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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 2

The Turkish merchant, in order to dignify goods of a very ordinary character, cried as he offered them for sale, " In the name of the Prophet—Figs !" and some of our patriots of the Pyke stamp are endeavoring to invest a very trumpery affair with an enormous amount of dignity by crying "privilege." They take us back to the days of Chaiiles 1., Hampden, ship money, and all the rest of it, doubtless in the hope that the people will recognise in them the direct political descendants of the men who won English liberty at peril (often by sacrifice) of their lives and freedom. But they might spare themselves the trouble. Messrs. Stout and Pyke and Barff, et hoc genus omne, have nothing in them of the stuff of which the parliamentary and puritan heroes of the Commonwealth were made. When one of them assumes the role of the great champions of freedom in the past, his qualifications resemble those of Bottom, who was anxious to play the lion, having learned that he might do it extempore, for it was "nothing but roaring." It never strikes those who essay to wear the armor of men of might during dark and dangerous times, that the present occasion is not parallel with the past, and that if it were they could not and would not make the feeblest attempt to grapple with its perils. They merely hear a cry of " privilege" raised, snatch at tho nearest school History of England, fancy themselves the lions of the great dramas which even it records, and say each one, " Let me play the lion too : I will roar that I will do any man's heart good to hear me ; I will roar that I will make the duke say, 'Let him roar again. Let him roar'again.'" Fortunately the resolution quickly arrived at iii the House yesterday prevented the roaring so anxiously desired by many of our parliamentary Bottoms, but no doubt the report of the committee appointed to enquire into the latest question of privilege will give ample opportunity for display. , But we take leave to fancy •that if these were Charles the First's times Messrs. Pyke, Barff, and Co. would be quite ready to be discreet in their roaring. Each; one then, recognising that under certain circumstances his roaring might entail political martyrdom, would quickly say, " But I will aggravate my voice so, that I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove : I will roar you an 'twere a nightingale." This being so, it is to be hoped that the privilege question will not be turned into a farco by some who will invest it with

" an Ercles' vein, a tyrant's vein." If any gentleman thinks that the Governor, by the reasons he has given for not presently appointing some Mr. Wilson or another to the Legislative Council, has infringed the privileges of Parliament, by all means let us have the question examined into and settled, lesfc what is but in itself a trifle may come to be recorded as a precedent one way or the other, and " many an error by the same example will rush into the State." But in the name of all that is dinified and proper do not let certain members of Parliament make themselves a dramatic company such as played "the most lamentable comedy and cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby." We have already expressed our opinion on this question of privilege, which is in effect that there is nothing in it. But that does not make us opposed to its proper discussion, more especially as such discussion, we feel confident, will confirm our views. Some people seem to forget that the Governor and House of Representatives are not in questions of this kind exactly analagous to the Sovereign and Imperial Parliament. We have here a Constitution defined by Act of Parliament;, and the Governor has responsibilities to the Home authorities as well as a position as a part of a subordinate Constitution unknown in the polity of the English Constitution. The worst that can be alleged agains him is that he has permitted himself to be officially cognisant of an undecided motion and an undetermined debate in the House of Representatives. Well, we think the gentleman who represents her Majesty in this colony is too old, too sensible, and too reliable a statesman to put himself, as the common saying has it, "in the wrong box," and we are pretty well assured that he has done nothing repugnant to the spirit or letter of the New Zealand Constitution. Ln supporting Sir George Grey, some of his followers have alleged that it is common, when a Ministry has been defeated at Home, that they should before retiring from office confer rewards of rank upon some of themselves and upon their supporters. However, the gentlemen who make this statement will find, we believe, that by the exercise of party courtesy the incoming Ministry in England permit the appointments referred to ; in fact that it is the successors who legally give rewards to their predecessors, on the well-known principle that to-morrow or next day the positions may be reversed. We have in previous articles, however, discussed this matter of privilege at some length, and will therefore say no more about it now unless to declare, as we have done just previously, that the Marquis of Normanby is too astute a gentleman to put himself in the wrong, though no doubt Sir George Grey is ready to seize every opportunity for endeavoring to put him there.