LEGISLATIVE REFORM.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 55, 27 December 1882, Page 3

LEGISLATIVE REFORM.

The Canterbury Press, in a recent issue, says : --There is a widespread feeling that if tiie constitution ofejtli r Hoiish needs to bf reformed, it is that of the House ot Representatives rather than that of the Legisir.rive (Vtincil. Kvpn demagogues who formerly made tho abolition of the Count- 1 a cardinal fea'ure in their claptrap p; ogramine, now content their. Avqs with advocating insignificant modifications of the pi wers of that Cl amber. U c do nut mean to ?ay iliac the I egislative Council h:ive regaiued the , high place they one* held in public respect ; for such is very far from bein»- the csise. Hut th*-y srarul higher than they itid a year ago; and relatively t'i the I louse of Representatives, the} r stand higher than they stood sit any time within the past three year>. Many people still hold, probably, that the Council ought to be made elective, or that this, that, or the other change in their constitution ought to be made. But looking at the work the Council did, and the good services they rendered last session, and then 10.-king at the spectacle presented by the House of Representatives, it is no longer so easy a mattT as it was for i hose who think like this to justify i heir belief '1 he more this question is studied, in fact, th ■> mure inevitable is the tonc.'usi >n, that in a country possessing extremely democratic institutions a second branch or the Legislature is indispensable, and that if Ministers will but do their duty conscientiously thesys'em o nomination by the Crown is. perhaps, open to as few objections as any that have hitherto been devised.