The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1873. THE SESSION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume I, Issue 25, 18 October 1873, Page 6

The New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1873. THE SESSION.

Ask public opinion as to what was done by Parliament during last Session, and you shall receive for answer — nothing. By this, of course, is meant not that absolutely nothing was done, but that there was very little in the way of legislation. Men seem surprised and disappointed that it should have been so. These, however, are not our sentiments. On the contraryj it has afforded us unspeakable relief to know that our legis--lateis have been able, even during one Session, to keep their hands off the Statute Book to any appreciable extent. One of the greatest evils of modern times is the vast number of ill-digested, impolitic laws. This it is which causes so much unquiet, and such a sense of insecurity in society, as well as loss of time and waste of money in the work of legislation, which all deplore. These characteristics of modern law-making are the scandal of the age, and the bane of society. Men are beginning to lose respect for law, and the makers of law; nor is 'this wonderful, when it is borne in mind that laws are often unintelligible, often unworkable, and that a great part of the business of each succeeding Session, is the correction of the blunders of the previous ones. In our opinion it is very much better to have no legislation than that which is bungling, defective, and needing instant repeal or amendment It is better to wait and endure, than rush madly into dangerous courses. Again, men are surprised that Parliaments should make so many mistakes ; and here again, we are unable to share in this surprise. The contrary is the fact, and we should be amazed indeed were it otherwise. For what is their work and what is their fitness for the work ? Before ausAvering this question, which in a certain general way suggests its own answer, iv will be both interesting and useful to glance at the work they undertake to do. Practically, at the present <lay there are no limits to the sphere of legislation. Parliaments consider themselves competent and justified in interfering in all the relations of men and of society. " Besides devisinp measures to prevent the aggression of citizens on each others and to secure each the quiet possession of his own ; and besides assuming the further function, also needful in the present state of mankind, of defending tie nation as a whole, against invaders ; they unhesitatingly take on themselves to provide for countless wants, to cure countless evils, to oversee countless affairs." Religion, education, poverty, municipalities, emigration, public works, hours of labour, trade, commerce; agriculture, railway and steam-boat travelling, national defences, tariff for vehicles, inspection, of lodging houses, character of buildings in towns, vaccination, taxes, &c, &c. &c.\ do not exhaust the list of subjects on. which modern legislators undertake to make laws. It is no part of our business to-day to enquire whether they usurp functions beyond their legitimate competence. But it may be permitted to us to say that they are themselves ignorant as to the limits of the duties properly belonging to them. What are the limits of legislation ? Here is the first and most important question in relation to this subject. How many members of Parliaments are qualified to deal with it, and the other subjects indicated above ? It is no wonder, therefore, that so many mistakes Lave been made in all Parliaments ; but the real wonder is that there have not been more. • For all other duties and professions, special preparation and training are inexorably insisted on. Ministers of religion,

lawyers, surgeons, physicians, apothecaries, engineers, merchants, bankers, tradesmen, &c, must all make special preparation j and, in most cases after strict Hxamination, rnceive a' diploma of fitness before they are permitted to undertake the duties of their various avocations. But the legislator, whose business it is to regulate the various relations of all orders and ranks of society, and whose duties are perhaps the most complex and difficult of all, is subjected to no special training or test of fitness. Anybody is, it appears, good enough and fit enough to be a legislator! This, indeed, is wonderful! But we shall be told the constituencies are judges, and the best judges of the qualifications of their representatives. This we take leave to doubt, for the very obvious reason that electors cannot possibly be judges of that of which they know nothing. What do constituencies know ot the phenomena of the, life of a nation 1 ? or of the complex and high, duties of legislators 1 They have never made such questions their study, they have not been trained any more than their representatives to the investigation of them. Considering then that the special education absolutely necessary for both constituencies aud representatives has bern utterly neglected, it appears to be about as reasonable to expect wise legislation from our Parliaments, as it would be to hope that a party of landsmen who had never been to sea, would be able to bring a ship safely through the perils of a voyage from New Zealand to Great Britain. Philosophers, we are aware, will concede all this, for the evil of unqualified legislators is the one which Political Economists do most deplore; but the common sense men, who are of course above all such nonsense as philosophy, will answer — the Press, Sir, the Press will instruct and keep all in order. But there is no special training for the gentlemen of the Press. The staff of public writers is recruited hap-hazard, and there is no security that even these may not be quacks. All, then, considered, it is for us a subject of congratulation that th^ last Session has been remarkable for the comparatively small number of its enactments.