POLITICAL DELIBERATION.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3359, 30 November 1871, Page 3

POLITICAL DELIBERATION.

<-> (New Zealand Mail) To pause ! How simple is the act — bow pregnant at times the consequences! To pause, constitutes one of the national traits of the Englishman. It is a virtue which he pushes to an extreme. It causes him to stand hesitating on the brink, instead of boldly plunging into the stream. But if it makes him slow, it also renders him sure. Pause, before determining on any enterprise, and you render its prosecution Jess rash, and its success more assumed. It is one of the

points obtained by the division of the Legislature into two Chambers. It has prevented many a foolhardy duel heing attempted, many a desperate deed from being perpetrated. It is a virtue which has not distinguished tho conduct of our legislators. They havo seldom adopted the precaution of looking before leaping. They have not been sufficiently far-seeing to enablo them to discern what will be the remote consequences of the measures they adopt. They seem not to have been aware that one fulse step, if not at once revealed, will lead to natural sequence. They have never felt that it would be better to pause — to stlnid still — than to proceed _a what may prove the wrong direction. This was never rendered so manifest as it was in the debate which took place on the eve of the prorogation of Parliament. Members all at once then became alive to the evils which too long and too frequent sessions occasion. They then became, for the first timo, aware that these evils were the natural consequences of their own acts. The framers of the Constitution Act foresaw those evils, and guarded against their occurrence. Had our legislators paused hefore tinkering that act, before usurping the powers of the Provincial Legislatures, and before adopting a system of Government which rendered annual session unavoidable, they would not have been called upon to meet so frequently, nor would they have had so much work to hurry through when they assembled together. It was precisely because Sir George Grey foresaw the evils of annual sessions and peripatetic Parliaments that he recommended the Provincial system. The virtual abolition of that system has rendered annual sessions unavoidable, has made them much longer than would otherwise have been necessary, and has raised the cry for peripatetic Parliaments. A persistence in a similar course will inevitably lead to the division of the colony. Would it not then be well for the Government and Legislature to pause hefore assenting to further organic changes ? Would it not be well, hefore taking any further steps in that direction, just to pause a little in order lo discover to what point they must inevitably lead ? It is because we believe tliat this would be a most advisable course to follow, that we are so little inclined to regret the rejection, or withdrawal of so many of the measures which were introduced into the two Houses during the past session. Every bill is now required to be read three times in each House before it can be made law ; and we are inclined to think that if the rule bad been adopted from the first, of requiring all bills, proposing constitutional changes, to be passed in three consecutive sessions before being carried into effect, it would have proved equally as wise and prudent an arrangement. Would not such a provision supersede to a great extent the necessity for a second Chamber ?