The Referendum Bill

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 47, 19 November 1903, Page 1

The Referendum Bill

The Referendum Bill was brought up for second reading in the Legislative Council on last Friday It pioposed to refer to the \otes ot the electors the questions of Bible-reading in State schools, fieehold xeisus leasehold tenure,( and Uhq reform or 'alioh/tian of the 'Upper House It was, m part, tantamount to an imitation to our nominee House of ' Lords 'to sign its death-warrant as a legislatee Chamber 01 to peirfoim a political hari-kin or ' happy despatch ' The ' Lords ' vehemently declined the invitation. They contemptuously refused the fly-blown Bill a second reading, trampled arid spat and danced upon it and tossed it out of the Gilded Chamber on a storm of ridicule which m some respects w,as certainly very justifiable. ' The political Cowards' Castle,' was the nickname flung by the lion. W. Carncross at the ill-starred measuie. Sir Alfred Cadraan described it as ' another Bill to enable the weak-kneed and xaeillatmg members of the House of 'Rejpretsem^tatneis ilo shirk their duty afrtel abrogate theur functions and still draw full salanes ' ' I am going to use my boot to the Bill,' said the lion II Tomoana, 1 and kick it out.' And it was kicked out—six-and-twonty legislative footballers carrying it with a fierce rush past the flabby and half-heaited defence of the two lone ' Peers ' that stood for the verdict of the lower Chamber. The chief lesson of the debate—if so onesided a discussion can be called a debate —was the unexpected capacity for defiant and picturesque invectne wihich was developed by our usually decorous Upper House. Butler says that ' Men as resolute appear With too much or too little fear ; And when they're out ot hopes of flying, Will run away lrom death by dying , Or turn again to stand it out, And those they fled, like lions rout ' Was it fear of coming political overhauling or extinction —of the threatened ' mending or ending ' —that roused the revising Chamber to such a coruscating display of oratorical satire ? Or was it the crying impropriety of referring questions of the rights of conscience of minorities to the stormy perils of a chance vote, taken, perhaps, under the spell of hounded-up sectarian feeling ?