracies and not democracies at all. i Now what is needed for the success of I this epoch-making experiment to which |in Eno-land we are now irretrievably I committed? We need, in the first place, ! a Press which is impartial and well-in- | formed. . . . Then we want, secondly, I a people trained in the art of citizenship. | trained in the use of their votes as a | sacred trust, not for personal gain, but | for the common good. . . . Then, j lastly, one mode thing must be if this great experiment i« to prove anything else than a colossal failure, and that is the workers must learn to trust their leaders. They must learn to lose, as I behove they are losing, the petulant impatience of childhood, in the wiser and stronger patience of manhood, to work for a good they will not see and to build temples in which they will not worship.” Even although we were, unable to express 1 unalloyed satisfaction at the precise circumstances under which the Hon. T. Mackenzie was first granted a seat in Hie Ward Cabinet, yet we have viewed his former anomalous position with anything but pleasure. As Minister without a/ salary, especially since he was allotted the Portfolio of Agriculture, he j has been in the unsatisfactory position of doing- a great deal of work for which he 1 was receiving no remuneration. The posl-

Tirtue Itewardert.

tion was all the more peculiar since it. was currently believed that the Premier’s hesitancy to do justice to his colleague arose from the displeasure which the appointment had evoked in Ministerial quarters. . It is therefore, with a. certain pleasure that we record the fact that Sir Joseph Ward has. although tardily, raised the Minister for Agriculture .to lull Cabinet rank by granting him the emoluments to which he is most certainly entitled. Viewing the situation as a whole, Mr Mackenzie —while not claiming to be a practical agriculturist —has probably a fair knowledge of the requirements id tinaverajge country settler. Ise-i-aiise ol In. knowledge in this direction a good deal wall be expected of him. And il the Department of Agriculture is to rer-eiv-e the meed of justice which its admitted importance demands Mr Mackenzie will need all the backbone he possesses. I'mthe competition of Canada and (be Argen tine is every year becoming more ami more severe, and New'Zealand will only' be able to maintain the proud posit ion sire has won in the race it the yoini-gei-generation are properly and promptly instructed in the latest • achievements ol scientific -agriculture. The Government in the past has not been fully alive to lire importance of instructing the settlers in this direction, and their niggardliness when it comes to expending money for this purpose is too well known to need stressing. It is therefore to be hoped that Mr Mackenzie will signalise his appointment by inaugurating a forward policy, and thus leave no stone unturned to keep the export of produce from the Dominion up to the standard in quality.

After examining the picture the Magistrate expressed the opinion that it could not be deemed decent, and that it accordingly came within the scope of the act. Accused must be penalised. A conviction was entered, and a fine of £3, with costs, inflicted. The penalty for default was fixed at 14 days’ imprisonment.