THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1879.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1661, 17 June 1879, Page 2

THE GLOBE. TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1879.

The Hon. E. Richardson, in the course of his very able speech on Friday last, alluded to the sketch of a new Licensing Bill said to be intended to be introduced by the Government during the coming session of Parliament. Mr Richardson concluded from internal evidence that the new Bill was not a Government Bill at all, although it came from the Government printing office. He suggested that it was the offspring of the brains of one or two of the Government only, notably Mr, Stout, and he pointed out that there are things in the proposed measure with which the other members of the Government are well known to disagree. One provision there was most particularly that could only come from Mr. Stout, namely, that which would close public houses without compensation. “ The Premier,” said Mr. Richardson, “ and I thing other members of the Government have expressed their opinion that any new Licensing Bill should include a provision for compensation being given for any public house closed under the Bill in compliance with the law; not bo it understood, for houses closed for an offence or anything of that kind.” Mr. Richardson, wo have reason to believe, is perfectly justified in the inference which he has drawn. The Bill will, in all human probability, bo found to be the production of Mr. Stout’s brain alone, of his enthusiasm and ill-directed judgment in the direction of forcing his extreme views on the public per fas et nefas. The public should digest this fact at their leisure. Here wo have a form of a proposed. measure, a manifesto on the licensing question or whatever the document may be called, issued from the Government printing office, bearing all the impress of a measure which has been thoroughly digested by the Cabinet and agreed to by its members individually and collectively, and yet this performance contains the views of one man only, and not only so, but such of his views as are well known to be in direct opposition to views hold by the other members of the Cabinet to which ho belongs. This member is Haunting in the face of his colleagues the sketch of a measure running in direct antagonism to what are recognised to be their ideas on the subject in question. A stronger proof of the utter want of cohesion among the members of the present Cabinet it would be impossible to adduce. If every individual member of a Cabinet who may hold extreme views, who, in fact, is the possessor of ajjhobby, is to legislate on that hobby in total disregard as to what his colleagues may think or may have said, on the question, whore, we ask, is the thing to end ? Supposing one of the Cabinet to be a Mormon. Is he to frame Bills rendering it legal for each male inhabitant of Now Zealand to take unto himself such a number of wires as he may think fit ? Or, supposing a member of the Cabinet holds the view that the punishment of death should bo abolished, is he to frame an elaborate measure, without the slightest consultation

statute book ? The idea is perfectly monstrous. If such principles are to prevail, the Government of the colony would soon fall into such a state of confusion and anarchy as would render the affairs of New Zealand a by-word. For what is the theory of a constitutional Government ? Is it not that the Cabinet represents the majority in the Houses, and that any measure which is proposed by that Cabinet is the result of careful consideration on their part. Individual members of the Cabinet may hold peculiar views on certain subjects—with that the outside public have nothing whatever to do but any views put forward as Cabinet views are supposed to have been thoroughly investigated and digested, and are placed before the world as the matured opinion of the Cabinet as a whole. Individual members may have had to compromise on certain points—that is their own affair—but the sum total only is what the public have to do with. Anything less than this turns the whole system into a chaos. And yet, in face of this, wo find Mr. Stout sketching out a Bill, and having it printed at the Government printing office, of course with a view to distribution—for no man would bo foolish enough to have such a document printed unless it were with a view of circulation—and this proposed Bill, which thus to all outward seeming bears on it the imprimatur of the Cabinet, has probably never been even looked at by any of them except Mr. Stout, Mr. Stout has been unconstitutional enough and impertinent enough to foist on the public this bantling of his, leaving them to infer that it had been adopted by the whole Cabinet. If the question were a small one, if it were one on which the other members of the Government had never cared to express an opinion, Mr. Stout’s action would be less glaring, because it might possibly bo put forward in his excuse that the matter was really of such slight import that the views of the remainder would probably follow those of any member of the Cabinet that might trouble himself to become interested in the question. But the Licensing qustiou is by no means a small question—on the contrary, it is a very large one, and all the other members of the Cabinet have enunciated decided views as to what they consider should be done in the matter. Indeed, the glimpse we have caught at the inner life of the Cabinet reveals a most peculiar state of affairs. It was always patent that there was a wondrous want of unanimity among them—Sir George Grey and Mr. Sheehan were pulling one way, Mr. Ballnnce another, Mr. Macandrew another, and Mr. Fisher was being thrown about from one to the other like a bucolic shuttlecock—but things have evidently gone from bad to worse. Never yet have individual members of the Cabinet been found framing measures entirely at their own sweet will, and sending them forth to the world bearing, as it were, the seal of the Executive of the country. It has never as yet been quite evident that a man with a hobby is at liberty to force that hobby on the public as the matured result arrived at by the presumed representatives of the majority of the Houses. The sooner this sort of thing is put a stop to the better. If urgent private affairs render it necessary for Mr. Stout to vanish into space, carrying his hobby and his embryo bill under his arm, nobody need feel surprised. The other members of the Cabinet have, in all conscience, sufficiently vague ideas as to the duties attached to the post of a Cabinet Minister, but Mr. Stout has developed the latest and most outrageous idea, and there are, possibly, things that even the Grey Cabinet cannot swallow.