THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1881. THE MINISTRY.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2401, 15 December 1881, Page 3

THE GLOBE. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1881. THE MINISTRY.

Our contemporary the " Lyttelton Times" has been to considerable tronble to prove that Parliament should be called together at once. It lays its arguments on the basis that the Ministry receive their power by delegation from the House, and that, the late House having ceased to exist, the powers of delegation have ceased with it. Consequently it is necessary that the new members should be summoned to attend Parliament with a view of ascertaining whether the present Government still enjoy the confidence of the country. " The principle," our contemporary says, "is unaffected by the vote of the constituencies. The point is not whether the country has or has not returned a House of Representatives pledged to support the Ministry. The point is that the Ministry which has carried on the Qneen's Government through the time intervening between the dissolution of Parliament and the election of a new House of Representatives must consult the new House." So far the argument used by the "Lyttelton Times" is clear enough. But then it proceeds to beg the question in its eagerness to find fre»h reasons for the course it advocates. It declares, for instance, that the country has not declared in favour of the Ministry, statiDg that according to the calculations made by Ministerial journals themselves, 42 of the new members only are Ministerialists and 13 are Independents, which cannot be said to be a majority of a House consisting of 91 members. And, besides, our contemporary starts the theory that the franchise having been enlarged, and the electoral districts altered, the power that ' sends to Parliament the present is not the same that sent the last House. And . a concluding shaft is shot when it is , affirmed that the Ministry, after all I said and done, reached the recess of last September by snfferance only. All these ' considerations massed together are sup- . posed to form an overwhelming case in , favour of the immediate calling together I of the House.

Ve will take the arguments of our contemporary in a reverse order, leaving to the last, the most important, namely, the purely constittntional question. As to the Ministry having reached the recess purely by sufferance, that at the best is a matter of opinion. A Ministry that defeats what is practically a vote of want of confidence, and that carries through several measures of the highest importance in faoe of the most barefaced stonewalling tactics can hardly bo said be living on sufferance. We should have thought, on the other hand, that the Government showed the strongest symptoms of vitality by its modus vivendi during the past session. But, then, there is no accounting for opinions. The Grey Ministry no doubt, that carried through no single measure of any importance whatsoever is perhaps thought by the " Lyttelton Times" to have dieplayed signs of abundant vital power. Next as to the argument that, the franchise having been lowered and the electorates altered, the Ministry does not now represent the constituencies. The franchise in England has, as is wellknown, been altered a large number of times. Before the reign of Henry VI. all freeholders were able to vote for shire members, but in that reign the first franchise was introduced by which the right to vote was limited to " people dwelling and resident in the same counties, whereof every one of them shall have free land or tenement to the value of 40s by the year, at the least, above all charges." And since that date the franchise has been a fluctuating one. But the continuity of the power of the people has never been questioned. According to the " Lyttelton Times," when a change is made in the basis of the franchise the power delegated by the previous electorates ceases ipso facto. The theory is monstrous and absurd. We next take the assertion that the present Ministry has in very truth lost the confidence of the people as shewn by the result of the present elections. There are certainly various ways of reading these results, but our contemporary appears quite willing to take that adopted by Ministerial journals. Now there is no reason why the Opposition should appropriate all the declared Independents. Our own impression is that most of these gentlemen will be found on the Government benches, but, even dividing them fairly between the two sides of the House, the Ministry will still have a majority. Mr. Hall and his colleagues have no reason to complain of the result of the appeal to the people. Their position in the next House will undoubtedly be stronger than it was in the last.

Going back to the broad constitutional aspect of the question, namely, that the Ministry mast immediately consul 4 -, a House to which it is responsible, it will not, after all, be necessary to say very much, because any journal with a sound knowledge of constitutional questions would not have fallen into such a atnpid error aa has the *' Lyttelton Times." If any of our readers will turn to the 52nd page of Sir Erskine May's "Parliamentary Practice," he will find the following :— The interval letiveen a dissolution and the assembling of the new Parliament varies according to the period of the gear, the state of public business, and the political conditions under ■which an appeal to the people mag have become necessarg. When the session has been concluded, and no question of Ministerial confidence or responsibilitg is at issue, the recess is generallg continued, bg prorogations, u?itil the usual time for the meeting of Parliament. The last Parliament of New Zealand died solely from effluxion of time. There was no case of want of confidence in the Ministry involved; on the contrary, the House had just declared its confidencein the Government. There is nothing abnormal in the condition of the country to render the immediate summoning of Parliament in the least necessary ; it would only put the new members to considerable inconvenience and the public te a large expense. If Parliament meets at the usual time there is not the slightest danger of the Constitution being strained.