PREPARING FOR THE SESSION.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1371, 8 July 1878, Page 3

PREPARING FOR THE SESSION.

LAST YEAB AND THIS. [" New Zealand Times."] The programme of the late Government for the session of 1877 showed that the efforts of the Ministry to complete the constitutional system had not relaxed. The District Railways Act was the complement of the Public Works Act of the preceding year, and provided ample means for making local and district railways where they were really wanting, and took away all excuse for getting votes of public moneys for local works by means of log-rolling, or by temporary political combinations. Unfortunately, it did not prevent the discreditable scramble for public money which, after the fall of the Atkinson Government, took place in the House of Representatives last year, and which was countenanced or encouraged by their successors in office. The Native Lands Court Act —a measure of great value, sacrificed in a party fight—will probably receive the compliment of imitation in all its essential provisions, in the coming session, by a Ministerial measure. The Education Act was passed. The most comprehensive and liberal land law ever presented to a Legislative Assembly in this colony was adopted with but little alteration, but was attempted to be burked, after it had passed both Houses of the Legislature, by the action of the Premier individually, in opposition to the views of his colleagues who had supported the Bill in Parliament. The Mines Act was a consolidation and amendment of tho existing law; a comprehensive and valuable measure, which applied the experience of many years and the information given by the most competent public officers, to the regulation and development of one of the most important industries of the colony. ' The Merchant Shipping and Soamens Act, ' the Destitute Persons Act, the Friendly Societies Act, the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, the Slaughterhouses Act, and others, remain as evidence of the painstaking industry of the members of the late Cabinet, and of their knowledge of what was required for the peace, order, and good government of the colony. Nor was the important question of the representation of the people in Parliament overlooked, as the draft of a new and complote electoral law was prepared ; in this, provision was made for the establishment of manhood suffrage, for the constitution of electoral districts in which the number of representatives ■would be fixed in proportion to population, with provision, by an adaptation of Hare's system, for securing the representation of all the people and of all shades of opinions and not those of the majority alone. In the work of administration we believe that the records of the offices will show that great attention was given to the business of the several departments, and that strict economy was established throughout, and that a very large reduction of expenditure was effected. In the police establishment alone, by the consolidation of the forces, a reduction of expenditure of £23,000 a year was made. Now, we are not claiming, nor, we imagine, would Ministers themselves claim, any especial credit for having done what it was their duty to do to the best of their individual and collective ability ; but as it has been flippantly said by those who ought to know better, that, after abolition the late Government had no policy, it appeared but just to point to patent facts which furnish a complete refutation of that statement. An opportunity will soon be afforded of comparing their policy and their labors with the policy and the labors of their successors in office. We need not anticipate the general opinion upon the result. Nothing solid or permanently good is produced without labor, and the labor which is so required cannot generally be performed in steam yachts, in special trains, or whilst on the stump. Habitual absence from Wellington and inattention to departmental business are the only evidences of the " policy" of the present Government at present distinguishable, unless we except an evident determination to take care of " Dowb," and to reward the newspapers that are regarded as "right" by special favors at the public expense. The recent brilliant enterprise by which the European vote in an electoral district in the North was swamped by the admission of 400 bogus Maori voters to the roll, can hardly be set down at present as evidence of a definite policy. As a mode of obtaining an expression of the popular will, in accordance with which Ministers, through their chief, profess their desire to guide themselves in all things, it cannot, we think, be regarded with satisfaction.