The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1906. THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8752, 15 October 1906, Page 2

The Star. MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1906. THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

The numerical strength of the Legislative Council will be further reduced to-morrow by the expiration of the terms of appointment of Messrs Bolt, Feldwick, Kelly and Montgomery. The Assembly will then comprise only thirty members. Of these one or two are prevented by illness or ; nfirmity from visiting Wellington, except for the briefest periods, so that from to-morrow the Council will in reality comprise not more than twenty-eight active members. Under the constitution its normal strength id unlimited, though it must not be less than ten. Two years ago it was forty-: four, or nearly 50 per cent in. excess of its present dimensions. It will occur to most people that tJhe present position would offer an excellent opportunity to a Government determined to abolish the Upper House, and with it the bicammeral system of legislation. Were Mr Seddon in power still he would, -doubtless, regard the retirement of four members as an additional reason for 1 making an effort to do away with the whole. But Mr Seddon is dead, and with his death the Liberal Government seems to have abandoned the idea of either ending or amending the Council. .It was only the other day that Sir Joseph Ward defended the bicameral system as applied to New Zealand, and we see no reason to suppose that in the short interval he has changed his opinion. Speaking on Sir William Steward's Legislative Council Election Bill in the House of Representatives last month, he lamented the prevailing practice of urging the abolition of the Upper' House. "He did not believe," he said, " that anybody could point out occurrences to justify so material an alteration in the constitution of the colony. His own experience was that eoone check on legislation was necessary, and that the Council did valuable work in that direction. He had no hesitation in saying that if the Government eelected good men for the purpose of filling the vacancies, public opinion would hold that the system was, on ,the whole, a good one, even though the Upper House had on occasion blocked measures earnestly desired. If good appointments were made to the Council, public opinion would eooa come round, and the Council sboald be ablo to go on side by side with thd House, doing good work for the colony. "My personal belief," said Sir Joseph Ward, in conclusion, "is that so far there ha® not been a suggested" system that would be better than the present one." It is clear from these remarkt that as long as the present Government is in office the Council will be undisturbed. But we hope that the Premier will be as careful in selecting his nominees as he apparently thinks it is his duty to be. Although the opposition to the present system is never likely to die out it will be disarmed to a very large extent if, w.hen "naking new appointments to the Council, tho Government of the day is always particular to make a judicious selection. Now that his administration is pledged to maintain the dual chamber system, the Premier ought to lose no time in bringing up the strength of the Council to its normal level, arid he should take care that the new recruits are chosen from the very beet available material.