THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1724, 24 December 1887, Page 3

THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

We have, ever been staunch opponents of the abolition of the Legislative Council — a erase which has on sundry and divers occasions, during the last twenty years, spread its baleful influence over the length and breadth of the colony, and produced a ferment of agitation not altogether complimentary to the Upper Chamber. We have always written againsLtfeo »V/««»t~w'~i'«o--agu»t»«~» — cve -abolition of the Upper -irouse. We have always looked upon thfs branch of the Legislature as one possessing and exercising a salutary check on any hasty or reckless legislature which might be, at any time, enacted "m another place." We must confess, however, that a certain little incident which occurred m the Council on Wednesday last, has greatly shaken our faith m the honour, bona fides, or honest intentions of the members composing that august assemblage of the Nestors of the colony. On reading the telegraphic precis of those proceedings, we found that a number of Bills had been received from the Honse of Representatives, read a first time, and their second reading ordered for " presently." Among those was one intituled " The South Island Native Reserves Bill." We trust our readers will bear this title m mind. When the Premier, on the previous day, moved the second reading of this Bill m the House of Representatives, he briefly stated that it was intended, to provide for the management of the Native Reserves m the South Island. As we have said, it passed its first reading m the Legislative Council as the South Island Native Reserves Bill, but when the motion tor the second reading was proposed by the Attorney-General, it was the second reading of the Westland and Nelson Native Reserves Bill ! No such Bill had passed the House of Representatives. No such Bill had been read a first time m the Legislative Council, and yet Mr Attorney-General, with unblushing impudence, moved its second reading ! Well might the Hon H. K. Taiaroa complain of the alteration of the title, by which the natives of the South and of Stewart Island were excluded from the provisions of the Bill. As no notice, was taken of the Hon Mr Taiaroa's complaint, we may reasonably assume that it was not a mere lapsus hnguce, and we are, therefore, forced to the conclusion that a deliberate attempt to foist on the Council, a supposititious Bill has been made by the Government and connived at by a majority of the Honorable Members of the Council — or that the honorable members of the Council have themselves been guilty of perpetrating a gross political fraudj or a piece of flagrant jobbery. We are grieved to be compelled to write so 9trongly on the subject, but a sense of duty to the Natives who have been, either negligently or fraudulently, unjustly excluded from the provisions of the Bill as passed by the House of Representatives, impels us. to deuounce m emphatic language this unparalleled abuse of Parliamentary forms (?) to emasculate and, m fact, to defeat a Bill which had already passed the Lower House, and one th?,t wag calculated to afford gre_a* benefits to the Natives of tfijg portion of the colony.

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