The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3302, 19 September 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 1873.

Those who attempt to excuse the conduct of the Legislative Council tell us “ there was no wonder that they acted as they did, for they wore threatened with being swamped by additions to their number or with extinction of the Chamber, if they rejected the Provincial Loans Bill.” To put forth so flimsy an excuse —-for no man would be guilty of such an abuse of language as to term it a reason—is, to our minds, one of the severest condemnations of the Council, as at present constituted. Dryden asserted that Men are but children of a larger growth ; and were they in general to act on motives so childish as is the one imputed to them by their excusers, it would be a verification of the poet’s scoff. We have heard children taunt each other with not daring to do some foolish thing, and we have seen foolish children do rash and silly actions, in order to prove their disregard of danger or of consequences. But to suppose an assemblage of

Most potent, grave, and reverend signors, should act from such childish motives, is to attribute to them utter unfitness for the high position in which they have been placed. We do not think it fair to arrive at a conclusion concerning the usefulness of an Upper House on account of its occasionally differing from the Lower Chamber in opinion. Esteeming the position of the Council to be that of a revising assembly, supposed to be free from the pressure that can be brought to bear upon a representative Chamber whenever popular opinion runs high in a given direction, its duty is to separate the good from the bad, to eliminate clauses in an Act that would work badly, or suggest such alterations as would tend to render a measure more perfect. But it must be plain to the least instructed that such high functions can only be properly fulfilled by men of superior education and intelligence. Had the Legislative Council of New Zealand possessed those attributes, in all probability they would have signalised themselves by working with the Government in introducing the safeguard against logrolling and hap-hazard borrowing, provided by the Provincial Loans Bill. But unfortunately the test of talent, at least in the Colonies, is a fallacious one. At Home, the possession of hereditary wealth is a guarantee for its possessor having received a good education. But there, as in New Zealand, the idea that the ability to gain a fortune is a proof that a man is capable of succeeding in politics as well as money-making

is utterly fallacious. Man’s mind has so much of the mechanical about it, that his thoughts run most naturally in that groove to which they have been fitted by long practice: so that it is hardly likely that the process of getting rich, which almost necessarily implies concentration of effort on behalf of “ self,” is the best school for learning the science of politics, which implies looking out of “ self,” and of needful sacrificing “ self” for the sake of others. So true is this, that where money has been made by “saving and scraping,” it is almost a sure sign, of a contracted mind; and where money has been made by the “ tumbling luck,” so characteristic of the career of our Colonial magnates during the last twenty-two or three years, the possession of wealth affords no indication whatever of the mental qualifications of its owner. Yet it is from this class that our Legislative Council has been called. Men who have been privileged to attend a Governor’s ball, or enjoy themselves at a Governor’s table ; men who happen to participate in the ideas of the Minister of the day ; men who once sat in the House of Representatives, but who have forfeited the confidence of their constituents, and would never again be elected were they to become candidates ; men who possess large estates ; some few men who have served the Colony, who have ability, but who have fixed ideas on colonisation, cherished through their connection with the past. If to these be added a few names capable of judging soundly on present requirements, we have, we fear, too faithful an analysis of the composition of the Upper House. To this majority of incapacity is to be attributed the steady persistence of the House in opposition to many useful and necessary measures. For three years they have shown their tendency towards class legislation. The Premier, in order to render the public works scheme as extensively useful as possible, has kept in view the sound principle that they whose property is improved by local public works should bear the taxation, if any, consequent upon their construction. One would have thought that this proposition, so fair in itself, and so likely to conduce to the development of the material wealth of the Colony, would have met with ready acquiescence ; especially as the condition on which such works were to be executed tended to lead to caution and to careful estimates of their remunerative character. Instance after instance may be given of reckless expenditure forced upon a Government by logrolling. So long as public money can be appropriated for private advantage, a road may be diverted, a bridge thrown over a river, or even a branch railway made, by a combination of the friends of the man to be benefited ; but when he is expected to bear the expense of improving his own estate, he will be well assured that what he seeks to be done is worth the outlay. This conservative feature is the true character of the measure rejected by the Council. It has appeared in different forms, but the tendency is the same; and in our judgment the Provincial Loans Bill offers the clearest advantages yet proposed. To say that the Council have acted in the popular interest, would be to close our eyes to the primary principles of progress : to say that they have acted even intelligently for their own interest, would be co give them credit for selfish foresight they have shown themselves blind to. In this instance, as in many others, they have acted so as to press upon the country the absolute necessity for a change either in the persons or constitution of the Chamber; for even in the mildest view of their doings, they have acted in a class spirit.