The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888. HINDERING LEGISLATION.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1775, 11 August 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader SATURDAY, AUGUST 11, 1888. HINDERING LEGISLATION.

The excellency and beauty of the bicameral system of legislation has been exemplified most strikingly in the transactions of Parliament during the last week. So fast as the Lower House passed Bills the Upper House rejected them, and thus a beautiful game was played between the two in order to gull the long-suffering and very easily gulled taxpayers of the colony. We have always held that the Upper House was a nuisance that ought to be abated off the face of the earth. If revisers of hasty legislation are necessary let men capable of revising it be appointed, and let th.ir functions be limited to revision. chambers with almost coequal power* is a relic of barbarous times, when the feudal lord held the power of veto iu hi* own hand. The succ: ssors of the feudal lords are found in the Upper House of every country where there are two legislative chambers, and progress is net easy while they hold power. Only a few days ago the Legislative Council

threw out the Fair Kent Bill. This was a measure intended to relieve tenants of the Crown whose rentals are at present higher than they can pay. They iook the land in the good times—the depression came, and they find now that the rents -which they could pay in the good times cannot be made out of the land at present. The Bill proposed to establish a Court that would have power to reduce the rents in harmony with the altered circumstances of the colony and no reasonable man could oppose it. The greatest objection to it was that it ought to have dealt with all classes of tenants, and that it only half did what was necessary to be done. If it were necessary to lower the rents of Crown tenants, it was necessary also to give a similar relief to tenants of private owners, but this the Bill did n>t do, and consequently we cannot, regret its rejection so much as if it had been more general in its operations. The Legislative Council threw this Bill out, and the result will be serious to many poor families who have been struggling on in the hope that it would give them relief. On last Thursday night, the. Naval and Military Settlers and Volunteers' Land Bill was also laid aside by the Council. This was a measure which aimed at nothing more than doiDg simple justice. Volunteers previous to 1876 were promised a grant of land in consideration of services rendered by them, but this promise was not kept. A Commission was appointed to inquire into their claims, and made a most exhaustive and expenniv-e investigation. About 200 persons proved that they were justly entitled to land grants in virtue of services rendered, and the I ill proposed to give them about £3O worth of land each Now one would think the Legislative Council wouli be the first to recognise the necessity of discharging the obligations of the Crown, but it seems that all sense of honor, justice, and fair play, is dead in that autocratic institution. At any rate, Pensioner Pollen, who has lived on this colony all his life, would be ashamed to oppose giving £3O worth of land to men who went through all the hardships of the Maori War. These men volunteered and fought and won on the strength of a promise made on behalf of the Crown by the Government of the day, that they would get some land, but that highly respectable body —the Legislative Council—repudiated the Crow D's obligations. Who will not cry " Shame on them ? " It was not a matter involving any great liability—it merely gave a few acres of Crown lands away, and as it is extremely desirable that Grown lands should be rendered reproductive it appears to us that it would have been better to have given these volunteers the land. At any rate the promise made to them ought to have been fulfilled, and it is an extremely disgraceful episode in our history that there should exist such little regard for obligations of such a nature in the Legislative Council.