THE REPRESENTATION BILL.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1285, 15 October 1886, Page 3

THE REPRESENTATION BILL.

From Hansard of August 11th we take the following speech delivered by Yinoent Pyke,- Esq,, on the Representation Bill

Mr PYKE—I really cannot allow the motion for the second reading of this Bill to pass without a few observations. I confess that, when I first took the Bill in my hand and endeavoured to make myself acquainted with its contents, the idea in my mind was that I had received a document from the Kingdom of Laputa—a country so admiranlv described by Dr Lemuel Gill liver, where the tailors take the attitude of their customers with sextants, and the bootmakers construct their wares on the most approved geometrical principles. I believe the m<in principle of this Bill is an automatical arrangement to provide for the representation in this House, Now, lam not at all enamoured of automatical representation. It appears to me to be only lit for a nation of automata. It is a great light and a great power which this House possesses within itself of directing in what manner the people of the country should he represented, and I think I could devise a much better, a safer, and a more dignified scheme than anything which is to be found within the four corners of this Bill. What does it propose! It proposes to appoint certain Commissioners, two of them to be officers in the public departments. The first of these is the Controller and Auditor-General, the selection of whom seems fo mo to put the matter in a still more arbhraetica' shape as a genera! proposition. Then there is the SurveyorGeneral. Now, if there be one man in the whole colony who is better acquainted with the geographic d circumstances of the colony than another I believe it is the Surveyor-General. For that I give him full credit. Then there are three gentlemen to he nominated by the members ot this' House ; and I really wonder what that would amount to. The delega* tion to Commissioners of such powers as these means that we are actually invited to strip ourselves of one of the functions pertaining to representative CnanViers in every part of the Empire ever since representation was accorded to the people. But here the principle is carried so far that, in addition to delegating these high functions to irresponsible poisons, the Bill abso lately seeks to invest them with discretionary powers, for I find that in subsection (5) of section 3 the lines run thus ; “ The Commissioners may, in making any such division into districts, take into consideration,” et j cetera. To first divest ourselves of our functions, and secondly give a discretionary power to irresponsible persons in this matter, is proceeding farther than I care to go in the lino of automatical change, i do rot know why a Committee of this House, limited to ten members—impartial men—should not be appointed at the beginning of next session, with the usual power to take evidence, in a room where every member of this House could go and represent the effect, which every change must.necessarily have in the colonv, and where the Surveyor General could give his very valuable testimony. I think wo could then complete a scheme without throwing the whole thing on the floor of this House to be scrambled for, as was done r.n the last occasion ; and it could be so 1 roughfc down that it would lie very difficult for any mem bar or members to disturb it. I trust that, is the course the Government will adopt. I cannot for a moment believe it possible that it is to men unacquainted with the country that it is intended to delegate our own function. Even the Surveyor-General, with his great knowledge of the country, has only geographical knowledge of it. He knows that there is a mountain here which would make a good boundary; that over yonler theie is a river which might be a good boundary ; but that says nothing, because people ou both sides of a river sometimes have diverse interests, and sometimes have joint’ interests. People on both sides ot a mountain are often similarly situated, - Therefore something more is required than knowledge of the geographical divisions of the country. I presume—or rather, not to beat about the hush, I know—that there is an intention to fill in this blank in the first subsection so as to reduce the number of mem bers iu this Hou e. I could hj r-.' wished that the Government bad I,- a

sufficiently unanimous to have i« > . : ,r i least in italics, tire number of <v they considered this House shrub! constituted. In their discretion tfiev ; have not done so ; and I have vo i doubt they have good, solid sati-afac* ! tory reasons for not doing so. However, as ir, has been advocated that the number of mem'erg should he reduced, I take it for granted that that is one of the objects which the Bill proposes to compass, I do not hesitate to sav that the number of memhens in this House is not too great at the present time 1 will show why. This House consists now of ninety* one members—exploding, of course, the Maori members, who are omitted from the operation, of this Bill— I though, by-lbe by, they wiil vote upon ■ it. In 187G the provinces were I abolished. Before they were abolished there wee 240 members of Pro--1 viucial Councils in hiew Zealand.

A dding the seventy-six members who were,in this House in 1876, there were, in all, 316 persons at that time doing the work which ninety one men do now, —with this difference: that upon this Legislature have been cast all those parochial functions which formerly devolved entirely upon Pro* vincial legislatures; and they are so thrown upon this House because the promise made at the time that Parliament was induced to accept the pro.posal to abolish the provinces has been carefully evaded or altogether broken. We have been given no full measure of local government, and we have none now. [f bv any words of mine I could induce the House to go back upon its steps and repeal the Abolition Act I would do so tomorrow. We have no local government in New Zealand; and, parochial affairs being thrown upon us, we must have men with parochial—that is, local knowledge, to explain these affairs. Let the Government, if they are in earnest in reducing the number of members in this House, bring down a full and fair measure of local government such as we have not yet had offered to us; let them take off this I l ouse all those things which take up the time of the House to the exclusion and injury of matters of greater and more national importance; and then we could consent to reduce the number of members to fifty or to a smaller number, if need be. At present we have not too many members, and we cannot, with any wisdom, make them fewer. It is often said, and justly, that a member is not a delegate ; nor was he a dele* gate until abolition of the provinces took place, since wlnjn this House has been converted, by a retrogressive step, from a Parliament into something more closely approaching the character of a parish vestry or County Council, and we have to undertake those small things necessaay to be dealt with, because there is no other power to ileal with them except that which exists in the highest Legislativo Assembly. I said, just now, that there was something more to be taken into consideration than mere geographical features; and there is. I may say, for myself, that 1 cannot possibly be injured or benefited in any change that may be made in the distribution of representation, because at the present time I represent three separate districts, really, in one —the people in any one of which do not know the other two—they have no interest in common with the other two. They have interests absolutely diverse ’in each district. I do not think you could place a member of any district in a more difficult position than that. 1 would ask, why should population bo the basis!—a thing never contemplated by the founders of the Constitution of the Colony, who absolutely made it part of the Constitution Act, only lately repealed, that the representation of the people of the country in this Chamber should be nearly as possible approximated to the number of electors on the various rolls of the country. I will enter more fully into that question presently. In the meantime I wish to show that New Zealand is not over-represented in comparison other colonies. Ninety-one members, as I said before, is the number O*lXlO European members in this House. Victoria has eighty-six members—with a larger population, I shall be told ; but Victoria is simply a handful, because it is compact—a man can attend Parlia ment and go home a hundred miles to his bed. Here he is a prisoner in Wellington for three months. Then, again, I question if there be a single man in this House or out of it thoroughly acquainted with the whole of New Zealand, and wo necessarily must have local men in order to understand from them the application of the local questions that come before us. You will please remember that, notwithstanding the compactness of Victoria ; and the scattered geographical character of New Zealand, thereis only a difference of five members. New South Wales has 12i members—that is, thirty more than Ve have. South Australia has only fifty-two—thirty-nine less than we have ; Queensland, fifty-five—thirty-six less than we have ; but it must be remembered that in those two colonies the population is one-half that of New Zealand,and if a strict mathematical rule were anplfed you would see that they have tw many members there even in cons pardon with what we have now. New Zealand is not so largely represented, considering the geographical configuration of the country, as the largest Au-.indiau ‘Monies, audit is not so 1 r.gely represented in ,proportion as th-> other colonies are in their p-'.iamtft H ousts of the same character. 1 1. has been said in the course of this debate that the number of merabms must necessarily be increased with the increase of population. Ido not sec that at all. because six thousand people living in one neighbourhood, compactly inhabits ting the same district, are as well and easily represented by one member as only two thousand would ' c, if their interests are idon‘i« cal. That is why I object altogether to a population basis, I prefer sticking altogether to the old Constitution Act, and I am extremely sorry that it should ever have been repealed. I think members of this House ought to be well and thoroughly acquainted with the Constitution Act, and it is quite unnecessary for me to quote the

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