THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 336, 26 September 1879, Page 13

THE NEW PARLIAMENT.

The new Parliament has met, and before what we are now writing is printed, the Governor's opening speech will have been delivered. It is already pretty well known what the topics of that speech will be, and as to the rest it would be idle to speculate. A few days will serve to decide the fate of the Government, and a few weeks to enlighten the publicj as to the probable course of future legislation. There will be, no doubt, a Franchise Bill and a Representation Bill, and probably a taxation Bill, and a great fight over the expenditure of the five million loan. But as to the ultimate fate of these measures it is just now very difficult to pronounce an opinion. These and such measures, if passed in such form as the public expect, will help considerably to modify the Legislation of the country, and effect some startling changes. There does not appear, however, any indication of a wiser policy on the subject of education. And yet this is our greatest need. It is vain to extend the basis of the franchise and remodel representation if the rising generation continue to be brought up in godless schools. Godless education such as is unhappily now established by law in New Zealand can only result in demoralising its inhabitants and undermining all the safeguards and securities of life and property. Neither is there any indication that the representation will be remodelled in the direction of giving representatives to minorities. The theory of the Constitution is that the people and all their interests should be represented. But unfortunately the practice is the opposite of the theory. The people are not, in point of fact, represented, and legislation is not the outcome of the opinions of even the majority. It is true that in the hist resort the wishes of the majority must prevail, but in the Legislature all should be represented and all interests consulted. Such, however, is not the case at present, nor do the Government proposals mean to remedy this crying evil. The present Parliament, as all Parliaments, represents only

the majority of such electors as chose to go to the poll, so that the minority in each locality is not in any sense represented, and in Parliament itself it is the majority of this majority that controls all legislation and ultimately shapes it. Tbe result is that legislation really represents the ideas and wishes of only a fraction of a fraction of the whole community.

Out of four hundred and fifty thousand people, sixty-five thousand arc not even in the remotest sense of the word represented at all, their voice is not heard, their wishes are slighted, their principles ignored or contemned. No attention whatever is paid to their principles, and no deference to their conscientious convictions. And not only is this the case, but there are tens of thousands of others who are similarly situated. How many representatives, for example, have the working men, as they are erroneously called, in Parliament, how many the advocates of Christian and moral education ? Echo answers, how many ? And is the present Parliament likely to even discuss any remedy for this absurd system, which pretends to represent the people, and in reality represents only the majority to the utter exclusion of vast numbers and of weighty interests. Under the Constitution, as worked at present, the majority not only rules, but is the only portion, of the people that is even heard in Parliament. "We know that some of our enthusiastic members say they wish to represent all classes of their constituents. But it is in many cases a farce to say so. Why, we have known cases in which Members of Parliament so far from representing a large section of their so-called constituents, refused even to present their petitions for a redress of grievances. And this is the style of thing that is called representation. And it is only a few days ago since Mr. J. C. Brown was bitterly opposed in Tnapeka because he dared, in the late Parliament, to present the petition of 65,000 of his Catholic fellow citizens. The truth is, the majority is not only determined to rule, but also to stifle all discussion in Parliament that is distasteful to it.

Democracies can act the tyrant as efficaciously as individuals, and we have a proof of this in the way in which the opponents of godless education are treated by the Parliament of New Zealand. The autocrat of Russia does not impose his will more tyranically on his slaves than does the Parliament of New Zealand impose godless education on those who are conscientiously opposed to it.