Tuapeka Times

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1816, 29 July 1891, Page 2

Tuapeka Times

IND nm.OFIEIOS REPORTER AND ADVERTISED.

WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 1891.

MEASURES, NOT MEN.

NO WE &•

We don't know "whether many of our readers devote themselves to the study of " Hausard." We hope not for their own sakes ; it is at best a profitless and a dreary occupation. Out of the scores and scores of speeches that the country has been put to the cost of recording during the present session, there are not, at a moderate calculation, more than half-a-dozen that would repay the time lost iv their perusal. The bulk of them are made up of trivial personalities, tiresome and irrelevant digressions on everything but that which concerns the country, contradictions and explanations about what Sir Julius Yogel did at one time, and what Sir Geo. Grey or Sir Harry Atkinson didn't do at another. The cost of reporting and printing this kind of oratorical garbage is considerable to the country ; and, contrary to all expectation, the nuisance, instead of abating iv a smaller House, has become more offensive than ever. If it is of any importance to one politician to know exactly what another of the species has said on a previous occasion with the view of contradiction or criticism the time of delivering a speech should be limited, so that the report may be a full and a complete one as far as it goes. Iv the American Hoase of Representatives members are so nailed to time, and in the Imperial Parliament only a digest of the speeches of members is officially recorded. Is the wisdom or the opinions of our representatives so transcendantly sublime or of such inestimable value to the country that they could not be treated in the same manner? Would the debate just finished on the Finanoial Statement be robbed of whatever little splendour that belongs to it or have lost any of its value to the House or the country had Mr Seddon's three-and-a half-hours' loud but empty harangue been limited to quarter-of-an-hour or twenty minutes ? Would the House or the country be less wise had Mr Ballance's four-hours' pelting hurricane of words been boiled down in the reporting to three or four pages of ** Hansard ?" No man, and most of all, no man of the mental calibre of our politicians, can, iv the limited area that our one or two public questions allow, keep up an uninterrupted flow of solid or sensible thought for four hours. Mr Seddon is a voluble man, a wind bag, who wouldn't be listened to after the first dozen minutes in a cultivated or critical assembly. Let anyone who entertains a doubt on this head try to wade through the turgid sea of bluster with which he flooded the House in his last memorable feat. Why the English Chancellor of the Exchequer can lay his Budget before Parliament in three hours, and reply to an assembly of the ablest financiers and most skilful debaters in the world in half that time. Mr Gladstone will consider he has tried the temper of his hearers quite long enough if he exceeds an hour in the delivery of ! his masterpieces on some great question j affecting the welfare of millions of Englishmen. But in this little one-horse world of ours the Hon. Reeves or the Hon. Seddon or some other of our pinchbeck statesmen can hardly get on his feet without launching out into a tirade extending over a couple of hours. The same remarks apply pretty fairly to both sides of the House, and to members of every intellectual grade. The hon. ex- I water-cock turner and retired lamplighter from New Plymouth may not feel ' disposed to follow his leader through a dreary wilderness of figures, so he gets up and tumbles about for an hour or two among Taranaki ironsand and retrenched police inspectors, and is shot at meanwhile by. stale jokes from the quiver of the Hon. Borough Councilman from Sydenham, But in every instance the country has to pay the piper. Parliament has now been sitting for upwards of six weeks, and fully three-fourth 3of ! that time has been spent in windbag eloquence and wrangling. Compare the ponderous bulk of " Hansard " already issued with the actual work done, and the grossness of the imposition at once becomes manifest. Certain members are engaged trying to effect some reform in the methods of party Government at pre- I

sent employed. Their first practical step should be in the direction of abolishing or re-modelling " Hansard." The speechmaking rivalry created by the prominence given to members by this publication is the cause of more wasted tim 9 than all the other features of party government put together.

The elimination of the right to purchase in the new Land Bill ia a decisive declaration in the most practical manner possible on the part of the Government that they have adopted Henry George's theories of land nationalisation and that in future the State and not the individual will be the landlord. This is a bold step, progressive or revolutionary, according to the standpoint from which it is viewed. It is revolutionary to those who see in it an auxiliary or parallel measure to what is inevitably recognised now as the " bursting-up " tax, one co-operating with the scheme of agrarian injustice which they consider Ministers to be engaged in. And, on the other hand, there are others who, taking precisely the opposite view of the question, and, of course, being influenced by widely different interests, look upon it not only as progressive and wise but as being essentially necessary in view of the rather melancholy expediences of the past and the present discomforting picture they disclose and as a measure of safety for the future. Had the State, argue the advocates of the Georgite theory, many years ago refused to part with the fee simple of the lands of the colony, and constituted itself the common landlord and owner in perpetuity, holding all in trust for the people, we would not now be driven to what many are inclined to look upon as measures of spoliation and violence. The wholesale disposal of land in such large areas to individuals and companies was an injustice and a crime committed against the people, and any fancied wrong that may now be done in remedying as far as possible past mistakes must be looked upon as an indispensable price paid for the future happiness of the people and the final abrogation of a disastrous system of land tenure. And what has happened in the past -to produce such undesirable results will, unless proper safeguards are provided, be repeated in the future. Now, against this argument or, ab least, that part of it directly referring to the new departure, some very strong objections may be urged. We doubt very much whether the most fervid advocate of land nationalisation, were it come to the test of actual practice, would not prefer that lie himself and not the Government should be the owner of the land on which he intended to live out his days and bring up his family. There is an inherent feeling or desire in the breast of every man to become the owner of the soil on which he labours and waters with his own-and the sweat or his. family. This, perhaps, may be called sentiment; but sentiment is a very large factor in the life of every country, and cannot be ignored or disregarded, and is besides stronger and more enduring as well as more reliable than the most fascinating of theories. Moreover, and this is no sentiment, there is in the minds of colonists, in all matters pertaining to land legislation, a feeling of distrust and dread not only with regard to this but to all New Zealand Governments that nothing can allay. There is no finality, and, as far as appearances go, there is never likely to be, in land legislation in this colony. Like Tennyson's brook, it seems destined to run on for ever. An agrarian revolution such as we are now about to pass through could be borne with some small degree of equanimity, even by those against whom it is most directed, did it only bring with it a guarantee of finality and rest. But the whole history of agrarian legislation in the colony forbids any such hope. What is there to prevent a succeeding Government of faddists and experimentalists from undoing everything aimed at by the present ? Can any form of tenure otherwise than actual ownership protect the holder of land from Government interference? The large landowners say that even actual ownership is now no protection. How, then, can the claim that a mere tenant right gives be said to be ? Again, it should not be forgotten that the perpetual lease system is the only effectual means of preventing in future the accumulation of large lauded property, and of protectI ing the settler from the grip of the mortgagee in all his multifarious forms. There is not a farming community in the colony . but carries on its face melancholy evidence of the ruin and disaster that have come upon it from that forbidding quarter, and any measure that tends to diminish that evil cannot quite be said to lack something to recommend it.