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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3165, 20 August 1881, Page 2

Not a session ot the General Assembly passes by without the Legislative Council giving some striking illustration of the value of the existence of an Upper House. Tbe colony will never forget that it was the Council which in 1879 preserved the liberties of the people. On that memorable occasion the Upper House rejected Sir George Grey's bill giving manhood suffrage to the natives, by the operation of which eight constituencies in this Island would have been practically disfranchised. This year we have seen that the amendments to bills that have been made by the Council have been marked by a careful consideration of the effect the measures would have on the rights of the people. In the " Gaming and Lotteries Bill," and in the " Licensing Bill," this has been eepecially the case ; and the last act of the Council in throwing out the "Distraint for Rent" Bill there may be seen a soundness of judgment that is ever so conspicuously absent in the deliberations of the Lower House. The " Distraint for Bent" Bill was a measure to put the landlord on the same footing with other creditors, a mo9t unjust and inconsiderate proposal. _ A tenant whose apparent position might enable him to obtain a large extent of credit would be occupying a house of a high rental. In debt in all directions he would neither pay the rent nor keep the house in repair, and he would know that he could not be turned out at a moment's notice. The ordinary creditor could stop supplies at any moment, and if he never received what was due to him the amount owing would be the extent of the loss. Not so with the landlord, for he would not only have lost his rent, but he would lose the cost of putting his house in repair, and he might wait many months before securing another tenant. The positions of landlord and ordinary creditor in a bankrupt estate are not the same, and a bill to put them on an equality is unjust. While we believe that some amendment of the existing law would be advantageous, we think the Upper House did wisely in throwing out tbe crude measure that was laid before it.