The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2949, 1 August 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 1, 1872.

NOTHING of very .serious importance has yet been brought before Parliament, which seems to have been employed chiefly in enabling members to settle down comfortably in their special grooves. This is the usual course. Ministers during the first week or two, as a rule, do not hurry on important business. They feel the pulse of the House, and from the development of the pet schemes enunciated by honorable members, ascertain the nature and degree of support they are likely to receive. So far as yet appears, no strong opposition has been formed. Mr Gilliics and Mr Stafford evidently cannot agree as to Provincialism, and, notwithstanding the rumored threatening aspect of the caucus on Saturday, nothing very definite seems yet to have resulted from it. The Government have contented themselves with introducing very few measures as yet, but different members have brought forward Bills, to the preparation of which each seems to have given special attention. Three leading questions were opened up by different members that must eventually be dealt with thoroughly, even should they not be grappled with seriously this session. Mr Gillies introduced a Bill for the abolition of imprisonment for debt ; Mr Curtis, one for Law Reform ; and Mr Bathgate, a National Banking and Currency Bill. So far as the principle involved m Mr Gillies’s motion is concerned, intelligent public opinion has been in its favor for years. Debt, unaccompanied by fraud, should not be punished as a crime. It is the result of a mutual agreement, whereby the creditor is content to incur a certain risk, which is unavoidable where credit is given, on the expectation of realising a profit on the transaction. It is always optional whether he will undertake or decline the risk, and as a matter of policy, it g»ems to be the most unsatisfactory mode of settling accounts to place a man in prison, and thus prevent his using any effort whatever to obtain means to pay bis debts. Imprisonment for debt may be a mode of gratifying resentment, but very much reminds one of cutting otf the nose to be revenged on the face. A man whose hands are free to labor may perhaps pay a debt owing: a man in prison will never earn enough to do so. With regard to law reform, there is need enough of that; but the need is more as to the mode in which cases arc dealt with than with the law itself. ft is harassing in the extreme to find that there is no final settlement of a simple commercial transaction, until after it has been before a Court two or three times in different forms. Ultimately such a system must defeat itself. Men arc beginning to be afraid of asserting their legal rights when they find, in order to establish them, it is necessary to expend three or four times the amount of the value involved. If Acts of Parliament could be so framed as to define exactly what might and what might not be done in certain cases, it would not remove the difiiculty of deciding whether certain transactions were or were not of the class specified. Our difficulty is not so ranch with the law, as with its administration. Mr Gillies’s Bill may pass this session. We do not think Mr Curtis’s will. But the measure we look at with the greatest degree of apprehension is the proposed meddling with Banking and Currency by Mr Bathgate. We know of nothing so dangerous as this, and the danger is immeasurably increased by the almost universal ignorance that prevails on the subject. Three or four times has the Government of Great Britain tampered with its currency during this century, and each time with ruinous effect to Ihe commerce of the world. Such a universal derangement of commercial transactions could not of course follow legislative action in New Zealand, but in its local effects it might be disastrous, We do not know what form Mr Bathgate’s currency crotchet may have taken, for we have not his Bill yet to hand. It may be favorable or adverse to the interests of existing institutions ; it may, for aught we know, contemplate expansion of credit, or it may tend to contract it. But, whatever its nature, it requires the most earnest scrutiny by all classes. There is something

in the currency question, that tends to drive men from its thorough investigation. We do not think it so abstruse as is generally supposed, but because of currency measures necessarily working in secret, and because results do not often follow immediately on certain lines of action, and because they are seldom directly traceable to them, the operation of certain systems of cuirency is involved in mystery. We do nob believe Mr Bathgate has sufficient clearness of brain or such intimate knowledge of the subject to unravel so complicated a mesh. It is very easy to unsettle our present system. We do not think it would he very difficult to get up a cry against it on very frivolous and insufficient grounds. A few popular prejudices about foreign capital, profits going away, keeping gold in the country, banking oppression, and other nonsense, which, if wo mistake not we have heard fall from the lips of Mr Bathgate, might be applied to creating an idea, that we might save a good deal by manufacturing our own money. But the arguments we have heard on the subject, though calculated to catch the ear will not bear investigation. However, we win not fight with a phantom. Until we see the Bill we cannot express an opinion on its provisions. Our estimate of Mr Bathgate is that he has sufficient self-con tidence, as was said of Lord John Bussell, to assume the command of the Channel licet ; but wc confess to being so doubtful of his 'ability as to feel very cowardly under his leadership.