MR YOGEL ON THE DUTIES OF REPRESENTATIVES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 65, 17 March 1874, Page 2

MR YOGEL ON THE DUTIES OF REPRESENTATIVES.

[From thc Ot a, o Daily Times, March 3.] So long as Mr Yogel, when addressing his sympathetic Nelson audience, confined himself to sneers, more or less covert, at his hosts, we cau afford Ao contemplato the spectacle of Nelson's humiliation with tolerable equanimity. We ran, indeed, partake of that secret pleasure which the best regulated minds aro apt to feel when, fully insured themselves, they look ou at tho burning of their unprotected neighbor's cottage. It is by no means likely * that so threwd a tactician as our Premier will fall foul of Otago in like fashion. However great a roan he may f. el himself " amoug eggs with a stick." he knows better than to run his head against a stone wall. But a part of wbat Mr Yogel said was avowedly addressed to tho whole Colony, and his amazing theory as to the duties of representatives deserves, and shall receivo from us, more serious notico To do the speaker justice, he put the matter in the plainest possible way. There was no mistaking his meaning. It is the duty of the representatives of the people, it seems, not merely to subside at once into the position of simple delegates — this would be far from satisfying our dictator — ihey must go to Parliament pledged to the present Government, and must "bind themselves lo vot-3 with them on all occo8ion8." Further, it appears ihat the Ministers here, who have, poor fellows, infinitely weightier matters to decide than the Secretaries of Stnte, to whom is tntrueted the control of the comparatively unimportant affairs of tbe British Empire, must be treated wi'h special , tenderness nnd forbearance. Not only must members swallow, without making wry faces, the general principles of every measure sent down to thera by Ministers — they must carefully abstain from embarrassing these already overtasked functionaries by presuming to suggest any, tl.o least, alterations in the Hills laid before them. Mr Yogel was oven good enough with a pleasantry that in a meaner man might seem labored, to give us an illustration or two of the kind of thing he meant. Even " legitimate supporters," we iearu, cannot, consistently with holding the true faith, mako such trivial alterations as the substiiuting of " whereas " for " hereafter." From the larger playgrounds of legislation they have been for somo time excluded — tho petty recreation of verbal quibbling is henceforth to be sternly denied thorn. Let anyone who thinks that our statemeut of wliat Mr Yogel said is overdrawn re-peruse bis speech. Nor were the arguments with which this insolent doctrine was supported unworthy of the thoory itself. Presuming largely — wo will venture to predict, far too largely — on the ignornnco, not only of his hearers, but of the whole of New Zealand, Mr Vo^tl ventured to draw a pa: a lei between cur House of Assembly and the House of Commons Passing by the ludicrously itascurate statement, that there are not in the Imperial Parliament ton independent members — in tbe Vogelian seuso of the word — that is, ten men who are not bound to vote on oue side or the other on every possible occasion, we deny that there is the slightest analogy between tho two cases. What did we find in the House of Commons before the late dissolution? On the one side a Ministry upheld by a no means overwhelming majority, made up largely of men of various shades of political opinion; on the other a compact ond organised Opposition, led perhaps by the most exj erieuced and brilliant debater of the day, himself, an ex-Premier, and in all probability soon to be a Premier again. But between the opposing camps was a large body of members whose allegiance to either party sat loosely upon tbem. The majority of these independent members, though professing a geueral agreement with the views of Mr Gladstone, would have rejected with scorn tbe idea that they were bound to give him an unqualified support under any circumstances. Any slacknesp, even in so comparatively unim-oitanl a matter as the exaction of satisfaction from the Spanish authorities in the Cuban affair, would have speedily taught Mr Gladstone that it was the duty and the intention of independent members especially " to see that the State suffered nohnrra." Nor would the most ardent^of Liberals have been slow to show h'm that, as representatives of the people, they held their allegiance to their political head, — which Mr Yogel makes out to be the chief end of memberdom — but a small thing, when the interests or the honor of the nation wore put in the balance. Now, what havo we hnd for some timo iv our political microcosm at all comparable to this? So long indeed as Mr Stafford retained the post of leader of an organised Opposition, however* scanty in numbers it might be, something was left distantly approaching that wholesome check, without which the beet of men will, sooner, or later, be betrayed into irregularities and excesses. But, since Mr Stofford's retirement, his mantle has, unfortunately, fallen on no other shoulders. Whatever else Mr Yogel may have to complain of hereafter, it will never be open to him to say that his Public Works and Immigration schemes have not had fair play. For good or for evil, his policy has nt any rate had "ample room and verge enough," To our mind, cot tbe least *danger looming in the future is the entire absence of friction in t^.e machine of State. There is at

preeent absolutely no drag. And we eat neatly hope that the day is far distant when the independent merebors of our G neral Assembly, already sadly too few, will be deterred by the menaces of nu overweening Piemier, whom success ia fast spoiling, from doing their plain duty to their constituents hy watching narrowly the expenditure of the enormous sums, aud the distribution of the enormous patronage, now f laced at the disposal of Ministers. lil will it fare with this p< opie when the members of our Assembly of seventy who dare to freely speak their minds on occasions are reduced pven to iho faithful ten with whom Mr Yogel is pleased to credit a House of Commons ten times as numerous.