LEGISLATIVE INDUSTRY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume VIII, Issue 491, 18 July 1857, Page 3

LEGISLATIVE INDUSTRY.

(Prom the Nelson Examiner, Juue 20.)

, England has her cotton and cutlery. France her silks and wines and bijouterie, jtiussia is famous for tallow and hemp and

hides. China has its tea, and India its opium and indigo and spices—every country has some-article for which it is peculiarly famous, in which it is peculiarly productive. What is the staple of New Zealand ? Among all the peoples of the earth—out of all the varied natural treasures of different climes, all the diversified products of human skill and industry, what is there that we small islanders can cjaim as our forte, and take credit for the greatest facility in creating ? Kauri gum is peculiar to New Zealand; but as yet it is a kind of failure. Flax— at least the Phormium. tenax, we alone rejoice in; but yet there are as many unbelievers in it as in table-turning itself. Iron sand, plumbago, nickel, and coal—all kinds of metals and minerals have excited our hopes, and tempted us into self-congratula-tions. Copper, and gold, and above all, wool are facts. But then we are as yet beaten in all thes^ particulars by Adelaide, or Melbourne, or New South Wales, to go no further. Not one of them—however valuable most of them—can we boast of as peculiarly our own. Potatoes, indeed, we shine in a little —yes, in potatoes and wild pork we have a kind of humble pre-eminence —but that's not much !

Is there nothing, then —no production whatever, the idea of which should present itself to the minds of all mankind simultaneously with that of New Zealand?

There is one thing—and one only that we know of. We produce Laws of "all kinds and complexions, in greater profusion, we verily believe, and with greater facility than any other people in the known world. We have seven great law factories, that could supply all the populations of the earth with any amount of statutes of the greatest variety, and at the shortest notice. Yes, in law-making, we do honestly believe, in Jonathan's phrase, "we could whip all creation." For Laws and Potatoes, then, we do claim precedence.

The prodigious energies of manufacturing and commercial Great Britain are continually furnishing us with curious illustrations of the magnitude and extent of her productions in every department of industry. Sometimes her penny-a-liners tell us how the paper made in her factories would supply foolscaps for all the men of sense, and all the fcols too, between London and Timbuctoo : how the bullion in the Bank of England would make a gold-wash that would coat the continent of America ; how its sovereigns laid side by side would make a glittering foot path or precious girdle as long as the equatorial line. How the pins they make, stuck Into Mont Blanc for a pincushion, would decorate it all over in small sprig-pattern. Then how often we find these ingenious calculators in imagination winding her cot-ton-yarn in one continued thread round and round the great globe itself, as glibly and deftly as if "'the thick rotundity of earth " were an ordinary cotton-reel, and flinging an occasional hank off to the moon and back again by way of diversion.

Some such gigantic mode of illustration is necessary to give our readers an idea of our and their prodigious powers of lawmaking. We will content ourselves with the result of one calculation which perhaps wili be sufficient. Suppose then the people of England to make laws in proportion to their numbers, at tht same rate as we do, how many do you think they would make i They would make no less than one hundred and forty thousand Acts of Parliament every year ?

Does this astonish you ? The calculation is simple enough. They are, in round numbers, thirty millions of people—we thirty thousand. In an excellent and painstaking Report on the Provincial Acts, drawn up last session of the General Assembly, by Mr. Tancred, of Canterbury, the number of acts that had been made in two years of the existence of the Provincial Councils is stated at 280, or 140 each year. And this is exclusive of the laws made by the General Assembly. Take the latter at thirty per annum (last year they made thirty-six), and then your corresponding proportion of English Acts of Parliament would amount to one hundred and seventy thousand per annum. Now we know you will reply, Oh ! but laws are not required in proportion to amount of population. Granted, and God forbid they should be ! but is not the fact above stated, after all, somewhat startling ? And may we not safely aver that our lawmaking power and law-making propensity is prodigious! May we not assert then that laws are our peculiar" New Zealand staple—what we produce\ more easily than all the nations of the earthY Could we but eat these laws drink thevse laws—clothe ourselves with them—expert them—sell or exchange them do anything with them but what we really do wHh [them (especially those that impose rates)or taxes)— disobey and disregard them ! \

Almost all kinds of human propensities are increased by continued indulgence. And the propensity so increased is transmitted in increasing ratio from father to son through succeeding generations. Think what a prospect for our descendants ! How will ever their intensified propensity be gratified? Where will they find subject matter whereon to satiate their terrible lust of legislation ? Will not they be compelled by an irresistible inborn instinct to make laws for every conceivable actor proceeding of every conceivable human being ? Your future New Zealander will have chapter and verse of Act of Council for every wave of liis hand, every wink of his eyelids, every i wag of his tongue. He will have to take out a license to scratch his head ; a permit to sneeze1 or cough within specified hours; unlicense hawking will be particularly prohibited. Your stableboy, Bill, will have to twist his moustachio.-? according to regulations; your damsel, Abigail, must cook or scrub floors in precisely the number of muslin flounces set down in the sliding scale in a schedule for those domestic proceedings respectively. Your Lotharios and Phyllises of that day will have to laugh by law; kiss under clause ho and so of act. such an one; sigh and simper (especially if between the ages of 14 and 21) according to the statue in that case made and provided —all words importing the masculine gender of course including the feminine.

And as lawyers may be said usually to increase with the number of laws; think what a dreadful prospect for our hapless posterity !

How fortunate it is that there is a General Government, one of whose duties it is to keep down this dangerous increasing of law-making! To be the uusympathizing Malthuses, whose mission it is to check our legislative fecundity, and destroy the multitudinous broods of our ever-teeming Councils ! Is it not to be hoped, that, like prudent housewives with their kittens, they will stifle at least five out if six of every litter of laws ? Can they not discover some mode of " painless extinction " such as Marcus the Chartist devised for the babes of the manufacturing population of England—so that the bereaved parents, the Provincial Councillors, may not be too violently afflicted at the loss of their bantlings—as seems to be the case with the Wellington Provincials, whose last crop of laws has been dreadfully worried by those wild dogs of the Government ?

These reflections have been partly forced upon us by the prorogation of the Provincial Council of Nelson, on Thursday last. The Council is prorogued for the last time before its dissolution—so that it has finally disappeared from the stage. Something seemed called for from us by the solemnity of the occasion. And though the first thought of Councils, as bodies of lawmakers, does in New Zealand almost necessarily force one into reflections upon the number of law-making machines we have, and the multiplicity of their products, we think we may safely say of the Nelson Councilthat it has all along somewhat distinguished itself for moderation and good sense, both in the laws it has made, and its general proceedings. One or two Acts of this last session may perhaps create a doubt of its claim to eulogy in this respect, which will not be so readily admitted as we think it would have been before. Still, on the whole, our Council has deserved well of the public, and we hope we may always secure one as sensible, well-informed, and moderate. One thing we will say of it in conclusion, and we believe it is the highest eulogium we can pass upon it —it has, if Aye mistake not, made fewer laws than any other Council in New Zealand.