THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1881. THE REPRESENTATION BILL.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2306, 25 August 1881, Page 2

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, AUGUST 25, 1881. THE REPRESENTATION BILL.

The process of the debate on the Representation Bill has brought into striking prominence the way in which men’s judgments may be warped when they undertake a rotten cause. At least it is preferable to look at the matter in this light than to lay it down that the members to whom wo refer are utterly insinaere in their utterances in the House. For instance, Mr. Swanson is found calmly arguing that the best way of breaking up the King movement is to give votes to the Natives. It never appears to have struck him that, if the Maori finds he can vote without opening out his land, he will be little likely to leave his isolation. Mr. Speight, for his part, starts the extraordinary theory that “ the right of representation was a right inherent in man himself independent altogether of circumstances.” But he would certainly not advocate that convicts, lunatics, sailors, “ globe”-trottors, and numerous other classes should possess the privilege of the franchise. Then, again, the Nelson members and others appear to think that the “ stonewalling” was a sacrifice due to their constituencies, thus placing themselves on the horns of a dilemma. If the “ stonewalling” was senseless, surely it was no compliment to their electors to say that they acted as they did solely to please them. If it was not senseless the manoeuvre needed no apology. Indeed, from the beginning of the debate to the stage at which it has at present reached, the weakness of the cause of the desperate few who find their interest and their reason clash is very apparent. But it is not more apparent than the total inability of those who wish the Bill to fail to come to any common agreement. Mr. Gisborne, from the West Coast, talks against Maori representation as urged by the Aucklanders ; Mr. Hurst, from Auckland, inveighs against the rights of diggers ; Dr. Wallis, member for the city of Auckland West, declares that the question of Native representation should be left to the Maori members; while the latter themselves urge delay. Indeed, a more hopeless hotch-potch of arguments than those used by the opponents of the Ministerial measure it is impossible to conceive. It is to be trusted that the firm attitude taken by the Government will show the enemies of the Bill that guerrilla warfare, however harrassing, will not, in the long run, prove successful when it is opposed to a compact body of fairly drilled men with a just cause at their back.