"OBSTRUCTION" PERFECTED.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 332, 29 August 1879, Page 11

"OBSTRUCTION" PERFECTED.

The following is an extract from an article which appeared in a recent number of Savnders 1 Irish Daily Nens :— «lt is « hari , 171 7 to ° much t0 say tbat » if non-intervention of Messrs. Parnell and Biggar and their allies could be secured, the Government would practically have it their own way henceforward with a Parliament which, in only too many ways, shows that it is moribund. Towards the end of last session the condition we have supposed was realised by the introduction of the Intermediate Education Bill, and the expected result immediately ensued. The members tor Meath, Cavan, and Dungarvan at once retired from the scene of their labours, or rather they stayed where they were, and did nothing but smile on Mr. Speaker, while Ministerial bill after bill and vote after vote, which, under other circumstances, would not have failed to arouse their Argus-eyed hostility, excited not their curiosity and passed rapidly through their various stages. Everyone congratulated everyone else on the smoothness which so unexpectedly marked the working of the Parliamentary machine. A similar spectacle has been recently witnessed. After having, on St. Patrick's Day, given an example of the finest and most effective kind of obstruction— the obstruction was so skilful that it was universally praised as a piece of usef ul discussion— Mr. Parnell suddenly withdrew to Avondale, and did not reappear at his old post till the week before last, the consequence being that in the interval more Government business was done than in the whole previous part of the session. What, on the other hand, the obstructives can do to prevent Government business from being transacted it is easy to see. It is more than probable, indeed, that the House of Commons would not now tolerate the practices which first brought Messrs. Parnell and Biggar into general notice. Frequent motions for the adjournment of the House and the debate, endless and apparently causeless marchings through the division lobbies, wholesale notices of objection, and such like rude expedients for wasting time, are no longer possible. But, as we have Bhown more than once, those expedients were but the first essays in an art which has reached a development practically beyond Parliamentary cure. Obstruction now consists merely in exhibiting an intelligent and minute interest in every matter that comes before the House, the expectation being— and it is an expectation justified by experience— that if every point is discussed, no matter how briefly in the end yery little work will be found to have been performed. Now, it is only necessary to look at the Government programme as expounded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to be able to judge of the opportunities afforded by the exercise of this truly destructive criticism. «We have," said Sir Stafford Northcote a few days since, brought in, on the part of the Government, no fewer than 28 bills all of which are now before the House. Of these a great number— l 4 — haye not passed the second reading, and upon seven of those the bpeaker has not been moved out of the chair, and five are in committee, and have to be considered on report. Of the five in committee, the Valuation Bill has 112 clauses, and at the present time is on clause six, while the Army Bill, which contains 180 clauses, has only reached clause 44. So much for the bills. Then with regard to Supply, we have had only two votes out of 26 on the Army Estimates, and we have also only got two votes out of 80 for the Navy Estimates, and 71 out of 142 on the Civil Service Estimates." One hundred and 6ix clauses of one bill, one hundred and thirty-six of another, and one hundred and seventy-three votes, upon each of which something useful to the public can be said by an industrious legislator I The prospect is one, positively, to enchant the Obstructionist soul. With his knowledge of military matters, Mr. Parnell might undertake to keep the House for a month over the Army Bill alone, and yet defy anyone to say, with reference to any particular act of his, in its regard, that it had wasted time. The thing is as plain as light, that hitherto much of the work done by the House of Commons —notably, the passing of the estimates— has been done in silence, and simply at the bidding of Ministers, and if any member of the legislature henceforth insists oh changing this procedure, on taking nothing for granted, on investigating for himself the grounds of each several provision submitted to his consideration, he will himply prevent the execution of even half of the most moderate programme a Ministry could venture to propose.