THE NEW MASTERS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 11135, 23 February 1886, Page 2

THE NEW MASTERS

(CONTRIBUTED BY lc ObSKHVEB.") Seven years ago the franchise was lowered, and a system established of mauhood suffrage, limited only by a residental qualification of a very liberal kind. The extension of this right to women will complete the reform, and the franchise will iheu be practically universal. That such a consummation will soon be attained we may conclude from the rapid progress of reform in England, and the favour with whioh the question of woman suffrage is there received, joined to the fact that we are here in Liberal measures almost always some distance ahead of the Old Country. The cause of womau is, however, rather an exception to this rr'e, for both with regard to the civil and the criminal law abe has received much more liberal treatment at the h^nds of the imperial Parliament than of our own, which, in questions relating to married woman's property iv particular, has fceen very tardy in extending rights i'raeiy granted many years ago at Home. It will not th3u be surprising it woman suffrage be granted almost simultaneously in our own and the Imperial ParliameuL. -Oi course, for purposes of comparison, we muse bear iv mind that there is still in England, and probably will be for sometime, a property quuliii ■ cation, using the term as including a household qualification, while here there is none, .but looking at the superior character of Che labouring population here, both in educatioa uud practical aud varied oxpuiuuee vi Yii'o, thtir com* parative fewness, uud the greater and fuller hope ox property which the thrifty working people or the colonies all have, wo ruay aay tlr-ifc iho organic change at Ixonic cftcoto . ;.':; ;Co iatu ityform Bill is us ,'.;ro:u, aim ,<s inoruoucouy, as was sfifictod hare ia 1879 ; aau v/han iv boLh ■casos tho frauuiiisti shall havu bean o.vtended to ivomon, tho pai'uili:i \v> : \ .

my cpinioii) rciup.m tlio jv.nio. _•■ or can ii ba otherwise than we. I xw. 1 womviu to bare a voice, now chui ihe masses arc ■enfranchised. Now, more than over, fu'o men r&tiier than meaaures wanted — »jt the newly are easily swayed by spurious promitieti tuid Utopian schemes — men to v/hozu m^y he entrusted affaire, because of their capacity and honesty, aiid their sympathy with tho wants of fcaeii' conatitueutjj.

Such men, we may be pretty sure, will in the aggregate do what in the cirem-i* stances is best — far o.tter, than we can even instruct them to do— and we may be fully confideut that when any very great question arises a mandate will always bo asked from the electors, fiuch. representatives we trust much to j womanly instincts to select. Lavater had the portraits of twelve hundred 'celebretias in his study. He wrote a learned work on the fascinating subject of phyr.iognomy, and to the present day remains the leading authority upon it. "But," said the good pasfor, " j'd iathor in the business of life, notwith« standing my deep study of the subject, take n<y wife's opinion of a person's character than my own." This working of a subtle insight, testifiGd to by so good on authority, may help to counteract the masculine tendency to be guided rather by the intellect and views of a

candidate than by his character and life. Woman is by nature Conservative 1 ! and must feel and exorcise extraordinary sagacity, except when swayed by the master passion of love, ia selecting per** eons in whom to plaoe her confidence. It may be allowed that she never reasons, and always pokes the fire at the top, but many a Dr Fell will doubtless be rightly excluded when she goes to the ballot-box. We may accept the position, then, that wo shall soon have universal suffrage, and that the inclusion ofwomenwill be rather beneficial to Conservatism th.au otherwise. To this I will add (hat when tha privilege is once granted it can never easily be retracted ; the Rubicon is crossed, and the bridges burnt. This is my deliberate opinion, and though I may at some future time presume on an indulgent public to unfold a scheme of a new constitution, based upon the rights both of property and labour to representation of a speoial kmd,l shall do sowith little bop<3 of effecting any impression on the new electorate. It is riniewhat remarkable to observe how agreeably disappointing have been tbo immediate results of reform in Eags land to its opponents. Conservatism seems always to have risen, Phoenix-like, upon its own ashes. But it has been as the List flicker of a candle which ha 3 burnt low down into the socket. Amidst the conflict and confusion of faction th- calm and united action of a party which has but one undeviating eoxir.se to pursue often rise 3 supreme in the state. But when the new forces have become consolida-tedj the new harness adjusted, the now machinery oiled and greased, and its mechanism understood., the power passes into new hands. And what a tremendous power it is ! la the old days the one power that curbed the Parliament was physical force. The mob was a fourth estate not recognised by the constitution. Oade, Tyler, Gordon, and early in the present century such men as Ludd and Thorn, were at the head of a real power in the State that Lords and Commons had always to reckon with. The extension of the franchise has, however, removed in a large measure that indifference and discontent of the great body of the people which constituted the real power of the disorderly, and gave a moral tone to their enormities. It may be objected that the recent riots do not support my view. lodeed it may be with considerable historical and logical precision shown that ia democratic America the masses have been and are prone to resorfc to disorder for the purpose of redressing their wrongs. Kdgar A. Poa's mummy, when it was galvanized suddenly into life iv an America city, remarked that there was one fcyranfc ia their free republic, and his name was mob. This is unfortunately too true. It is also only too true that the Nottingham lambs that burnt down their fine old castle, and committed other and more serious enormities when the He* form Bill of 1831 was thrown out by the Lords, behaved with as much disorder , though with Jess mischief after the Lords had passed the late measure of a similar kind, These seta, however, can, even in the United States, bo explained as a reflex action', tb use a Darwinian phraße, resulting from centurie3 of oppression and ignorance, as being the outcome of popular tradition, which we ofcen find aurvive the cause of its origin. £nd just as we sometimes see Homan Catholic boys innocently assisting at the burning of a Guy Fawkes, so we fiud men exercising a power once useful to their order, but which their low intelligence does not allow them to see is quite unaiiited to tha new order of ! thingo. The mob is no longer backed by the people. Intelligence is fast spreading even to those classes who wantonly broke down the railings of a park to show their desire for reform, not for themselves but for the people at their backs. And here let me conclude by observing that if the new masters exercise their powers tentatively and truthfully, and with a wise discretion becoming their inexperience, it will be well for them and for those their former masters, over whom and over whose property they are now called upon to rule. Jkib this course can hardly be expected to be pursued without intelligence of a high order. I have confidence in the intelligence of the people of this colony, but let us jealously watch our educa* fcional system and guard its preservation, for both here and in Saglaud it will be the saviour of eocietj , I mention Bugland advisedly, because the Imperial Parliament acts most powerfully upon our own, and is intimately bound up in its destiny, so that we cannot be other* wise than concerned equally with the progress of education both here and in the.MotheL 1 Country.