The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1895. VOX POPULI VOX DEI!

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 289, 11 June 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 1895. VOX POPULI VOX DEI !

. -o Before another fortnight shall have passed by the " Fathers of our country " will have gathered themselves together at Wellington, and again will be beard the music of their many voices. Let us, therefore, while the instruments are being tuned, briefly consider the " argument of the piece." From the very earliest times politics have engrossed the earnest attention of the best minds; but a comparison between the aims of Plato and those of Bacon will show that the two thousand years which separated them had made philosophers more truly acquainted with the needs of the people * and had taught them more exactly the limits within which improvement was feasible. Plato, at the commencement of his " Dialogue on Laws," lays it down as a fundamental principle that the end of all legislation is to make men virtuous. This he hoped to effect- bj r prefixing to each penal statute a long preamble, which was an eloquent and pathetic exhortation to be read to each offender iv the hope of rendering that particular law ulti tnately superfluous. Bacon was less technical but more practical. His aim was the well being of the poople, and he contented himself with the establishing of a judicial, financial, and commercial system, under which wealth might be rapidly accumulated and securely enioyed. Mry the wise men of this land be moved by a similar spirit, and may they possess a similar modest content ! It has never b:en our practice to go down into the lists and threw ourselves altogether against either of the contestants, but never before has a wise Conservatism been so needed as at the present time ; for nover before in this country were two such fundamental characteristics of a perfectly developed State iv jeopardy as we sco now. The fiis 1 ; is that habitual deference to the com mands of an authority elevated above the heads of the populace which has, in the past, been a sine qua -non of national greatness. It is hard now to find any authority higher than the populace; and where then is the deference ? The people, often compared to a sea, are now a troubled ccean ; great waves of feeliDg gathering tbemselvea till thay break in tumultuous action now here and now there. But as for deference to what would ensure the safety which lies in stability of purpose, there is none of it. The second danger is of peculiar importance at this time, for the nge is legal rather than political. Unlike ] those of ancient Greece and Home, \ who looked to persons aud to pressing political measuses and exigencies, the people now-a-days rather regard abstract logical principles, and the conclusions to be drawn from them. It is therefore of the utmost importance that a warning voice should be raised against the popular tendency to run counter to all law which is unwritten. Custom is the origin of all law, and as in this legal age law is extending its domain into many hitherto unvisited spots of privacy and seclusion, let it be remembered that the first duty is to conserve what is good in the heritage of the past. Let not the " root and branch " re former jireceile the discriminating judge ; but rather permit that only to be displaced which cannot be con served. This contempt for custom has a reflex action in so far as what formerly was gently accomplished by usage must now be enforced by statute. Thus to the making of laws there is no end. "Oh ! that there were " is our humble petition.