THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1881. THE WANT OF CONFIDENCE DIVISION.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2285, 29 July 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1881. THE WANT OF CONFIDENCE DIVISION.

It was on Tuesday, the 19th inst., when the Crown and Native Lands Rating Bill was under discussion, that Mr. Ormond moved what was practically a vote of Want of Confidence in the Ministry. The member for Clive has preferred to think that his motion should not have been so treated, but his own ideas on what is honorable conduct on the part of a Government and the ideas on the subject entertained by the Government itself differ very considerably. If Mr. Ormond imagined that the occupants of the Treasury benches were going to sit down quietly under a proposal for a direct vote of censure, he had reckoned very much without his hosts. Mr. Ormond evidently is not squeamish himself, but he has no right to credit others with as strong political stomachs as he himself enjoys. To show how entirely Mr. Ormond’s sagacity was at fault, it is only necessary to point to the fact that, on both sides of the House, the motion was at once recognised as aiming at the life of the Ministry. What the feeling of the Opposition during the debate may have been towards Mr. Ormond there is at present nothing to show, or what Mr. Ormond’s feelings during that same period towards his quondam enemies may have been is equally undecided, but it may very safely bo generally asserted that Mr Ormond, as the debate progressed, must have felt that ho had placed himself in an exceedingly false position, and it is possible that he may not have been altogether sorry at the result of the division, for, had the division gone against the Government, it is difficult to imagine a more disagreeable fix than that in which the member for Clive would have found himself. Gut off from his natural allies he would either have been forced to throw himself into the arms of his enemies or to declare that ho was a political pariah with nofollowing and no determinate views. If one point has been brought out during the debate with more clearnessthan another, it is that the Opposition has no policy of its own. It is true that it has been declared by a dozen speakers on that side that it is no part of their party to furnish the Ministry with a policy, but an Opposition cannot perform its functions properly if it is merely a destructive body. If its cry is “ Death to the Ministry, and after that the deluge,” viewed politically, its members are nothing more or less than Nihilists. That is not the way in which government by party is carried on in England. There the Opposition invariably has a policy of some sort. But in the case under consideration we have a dozen schemes, fioan Sir George Grey’s to Mr. Dykes, all purporting to be the scheme which will cure the evil complained of. If Sir George Grey had come into power over the shoulders of Mr. Ormond the political situation would have become almost unsnpportably complicated. The Government proposals may bo not altogether suitable, but the general drift of them is, at all events, clear. They purport to enlarge and strengthen the present system. But the chaos of Opposition plans, out of which a new Ministry would have had to evolve order would have been of the blackest description. Sir George Grey’s now celebrated blank Bill would have been a treasure in comparison to the blotched, interlined, and totally illegible page of proposals, out of which a working scheme would have had to have been constructed.

And, now that all is finished, it will be well to review the result. The work of the session has been cut through as with a sharp knife. Nino days of most valuable time have been lost, but that is the least of the evil done. The minds of members on both sides of the House have become disorganised, and it will be most diflicult for them to settle down again once more to the humdrum work of practical legislation. A certain number of useful measures will no doubt be passed, but it will be felt generally that, with a general election not far off, the burning question of the time is the Eedistribntion of Seats Bill. Members of the Opposition prefer to think that the Government are not in earnest with regard to this Bill. Mr. Pyke went so far as to suggest that the Government had had ten months to prepare such a Bill, and had not yet laid it on the table of the House. He seemed quite to ignore the fact that the census returns were absolutely necessary before the Bill could be framed. For ourselves wo cannot but think that the Government are very determined to pass this Bill through before the end of the session, and that it will be the fault of the House itself if it does not become law. The Government have certainly nothing to fear from any new arrangements, and the Bill is part of their programme.

It seems inevitable that in all mundane matters a certain comic element should be mixed. This is a provision of Providence fortunate in so far as it lightens the general burden that humanity has to bear. We cannot conclude, therefore, without calling attention to the one amusing incident in the late crisis. We allude to the sayings and doings of the funny man of the House, Mr. Vincent, Fyke. A crisis is always Mr. Pyke's opportunity. On such occasions he always manages to make himself a dcus cx. In the session of 1579 this was notably the case. Mr. Pyke’s then attitude on the political rail was the wonder and admiration of New Zealand. For days the fate of the country was supposed to hang on him alone. At last he condescended to descend but ha got down on the wrong side. On the present crisis ho has been equally to the front. Ho was judiciously absent in Otago, and. the business of the House has been delayed for his return and that of two others. He has thanked the House for its courtesy in waiting for him. His vote was depended on for turning the scale. In fine ha has boon in his element. And then he speaks. Unfortunately he is a chairman of a County Council, and what he says is this—“ What the country required was an extension of the counties scheme, with increased powers and moans.” This is, of course, what the Government propose,but Mr. Pyke incontinently votes against them. Certainly the member for tho Dunstan is a complicated and a very funny man.