The Globe. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1476, 8 November 1878, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1878.

A more unsatisfactory Parliamentary session was never seen than that which has just boon brought to a close. The promises made by the Ministry during tho recess, had gulled a good many pooplo who wore actually induced to believe that, a kind of political millenium was at hand. Like tho traditional new broom, the new administration was to sweep everything clean. Tho Premier had stumped tho country, and had succeeded in throwing dust in tho eyes of the taxpayers to an extent unheard of before. There wore, no doubt, lookers-on of the frog of the fable, which inflated itself in a most uncomfortablo manner, and probably those who predicted that it would finally burst through sheer incapacity to hold any more wind, were laughed at by somo for this want of faith; similarly there woro found doubters of the lights which woro proposing to suddenly illuininato this land, and point out the only path which could possibly lead to national folicity. How far these brilliant prognostications have boon realised, it is almost noodloss for us to say. Public opinion, unfortunately for Ministers, has settled tho point, and so has, to a very great extent, tho voice of the public press, so far as independent journals are concerned. These Ministerial promises went up like a rocket during the recess; the outcome of tho business of the session has amply shown them to have dropped down like a stick. Although about 230 Bills have been passed into Acts, the session has been woefully barren of results. What has become of the policy of the Government ? Its cardinal features have been scattered to the four winds of heaven, leaving behind but a residuum of a painfully humiliating character to those who so blatantly trumpeted forth some months ago what they would or would not do towards renovating all things which might lead to tho benefit of the human race. The session began, for them, with very hopeful auspices. There was a now Ministry, armed at all points with a new policy—or rather with a basketful of new policies. A new line was to be drawn in political warfare. There were henceforward to be two well-dofined parties, both in and outside of the Assembly—the Conservatives and the Liberals. Tho Ministry loudly proclaimed themselves the only true and faithful exponents of tho tenets which were supposed to be embroidered upon the standard of the new order of things. Manhood suffrage, taxation of all kinds of property, and, in short, a " card " of full-flavored pretensiousness was to bo hoisted upon the platform which Sir George Grey and his colleagues were so eagerly trying to ascend. But, alas, for the vanity of all things, political as well as human. The Assembly has dissolved, and out of the half dozen measures '' of reform " which were placed for fruition before Parliament, scarcely a couple of bastardized Bills found their way into the public records. And what has become of the wonderful principles of policy with which fir George Grey initiated his Ministerial career? The Manhood Suffrage question was tho keystone of the " policy of the future"—from a point of view of course —but the mountain which had so laboured brought forth but a mouse of singularly insignificant dimensions. The Electoral Bill, the largest vertebra of the new policy of reform was introduced in a shape such as to show most conclusively that the Cabinet as a whole had not the courage to carry out its convictions, if it ever had any. An essentially mournful measure, it absolutely ignored those flatulent principles of revolutionary reform, of which the Premier had made so much capital when stumping the colony during the recess. A tamer or more vapid legislative abortion was never enlisted in the ranks of applicants for Parliamentary honors. Of manhood suffrage, pure and simple, the Bill practically made no mention; and, as to the voting, the " rights of men, women, and babies in tho cradle " were sadly ignored. When, however, somewhat late in the session, that audacious claxxse was added, which would have given double electoral privileges to tho Native race, many somnolent politicians began to open their eyes. Why and wherefore the rights of the dusky portion of the colonial electorate had been passed over when the Electoral Bill was matured by the Cabinet bocame a ques tion of moment. There was the cocoanut, but how on earth had the milk got within its shell p The Legislative Council fortunately was able to solve the knotty point. It gradually became known that tho Government had various fish to fry, and that to some members of tho Cabinet it might soon be matter of vital moment how many votes the northern Natives had. The Upper House, lot it be said to it credit, showed its usefulness when standing so firmly against this " log-rolling " clause of tho Bill, and hence it came to pass that tho latter —tho veriest backbone of tho Ministerial policy—met with an ignominious death—aud was consigned to tho sessional waste-paper basket, and upon other questions of almost equal importance, tho Ministerial bark became very nearly wrecked. Leaving aside tho Beer Tax Bill, part and parcel of the Treasurer's Financial schome, the Joint Stock Companies Bill met wiih such determined opposition as compelled the Government to withdraw it. The Land Tax Bill, a measure which disgusted tho best portion of the Ministerial supporters, escaped defeat but by the very skin of its teeth. Aud as it stands now, it will have, without a doubt, to bo ro-arrangod, amouded, and what not, as soon as Parliament meets. To sum it up in a fow words, the wholo fabric of the so-called policy of reform so loudly announced before the opening of Parliament has turned out a myth. When ushered into tho Lower House tho now measures were found as different from what they had been heralded " as chalk from choose." When, however, submitted to the crucible of Parliamentary criticism, every rag of padding was ruthlessly stripped from the body of the gaily- spangled lay-figure, leaving it, like Mr Casby, denuded of his locks, h miserable spoctaclo to friends emd foer,, a skeleton tottering upon its foot, whoso shadow was so thin as to leave uncovered tho manifold blunders of those who first brought it iwtk as s,

thing of political beauty and a national joy for over. We do not feel inclined to expatiate at any length upon such a painful subject. The present Ministerial team has been weighed in the balance of public opinion and found wanting. Like rats deserting a sinking ship, several journals, hitherto blindly devoted to Ministerial views, have unblushingly turned round and are the present moment trying to make their peace with public opinion. We scarcely wonder at it. There are people who, erratic as they are in their opinions, have yet sufficient regard for their interests to watch how the wind blows and trim their sails accordingly. Let us permit them to be thankful for small mercies, and not deride them when endeavoring to conform themselves more appropriately to the requirements of the times.

We published on Thursday, as received by telegraph from Dunedin, a notice by the Rev. Dr. Oopeland of a motion to be moved by him at the next meeting of the Presbytery, which, copiously at least, recites the various objections that have been from time to time advanced by the opponents of exclusively secular education. If his motion is carried, it will be be " humbly overtured by the Presbytery of Dunedin to the Synod of Otago indicted to meet in January, 1879, to take the premises into its consideration, with a view of adopting such measures for securing the daily reading of the Bible in the public schools, as in its wisdom it may deem expedient." The high standing of the Rev. gentleman may secure a patient hearing, and, possibly, in the Presbytery a majority, but it seems rather unlikely, that if the overture is made anything more will be heard of it outside of the particular body to whom it is presented. The ground has been gone over so often, the battle has been fought in so many fields, with the same result in nearly every case, that probably a victory will never be recorded in this colony in favor of the latest champion of the mixed system; the chief vice of it is its want of thoroughness. At its best it can only satisfy the demands of a portion of the community, whereas every section of which, whether large or small, is entitled to the strictest equality of treatment so long as public money is expended for the benefit of all. It requires considerably more evidence than the ipse dixit of Dr. Copeland to prove that " A feeling in favor of the denominational system has been gaining strength." Has it P Where has there been shown any real opposition to the secular system with a heart and soul in it ? Not here, and in Victoria the colony chosen as the exemplification of its failure, the only respectable opposition offered' to it is by those who would fain bring every department, social or domestic, under the control of their church. There can be no such thing here as any clerical interference in the management of State schools; where it still exists its faults are becoming more apparent day by day, the half-hearted plan proposed by Dr. Copeland, with its cumbrous machinery, would be unsatisfactory in its operation to the teacher and the taught, and if ever introduced would die from sheer weakness, not leaving results either one way or the other worth mentioning.