The Lyttelton Times.
Wedneday, May 9, 1855. Responsible Government, or more properly and more pompously, '• the principle of Ministerial Responsibility" has again suffered a severe shock. Once more it is to be set upon its'legs to the great inconvenience of the Province, and to the detriment" and delay of public business ; but if iv\ tumble down again, the man who attempts to pick it up again will be very persevering, and very ungrudging of unprofitable labour. We have repeatedly endeavoured to point out the anomaly of such a system in a Government where the head himself is an elected and responsible officer, and the absurdity of affecting to believe in a responsibility which by law"can only be a sham ; but we have not before insisted on a point which was brought prominently before the Council yesterday evening,—perhaps the most
important point of all,—the intolerable annoyance of seeing our most important interests postponed to the cultivation of a novel theory, believed in by few, and considerrtl positively necessary by scarcely anyjbody. |If we consider the history of the in-coming and out-going of the two administrations with which we have been blest in the short space of time which has elapsed since the first meeting of the Provincial Council in I this Province, the conclusion is forced upon ius that the principle of Ministerial Responsibility has acted as a clog and a.hindiance 1 to the necessary business which the Council I has been called upon to transact. When j Mr. Hall and his colleagues came into office Umid protestations —in which we believe ithem to have been perfectly sincere—of ; confidence in the former administration and I regret that they had abandoned office, a long ! delay was occasioned in the forwarding1 of j the very measure which the opponents of \ Messrs. Tancred and Hamilton had attemp- | ted to hasten on. The new Executive I began their work: the public expected I something wonderful to ensue which should [account for the great inconvenience H which had arisen; and lo ! the new Exe- \ cutive advocated the same policy as their j| predecessors in But the public were i patient —the public were reasonable. They I thought that time must be given to our leI gislators to understand what they had set-on I foot; they wished to give the principle a I fair trial, and they hoped that the public time would not be again readily wasted in the fabrication of " ministers." But they were doomed, as we then foresaw, to disappointment. At the commencement of the present session, men's minds were more than usually beat upon the passing of the important practical measures which will affect more than all others the welfare of the Prol vince at large. The settlement of that vexata qu<Estio,< —the price of the Waste Lands, —the adoption of some plan of arranging the differences between the Provirce and the Canterbury Association, —the investigation of our monetary relations with the General Government, —all these difficult questions had to be disposed of in one short session. When the Council met, however, it was found that the measures of the Executive were not approved, of by the I Council. That body, with very few exceptions, thought it preferable to put up with a sham, rather than to postpone business for the sake of forming a new administration. The Executive, as Mr. Sewell observed, very chivalrously determined to do the work, although their measures should be thrown out. There were exceptions, however, to this feeling in the Council. Mr. Brittan urged upon the Executive that it was their duty to retire, and taunted them with holding office after they had been repeatedly defeated. His Honor the Superintendent, under these circumstances, requested the Executive to consider whether their more proper course was not to resign officfc, and make way for a new administration. This they did most willingly ; —the f Council, at the same time, unmistakeably | expressing their confidence in the men, and \ their regret that they should have felt compelled to resign. His Honor stated, in the letter to $lr. Hall, which that gentleman [ read to tlC* Council last night, that although ;he doubted the expediency of carrying out i the principle of " ministerial responsibility," ; yet he thought that that principle should ; have a fair trial. In fact, he objected \to the continuance of a sham, as long !as the principle was recognised. We think his Honour was right. If the principle is to be carried out we must bear with its inconveniences and difficulties. How long the | Council will bear this is now the question. ! When Messrs. Hull and Bealey had made ; their statement of the reasons which induced
them to resign office, Mr. Brittan announced to the Council" that His Honor had entrusted him with the task of forming a new executive, and requested' an adjournment until Friday, for the purpose of maturing his plans. So the public business is again stopped, and for what? The public will naturally ask—Of what principles antagonistic to the late government was Mr. Brittan the principal exponent? What measures is he expected to bring in, and how acceptable to the majority of the Council? But they have no clue to guide them in the enquiry. Mr. Brittan was more favourable to the land rate bill on which the Government were defeated than most of the other members. What principle then was he most conspicuous in asserting? We know of none except the principle that the late Executive should resign their seats and make way for others, and in this he was not supported by any large section of the Council, So our business is delayed to put certain men in the place of certain other men ; but neither the public nor the Council know exactly why, except because we are living under a system of " ministerial responsibility." The fact is that every man in the Council has his own opinion on the subject now under discussion, and it would be very difficult to find any one man who could be said to command a party. In the meantime, as Mr. Hamilton pointed out, every day increases our danger of having our land (.bought up by land speculators, at its present low price, since the Council has fixed the future price at Two Po'inds. A man with £10,000 in his pocket could make very profitable use of an adjournment at this moment. How all our business is to be transacted in a short session by new men, untrained in office, we are at a loss to conjecture. Buj then we have this consoling reflection to fall back upon ; we are in the full enjoyment of Ministerial Responsibility. We have so lately considered the technical difficulties of carrying on this system in the Provinces, and the impossibility of really dividing the responsibility between the Superintendent and his advisers, that we need not again allude to these subjects at present. We will only throw out one question which is worthy of consideration at this moment. Do the public suppose that His Honor the Superintendent has, or ought to have, washed his hands of the responsibility of all the measures that he has been instrumental in framing, now that new advisers are to be dubbed responsible ; and that, when he undertook his responsibility to his constituents upon the hustings, he meant that he should always change tactics and principles with every new executive. If this be what is expected from elected and responsible Superintendents, we must look for men without consciences for the office.
Of all the speeches which were made last night, Mr. Cookson's was the shortest, neatest, and the'best. The hon. member, after listening to" a great deal about ministers, and very little about business, stood up, and said that he hoped " that any new responsible ministry that came in would bring in a resolution to rid us of Responsible Government."
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Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 263, 9 May 1855, Page 4
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1,313The Lyttelton Times. Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 263, 9 May 1855, Page 4
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