EXTRACTS FROM HANSARD.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 236, 12 September 1873, Page 7

EXTRACTS FROM HANSARD.

MR. EITZHERBERT ON CENTRALISM AND THE FINANCIAL STATEMENT. '

I ask the attention of the House to what follows—it is a gem in itself, apart from its political aspect:--" Neither my colleague nor myself can be considered partizans of either Centralism or Provincialism. I confess myself to have frequently wavered in opinion, appalled by the difficulty, on the one hand, of preventing the Provinces from destroying the necessary power of Colonial action, and on the other, of preventing the centralising tendency from destroying the usefulness of local governing bodies without supplying or being able to supply their place. The. policy I am about to elaborate I describe as the result of a search after equilibrium—or as nearly a state of equilibrium as is possible amidst the many varying circumstances and contending interests with which we have to deal. Broadly, we want the Colony to take charge of Colonial works; the Provinces to take charge of local works." Sir, it is a most remarkable passage, and one that is not lightly to be passed over. First of all, however, let us look at it from a merely critical Eoint of view. "What a pretty picture we ave of the colleagues of the honorable gentleman ! They are neither Provincialists nor Centralists—they have no opinions of their

own. They are seeking a state which they describe as a state of equilibrium; a state which the honorable gentleman candidly admits he thinks it impossible for them to attain, and therefore he says, "Let us corned as near as we can to it." I really think it is a picture of the most affecting character. It puts these gentlemen in altogether a novel light, and one which many of us have hitherto supposed them not to occupy. I recollect when a young man, and aspiring to a state of what I may now call a state of equilibrium —-a kind of paradise, I imagine—in the ftjilowship of my college, hearing one friend remonstrating with. another for laboring sixteen hours a day,- aif& the reply was of this remarkable character: ""When I have obtained my fellowship I intend to do nothing else for the remainder of my life but lie down on my back and catch flies." Now, sir, I think some such aspiration must have possessed the mind of the honorable gentleman at the head of the Government when, in one of the most dry and business-like statements which can, be made, he said that he and his colleagues were in search of equilibrium, or as near equilibrium as possible. Sir, there is no such thing as equilibrium in politics, nor any such thing as peace. "War and conflict are the life of a politician. "What a re-; markable disclosure is here made by the honorable gentleman in the most innocent terms. My honorable friend comes down with the most overpowering statements with- I out any heralding of them—he suddenly pre- I sents to us a totally novel state of things. Without desiring to take up the time of the House—it is the only extract I shall make, from ' Hansard'—l shall read what my hon. friend said in 1871: "As a Government, we did not disguise, last year, when the colonising proposals were brought down, that although we were adverse to anything like an attempt to alter the Constitution, we were quite prepared to declare that if the development of the resources and the increase of the population of 'the Colony," by the action of the General Legislature, should prove to. Jpe inconsistent with the Provincial system, we considered the former objects of far more importance than the maintenance of any particular organisation." Sir, when we compai'e this statement with that which the Colonial Treasurer has brought down to us, without apology or explanation, excepting that the minds of himself and his colleagues were in search after that paradise of equilibrium which may be called the paradise of fools, we may be excused for being astonished. MR. VOGEL AMD WELLINGTON LOG-ROLLING. He (Mr. Fitzherbert) will, perhaps, pardon my giving him this small piece of advice, as it is only fair that I should do so after the j very large amount he was good enough to i offer me in his lengthy speech this evening. I am altogether "too modest to accept the praise he gave rae for my powers of "logrolling," and can assure him that the only knowledge of the subject which I possess is derived from him. He is the great master .of that art, as any one must acknowledge who has watched the course of measures which he has in charge. "When any one of his Bills is going through the House, you may trace it in almost every motion which appears on the Order Paper; in almost every proceeding, every division taken in the House, on no matter what irrelevant subject. If a second reading of a Bill is carried, you are told, "There is a Wellington Bill coming on tomorrow;" and you understand what is meant. If another Bill is thrown out, and you inquire the reason, you find that the member in charge of it has been opposed to some Bill of the honorable member's. At a late period of the night, when other honorable members imagine that all ordinary work is over, the honorable gentleman suddenly appears at the head of a phalanx of supporters, and insists on" his Bill being carried through. I can assure the honorable gentleman that he does himself an injustice when he gives me credit for a special knowledge of that which in his hands has really become an art.