The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 222, 3 September 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3.

The Session still drags itself along, but, for the present at any rate, is marked by an utter absence of life. Br Wallis appears likely to carry his Bill providing for triennial Parliaments. The Government are supporting the measure individually, though, of course, it is not made a Government question. We think the proposal is at least premature. There is a great deal of force in the objection that it takes a member at least one Session to get into harness, while at the same time there is a general disinclination to deal with important questions in what is called a " moribund " Parliament. 80 that, if this Bill becomes law, there will only be one Session in the lifetime of each Parliament in which any real work will be done. What with the frequent changes in the personnel of the House during its ordinary term, and the power of dissolution in the event of any crisis occurring, we think it highly improbable that an Assembly would be likely to remain for any length of time with a majority in antagonism to the expressed wish of the country at large. When wr- consider the turmoil and expense, public and private, which accompanies a general election, we cannot think that it would be advisable to incur all the certain evil attending such an experiment for the sake of the very problematical benefit to be derived therefrom. The debate on the financial proposals of the Government commenced on Friday evening, when Mr Ballance, in moving the second reading of the Land Tax Bill, stated that he should not confine himself to that measure, but invited discussion on the whole of the Government policy. The tenor of the debate so far seems to be favorable to the Government proposals as a whole, though various details were objected to. The tax on the profits of joint stock companies is found fault with on the ground that the typical " poor man's " savings are invested in them, while the large capitalist escapes scot free. The latter need not be under the least alarm but that, in due process ot time, he will be got at effectually, in the ineantimc, this anxiety for the rights of the "poor man" is rather suspicious. In the course of the debate on the Electoral Bill, the Hon. Mr Sheehan made the following remarks, which we believe to be eminently prophetic. We have called attention to the same question already, and we believe that all thinking men must see that the state of things therein foreshadowed is coming to pass, and that the sooner it does so the better for our chance of good govenmi"nt. The hon. gentleman said : — " You have bean governed for years past, not on the broad principles of right and wrong, but on questions of roads, bridges, and railways. A man came here to get a road or a bridge—if he could not get what he wanted, he would not be allowed return—and he fought as hard as lie possibly could, and, I believe, often voted on party questions to get it. Now the time has come when we aie going to vote on principle, and I trust that, although the result may not appear this year to be fully .realised, the time is not far distant when we shall have two welldefined parties in the House. Not until then will you have good government. It may happen that before that is accomplished the party of which we are composed, or the men who now lead that party, may have disappeared. But Ido not care for that. Give me two welldefined parties with broad principle animating them. Ido not care which party is in power, so long as I see a good Opposition to combat them." These are statesmanlike views, and the sooner all electors come to realize the coming position, and form an intelligent opinion on all public matters, the better will it be for the common weal.