Wanganui Chronicle AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. "NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1881.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 9464, 29 July 1881, Page 2

Wanganui Chronicle AND PATEA-RANGITIKEI ADVERTISER. " NULLA DIES SINE LINEA." FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1881.

By this time we presume that the public are pretty well surfeited with Mr Ormond's Want of Confidence amendment, and have come to the sonclusion that the time spent in its consideration has been to a very great extent wasted. The talking is, however, in strict accordance with constitutional practice as established in New Zealand, which is in some respects a mere travesty on what prevails elsewhere. Mr Bowen was m the right when he remarked that No-Confidence debates were generally a useless waste of time, and a most beonvenient method of discussing questions of policy or finance. It would of course be urged by some people that these debates are, on the contrary, a potent means for economising time, by bringing the whole policy and administration of a Government under review at once and obtaining the opinion of Parliament on one general issue, instead of separately on a multitude of smaller issues comprised in a ministerial programme. We admit that on some rare occasions a resolution of Want of Confidence may very propeily be moved, may economise time, and may place a Ministry in power prepared to carry out a policy distinctly acceptable to the constituencies, and to a good working majority in Parliament. But the present is not one of those occasions. The House, as we have repeatedly stated, is split up into a number of sections on this Local Grovernrnent question, and the constituencies, so far as they have interested themselves in the matter, are similarly divided and sub-divided. There are all 'sorts and shades of opinion current at the present moment, though comparatively few of those who " do the talking " have really given the subject any great amount of study. We can call to mind no political question which has engaged the public mind for many years past in which there have been so many diverging lines proposed. Everybody is in favour of Local Government, but no two men are in precise agreement as to what they mean by the term. The Government proposals, if they were not fully acceptable, at least offered a fair opportunity for a free and exhaustive discussion on the subject. Their introduction furnished one of those occasions on which a day or two might have been profitably expended by Parliament in a genuine debate on that part of the Government programme. All the various schemes and modifications which had been hatching in the brains of honourable members might have been brought to light and compared with each other and the Government proposals. The result would certainly not have been a return to Provincialism, or the adoption of Sir George Grey's visionary and impracticable measure ; but we believe the discussion would finally have led to the substantial agreement of a majority to a modification of the Government proposals, and that the Ministry could, without loss of selfrespect and without incurring a charge of yielding for the purpose of retaining office, have accepted that settlement ; and, further, that the constituencies would have been as well satisfied as it is possible they can be in the absence of some practicable method to give local bodies unlimited funds without imposing heavier burdens on the taxpayers. But Mr Ormond's amendment, although it seemed at first sight to create the opportunity for a full discussion on local government, in reality had a totally opposite effect. It sought to dispose of the Ministerial proposals, not by a fair and impartial consideration of each part of the scheme, but by contemptuously thrusting the bundle of measures, which were devised to give effect to it, into the waste basket. If the House declined even to allow those measures to be discussed in the ordinary course of business, it would of necessity be taken as a proof that the Government which had introduced them was no longer worthy of confidence. That is the view which the Hall Ministry at once took of the situation, and that is precisely what Mr Orniond expected and desired. It has been quite in vain that several members have expiussed a determination to limit themselves to finding a true answer to the bare words of the amendment. If these gentlemen thought that they could thus confine the significance of the debate they must by this time have found out their mistake. A very cursory inspection of the speeches which have been made will be sufficient to show that, whilst the question of local government has been discussed in a very vague and unsatisfactory manner, a multitude of other issues have, per force, been introduced and dilated upon. The main object on the one hand has been to oust the Ministry, and, on the other, to keep them in their seats. Meanwhile, as is too often the case in New Zealand, the real pressing business of the country has been brought to a standstill, and useful measures which would have in all probability become law must be left over to be dealt with by the next Parliament. We can understand how, under such circumstances, an earnest honourable politician and thoroughly good

citizen like Mr Bowen should have been goaded on to say that " it was a question in his mind whether the colony was really ripe for party government, and whether it would not be better for the House to elect a Committee to conduct the administration." We do not agree with him, but no well-wisher of the colony can fail to be shocked and disappointed at the spectacle which is now being presented in the lower branch of the Legislature. It is not a principal which is at stake ; no great constitutional issue is being discussed; the question is, whether Mr Hall shall yield place to Mr Ormond, or, perhaps —worse still — to Sir George Grey.