CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 54, 3 February 1872, Page 11

CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES.

We take it for granted that a “ new Constitution” will be introduced next session; first, because the Ministry have announced that that is their intention ; second, because it would take the wind out of the sails of the Opposition ; and, third, because a passion for constitution making and mending when once indulged would appear to be irresistable It may not be generally known that the first half of the present century has produced more than three hundred political constitutions, few of which have been allowed to take root, grow, and bear fruit. Beady-made constitutions, unless they crown or constitute the superstructure of an edifice already broadly laid and firmly raised, are never enduring. To recur to our first figure, they are like forced plants, gigantic, considering the space of time they occupied in reaching maturity ; but for that reason very weak, and not capable of living in a colder and more bracing atmosphere. Sudden changes are never wise, and seldom lasting; and this is more especially the case with constitutional or organic changes, as France can testify, to her cost. It may not be the less desirable to make from time to time well-considered changes in the institutions of a young and growing colony, but their nature and extent should depend, in a great measure, upon the nature and extent of the changes which the country itself is undergoing. Care, however, must be taken that no changes of a permanent character be made merely to meet some sudden emergency or some present, pressing difficulty, which, in the nature of things can prove at most but temporary only. It is “ better to bear the ills we have than fly to others which we know not of.” In no case can it be advisable to model a colony’s institutions on those of an old country, unless it also possess all those elements and conditions which are common to the former, and which are as absolutely necessary for the sustainment of such institutions after their establishment, as food, air, and water are for plants and animals. There is less reason why this colony should adopt English forms for her institutions than for a child to wear clothes of precisely the same cut and pattern as its grandmother. It is a folly, natural and excusable perhaps, but not the less a folly on that account. This folly has not been confined to New Zealand, but has possessed, more or less, the whole of the nations of Western Europe. From the days of Montesquien to the death of Louis XVI. a somewhat insane admiration of the English Constitution prevailed amongst the educated classes of France, which Carlyle has not inaptly termed an “ Anglo-mania.” This distemper, in defiance of all quarantine laws passed to stay its progress, became contagious, and spread itself over more than half the civilised world. The delusion under which these maniacs labored was in thinking that because a Parliamentary Government suited England it would suit all other countries indiscriminately, without any reference to their antecedents, previous training, existing circumstances, manners, customs, and habits. If foreign countries should be thus deluded, we need not feel surprised at English colonies mimicing the forms and names of the institutions of the mother country. Parliamentary Government was introduced first into Canada, and subsequently into the Australian colonies, where it is thought to have

worked satisfactorily. But it remains to be seen whether it will do so under the federal constitution recently granted to the former dependency, and under the one which at no distant date will have to be conferred upon Australia. The constitutions of the Australian colonies, however, were, but that of New Zealand was not, modelled on that of England, but was specially adapted to meet the peculiar circumstances and requirements of a group of colonies separated from each other by many formidable physical aud other barriers. This important difference the “ Anglomaniacs” in the House of Eepresentatives in the very first session quite overlooked. Before our free institutions had any time to take root they pulled out their pruning hooks and cut off the most promising shoots without affording the public an opportunity of discovering what kind of fruit they would be likely to bear; and we may safely say that the same course has been persisted in up to the present hour. “ Unless we greatly improve,” says Gustave de Beaumont, speaking of France, “ we shall never have any permanent institutions ; for we destroy every institutions as soon as we discover its faults, and as no one is free from them nothing can last.” But our policy has been still more unwise. We put the machine out of order, and then complain that it is unworkable. Attention has been recently directed to the Norwegian Constitution, the great merit of which is its perfect adaptation to the local and very peculiar circumstances of Norway, as to law, property, customs, and state of society; and it certainly embodies an admirable provision of which our own was deficient. It is this : no enactment having for its object any alteration or amendment of the ground-law or constitution of Norway can be passed in the Storking, or parliament, in which it is introduced. It must be propounded in one regular and ordinary Storking, and must stand over for decision in the next, after an interval of three years. We have always looked upon the clothing of the Legislative Assembly with constituent powers as one of the gravest defects in the Constitution Act, which powers, at the hands of designing politicians, the Imperial Parliament subsequently enlarged instead of abrogating. These powers will enable the General Assembly to enact a new Constitution, not only next session, but every session thereafter. Had such a provision as the one above referred to been embodied in the Constitution Act, it would have been spared the tinkering to which it has been subjected, in order to assimilate it to that of England, and to render practicable a parliamentary system of government which the authors of the Constitution Act never contemplated, any more than they did the necessity for costly annual sessions or still more costly peripatetic parliaments. The advocates of a new Constitution profess themselves favorable to the simplification of the machinery of Government, to a greater uniformity in the laws, and to a sweeping reduction in the civil expenditure of the colony; and if these objects could be secured by the means suggested, without introducing other evils worse than those they desired to abolish, the change would necessarily prove beneficial. With regard to the first of these objects, the following observations made in a speech delivered by the great American statesman and orator, Daniel Webster, appear deserving of consideration. “ Nothing,” says he, “ is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The'simplest governments are despotisms ; but all governments of law must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority and give many positive and many qualified rights. Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all such governments establish restraints ; as well on the power of’ government itself, as on that of individuals. If we abolish the distinction of branches, and have only only one branch; if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge ; if we will then ordain that the legislator himself shall be that judge, and if we place the executive power in the same hands, we may readily simplify government.” But, he might have added, by the introduction of worse evils than those we desired to remedy. The reduction in the civil expenditure

of the country is one of those boons easier to promise than to confer ; and can. never be obtained by augmenting the power and patronage of the central authority by the removal of the most effective checks which now exists to official extravagance and abuse of power. Already the appointments in the gift of the Government of the day, and the favors it can bestow, in the shape of public expenditure, upon members and constituencies that threaten to be troublesome, has a most pernicious effect both on the House and the country, which a division of power would check, but which the unity of power, in the absence of an effective public opinion, must necessarily aggravate. With regard to uniformity in legislation that is not so practicable as is generally supposed ; and, if practicable, it would not be desirable. Laws which might suit the Bay of Islands might not suit Otago, and laws well adapted for Kawkes’ Bay might not meet the wants and wishes of the people of IVestland or Canterbury. If the thing were practicable, why has not the General Assembly passed laws to supply the place of those which it is every session called upon to validate? And, if desirable, why does it leave such legislation in the hands of the Provincial Councils? These questions and considerations indicate, that whetliei as regards political institutions or human characters defects are easier seen, than remedied.