West Coast Times. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1894.

West Coast Times, Issue 9916, 31 August 1894, Page 2

West Coast Times. FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 1894.

Althougii the Referendum Bill has

received its quietus for this session there is no doubt but that it will be brought forward ajrain, and if the members of the House feel an increasing dislike to the thraldom of party they Will carry it. This does not, however, mean that the Bill is soon likely to become law. The Legislative Cpuncil will be certain to regard it with disfavor as.it seriously cuttails the power of the second chamber — \n fact the advocates of this new poli-

tical principle proclaim that were tho Bill carried there would be no necessity for another chamber because the people, acting directly, say whether the measure submitted for reference shall become law or not. The present Government are likely to assist in the movement because they carry the system of government by party to such an inordinate degree and so repeatedly insist upon the necessity for party loyalty that they will disgust members with the whole thing and make them fly off to the Referendum, or anything else that promises relief. This wduld give Sir Robert Stout, as the apostle of a new democracy, a plank for his new platform when he goes before the country and asks the electors to return J)im and his friends to power,

which he assuredly will do in a year or two. The principle of a referendum is exciting discussion in other countries besides New Zealand at the present time, and even a steady going Conservative paper like the Spectator can find much to say in its favor. The strongest argument advanced is one ire often hear and as our contemporary gives it in a very plain and forcible form we reprint it : —

" A party programme is drawn up, of which we hear many praises, and for which the party votes en masse. The Liberal elector finds Home.-rule sandwiched, perhaps, between the Payment of Members and Disestablishment. He has very hazy views of them, perhaps, and a very clear perception of his approval of the third, and so he votes for all indiscriminately ; or a Conservative elector finds Women's Suffrage sandwiched between a measure for insuring him a competence for his old a?e and a measure for federating the Colonies and fortifying distant coaling stations, and he, too, has a strong impression of the advantages of some of these proposals, and hardly any distinct notion as to the wisdom and folly of the others. He votes for them in block, and finds himself perhaps saddled with one on which he had no clear opinion at all, and as far as ever from obtaining the measure for which he really wished. How can he feel personally responsible for whit he never really cared to do, but was induced to do so solely by the confusion into which he was betrayed by his party leaders between a policy he desired and a policy on which he had never had a single coherent idea ?"

Although this is a forcible manner of illustrating the position it is not altogether a true one. In the first place it is assumed that the average member is deficient in the necessary industry or the necessary brains to form an intelligent opinion on more than one important policy Bill submitted for his consideration ; at any rate that he is not able to properly decide between one Bill which he thinks is for the public benefit and two which may in his mind have a contrary effect. The argument advanced by the Spectator, and the practice apparently adopted by the present New Zealand Government, is that government by party is government by the Ministry of the day and that thenbehests must be implicitly obeyed or themselves and the whole of their policy go to the wall. This is only an exaggeration of the system. Government by party means in precise terms what it says, a government by the party having the greatest numerical strength with chiefs of recognised ability to undertake the Avork of administration and initiate such legislation as the party as a whole approve of. In New Zealand, at the present time, we have not government by party, but the majority of the members, elected by a democracy, are blindly supporting an oligarchy. Such a state of things is always possible with masterful Ministers and members whose moral and intellectual calibre is below the common. We admit that it is a pity government by party can be perverted in this way, but can only say, in mitigation, that the most perfect system under the sun can be mide an instrument for wrong if those carrying it out are weak in intelligence or moral principle. That government by party is liable to abuse we all know, but the

referendum is equally if not more dangerous. Experience has tjs^ghji us the evils of one and bo far they have not been very serious, the evils of the other we can easily anticipate.