LEGISLATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 29, 12 August 1871, Page 12

LEGISLATION.

Before the next number of the Mail is issued, Parliament will have met, and, it is to be sincerely hoped, for the dispatch of business. We are not disposed to regard the time which is occupied in detailed criticism by the “ Outs” on the policy and administration of the “ Ins,” as altogether time wasted. We object to it when it is pushed to such a length as to seriously retard public business and obstruct necessary legislation. In former times the functions of the legislator were too highly estimated ; but there is danger in the present day of rushing into the opposite extreme. Wise laws are very desirable, and those are most desirable which, in the absence of an enlightened and organised public opinion, will insure wise administration. We are not prepared to assent to the truth of the assertion of Helvetius, that“ the virtues and vices of the state are the effects of its legislation still less can we agree with Buckle in thinking that it is absurd, and would be a mockery of all sound reasoning, to ascribe to legislation any share in the progress of civilisation. W'e believe he is on this point mistaken ; and we are sure he is when he *dds, that it would be equally absurd to expect any benefit from future legislators, except in that sort of benefit which consists in undoing the work of their predecessors. Because laws exist

which are not suitable for the country in its present circumstances, it does not follow that they were not suitable at the time they were enacted ; and the benefit which he is disposed to allow to future legislation is not of so little moment as his way of stating it would lead us to infer. It may be quite true that the best laws which have been passed of late years have been those by which some former laws were repealed, and yet it does not follow that all future legislation to be beneficial must be of the same negative character. In considering this question, it is obviously necessary io bear in mind that the legislators of former times were an ignorant and a privileged class ; and that they were liable to err, even when their real object was the general good ; and whose interests and those of the community being frequently conflicting, they were not likely, except by accidents, to enact laws which would promote the general good save in those cases where the interests of the legislator and those of the public were identical. It is quite possible therefore, under ihese circumstances, that every great reform which has been effected Ims consisted, not in doing something new, but in undoing something old ; and yet that many necessary and beneficial laws should have been retained. These must have aided the progress of civilisation, both indirectly and directly; indirectly, by preventing a return to barbarism ; directly, by affording security to life, liberty, and property. But the chief fallacy which runs through the whole of Mr Buckle’s argument is based on the wholly gratuitous assumption that legislation must always be as unenlightened, as unequal, and as unjust as it lias been in times past; that its abuses can never be less, nor its benefits greater, nor its aims move wisely directed. It is a similar fallacy to that which lurked at the bottom of the laissez faire doctrine formerly so much in vogue amongst capitalists and closet-thinkers. A pleasant doctrine for the wealthy and powerful, and one which commended itself to the tastes and feelings of weak governments and effete aristocracies ; for it rendered genius, originality, foresight, and action, on their part, unnecessary, and relieved legislators from the task of attempting anything new, or from doing anything at all. By adopting the maxim of “ every one for himself,'’ they effectually sent tire weakest to the wall, in complete harmony with, though in profound ignorance of, the scientific theory of Darwin, and life, as Carlyle forcibly puts it, “the devil to take the hindmost at bis ’leisure. If legislation has had no share in civilisation, to what was owing the manners and customs, the character and civilisation of the Spartans ? Say it was education that moulded their characters ; to what was their education owing but to their institutions and their laws ? The laws made the Spartans, and not the Spartans the laws. On the eve of the meeting of the Legislature, and when an Education Bill and other important measures are about to be discussed, these remarks may suggest thoughts, and prove not without significance. If, as Mr Buckle admits, bad laws have tended to retard, good laws must have a tendency to accelerate human progress. Let us trust that this will be the result, from a like cause, of the labors of the coming session.