Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1881.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 217, 12 September 1881, Page 2

Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1881.

Wo publish to-day & report of Mr Hall's speech in moving that the Hdpresentation Biil do now pass. }\i commences by sajir.g that in the cnurse of his political carser he has not had to discharg? a duty more reluctantly begun and continue! than that of diminish- I ing considerably the representation hitherto i enjoyed by tbo district -of Nelson. The • Premier tells « 3 that to ia a painful, duly : which he hsa performed, aid we ore IWubd to believe him, so far as tta pain it" has caused hits in concerned, but we are not called npon to agree with him that it was a duty at all, and in order to show that he himself did not think so two years ago— to show, indeed, t! at what he has just done he then considered would bo a great mutake— we reproduce his own words when speaking on the .subject pi representation ia 1879, 1 words winch were quoted against him: by Mr ' Viiaborne in the rfcent debate on the second ■ reading of thel?6presentatfon~Bill which hag just been passed feo greatly to the detriment j of tbi3 part of thi colony. In 1879, Mr Hall ' Baid:— J : "We bdieve that population should be the first . consideration,' but it should not be the only consideration ; and therefore w« 1 object to the plan laid down in the Bill introduced by the Government last session, by which representation was to be readjusted by a, mechanical proces?, because j that would prevent fair and legitimate con- j sick-ration being g ven to those other elements in the matter of readjustment, which ought to "no considered. We propose, in the Bill which we shall endeavour to pass, to have it effected in such a way as will give to all j portions of tho colony the rights to which I they may fairly lay claim on the ground of population ; but we do not approve of anv scheme wfafcb. should go the length of practically disfranchising some portions of the colony, as would have been iona by the Bill brought in by the last Government." With Mr Gisborns we ask after reading the above, " Why then is tfaU Bill brought forward? It is in conflict with the views expressed by the Premier himself that popHlation alone should not be the sole element of consideration, and that it would practically disfranchise some portion* of she w lo , D y-" It really appears as though Mr Hall, despite the paia it caused him to inflict such an injury on Nelson, had completely sacrificed his convictions of three yeftre ago in favor of a " mechanical prodeia " which would possess the one advantage of saving » good deal of trbublc, or ratb«r of shifting it from the shoulders of the Ministry to those of the surveyors. Hence what Mr Ballance aptly described as the "Surveyor'sschedulas." The configuration of the country, its past history, the fact of its having been divided into Provincial districts, and the associations and feelings to which this division had givenrise and which still continue to exist;, the totally distinct interests of the various communities, all these should havfc been taken into consideration* instead of wbioh, and apparently with the view of placing himself on a leiel with Sir Robert Ptel, Mr Hall haa preferred to lay down the hard and faet rule that wherever eo many eleetore Sure resident, no matter whether the area be two or three square mileo oE farming land or twensy times that amount of gold mining country, thence shall a member be sent to the Colonial Parliament. The measure is one of the most unstatesmanlike and ucthbught-out that hai ever been submitted to the Aasambly, and ita passage and the means by which it was secured will ere many yesrs have gone by be generally regarded as two of the mest obj?ctionable features in the history o? the New Zealand legislature.