Legislative Council Appointments.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7067, 20 January 1891, Page 2

Legislative Council Appointments.

[From the Lytlcllon Times.] Yestekday's telegram from Wollington reiterated the belief that seenis to be general there that these wretched appointments to the Legislative Council are to be made in the face of decency and in the teeth of public opinion. They are to bo forced through within a few hours of Parliament's opening. There is no precedent in their favour. In England a defeated Government often recommends a shower of titles and honours as a final act before its demise. But they recommend merely : they leave it to their successors to gazette the peerages and knighthoods. Moreover, there is absolutely no analogy between rewarding political friends iv England by the gift of a title and calling men to the Legislative Council in New Zealand. In England the rewards are social distinctions: calls to our Council are purely political appointments. The conferring of a knighthood on an English commoner does not put him into the House of Lords. Moreover, most of the peers made by dying Governments never dream of sitting regularly in the Upper English Chamber. They can do as they please about it : they get no honorarium or pay : they are not looked upon as the people's servants. Their Toward is that they are elevated to the ranks of a privileged aristocracy, to which much social deference is even yet paid by an immense majority of Englishmen. In New Zealand men are not supposed to be called to tho Council unless the working Government of the day wants their help there. Sir Harry Atkinson's Government is not a working responsible Ministry. It is a dead body, kept where it is in gross defiance of tho expressed will of the people. It governs the country week ai ter week without any right to do 30. It outrages public opinion because it knows that in a few days it will have to die. Therefore its members make things lively for us while they can. They consider ;hat they may as well be hanged :or stealing a sheep as for stealing a amb. What an edifying spectacle jovernment by irresponsible placemnters is