CRUSHING THE MINORITY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 213, 7 September 1881, Page 4

CRUSHING THE MINORITY.

A correspondent writes to the Post : —Sir — The events of the past week in the House of Representatives afford I not only natsrials for history, bbt give immediate leeaone for the gnidance of every elector throughout New Z^alf.ni. Public thanks are due to you for the impartial and clear manner you havo described these proceedings from day to day, and for the lucid explanations commenting thereon. But I humbly, yet most earnestly, submit that the late arbitrary and unprecedented action of the Chairman of Committees, and more particularly that of the Speaker, should receive further discussion, not only through your columns, but by the electors of Wellington and every district in the colony, where men are to be found who sre lovers of liberty, yet do not wish to see it separated from a respect for recognised law and order. These have beea grossly violated, and I for one tremble for the immediate consequence jif this sort of thing is to be allowed to exist during another session of Parliament. The high-handed action of the Chairman backed by trie silent, unreasoning, Jbrnta force of a majority, amounts simply to this, thit when he and they together may feel disposed, they will itop an appeal being made 10 the Speaker, as expressly provided by the Standidg Orders, and (bus practically destroy all written laws which they are all alike bound to obey until legally altered. The Speaker in this last case has dared to suspend the Standing Orders, and the majority support him, in what il eoDten i to be ao illegal aot, and fine a member £20 who waa exercising his legal rigbt in an orderly and respectful manner. As well, so it appears to me, migiit a judge of the Supreme Court set all statute law at defiance, order a jury to convict an innooeot man, and hang him without appeal. No man's property or his self is cafe in this country if the doctrine thus attempted to be laid down is to pass unchallenged, and the late proceedings sre allowed to stand as a precedent, It iB is a ctse wherein every man as well as every member of either House of Parliament is very directly concerned, and. should, and will, I trust, elicit here &nd elsewhere throughout New Zealand a clear and unwavering declaration of the sentiment of freemen who desire to live under & civilised syjtetn of law, rather than under the caprice and heated passion of a mere onjority, supported by the illegal action of a subßervient Speaker. Until last Friday ni^ht, I hare always understood thst there does not exist through the broad expanse of the British Empire a man, an officer, or the sovereign, whose conduot was not controlled by law — lam, Ac. A LOYBB OF ObDEE AND LIBBBTt.