The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1873

Evening Star, Issue 3306, 24 September 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1873

The wholesale rejection by the Legislative Council of measures passed by the House of Parliament is indicative of something beyond & mere difference of opinion on one or two points of policy. Last evening we pubiisfvid &U abstract from a Wellington paper, aia wliiph were stated, in a summarised form., some of the reasons that led t© throwing on# the Bill legalising marriage with the sifttor pf p- deceased wife. Flimsy and absurd as these reasons appear, and although there are others <of * more pretentious characters, even the best of them will not bear tire test of reason or of scholarly investigation. Three times has the House of Kepresemtatives passed the measure, and thrice has it been thrown out by the Upper Chamber; although it must be very plain, from its having become law in (South Australia and in Victoria, and through the Acts of the Legislatures of those Colonies having been confirmed at Home, the measure commends itself to the common sense and right feeling of mankind. Perhaps it may be said in extenuation that they have only acted as the Lords have done at Home, who

lave persistently refused to sanction the Bill, although it has passed the Commons annually, during several sessions. It is this aping of the Lords that is bringing the Legislative Council into such utter contempt. If the Legislative Council ■were situated like the House of Lords, having privileges and an order to maintain, mixed up with obsolete ecclesiasticism, and trained in all its middle-age formalities and wornout theology, there might be some shadow of an excuse for not keeping pace with the progress of sound learning and justice. Privelcge has a necessary tendency to intolerance, and to a certain extent there is a separation in modes of thought and estimates of the incidence of social lawsbetweentheprivilegcd and the unprivileged classes. But this ought not to be the case in the Colonies. The two Houses are made up of men whose, station in life is equal ) whose opportunities of acquiring information are equal; or if superiority of intellect and attainments is found, the advantage is with the House of Representatives. The only privilege possessed by the Council is that of having been nominated to seats they hold for life, instead of being elected on .account of their talent, capacity public business, and attainments. Die chances, therefore, are that many sit in the Upper Chamber who would never be trusted to represent a constituency. On these grounds, we cannot but wonder that men, many of whom must be conscious of their unfitness to judge correctly on such a matter, should not have paid more respect to the huge majority by • which the measure was passed in the House of Representatives. They ought to consider themselves merely a sort of Standing Committee of that House, whose business it is to watch that each measure adopted is carefully fitted for the end designed. If the majority by which a questionable Bill was carried was small, and, after a closely conducted scrutiny, there was a doubt of its working they would be justified in it or suggesting modifications. But where it is so decided as to amount to a fixed expression of approbation by the country though its representatives, their duty is to consider themselves bound to sanction so general a vote, and that they themselves form part of the community likely to be benefited by the measure. Fifteen men against eight only reduces the majority of the combined Houses by seven, and amongst the fifteen will be found the names of many whose education and social training should for ever have debarred them from being placed in a position to thwart intelligent legislation. If a lord is a born fool there is no help for it—he is privileged, and hiis his vote j but some of Mr Staffords lords—we mean men lifted into the Council during his tenure of office—were placed there after decided evidence of incapacity and after the popular voice had pronounced against them, and now we arc reaping the fruits of that reign of lack wisdom in obstruction to all useful legislation.