The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1877.
Consistency in political views is, as a rule, a good thing, and many of our leading public men have been noted for their strict adherence to certain parties and opinions. Circumstances have, however, frequently arisen both in the mother country and in the colonies, where statesmen have found it right to give up old cherished ideas, and to adopt those suggested by their political opponents. But generally speaking there is good and sufficient reason for such alteration, and if the politician in question alters • his opinion under conscientious conviction he usually announces that he has done so, and states his reasons. Sir George Grey’s views of nominoeism seem to have varied considerably during the last thirty years, and we have, since he became a member of the House of Representatives, carefully watched his attitude towards tho Legislative Council. On the 28th of September last he delivered himself of tho following utterance on tho subject of the Canterbury Rivera Bill, No. 2, to which certain amendments had been proposed by the Upper House : —“ I only wish to make a few remarks. I understood a general statement to be made by tho hou. meluber for Timaru that the Legislative Council has tho same right to legislate for the people of Now Zealand and to deal with all Bills regarding the legislation of this country as this House has. Mr. Stafford: Except the money Bills. Sir G. Grey: Yes, with the exception of the money Bills. Well, I simply want to enter my protest against that doctrine. I say we are tho representatives of the people, and, as such, we have a right,to legislate for this country. I say that, As tho ; Constitution at present exists, wo therefore are the only body, that at present has a right to legislate for the people of New Zealand. It is quite true that when a Constitution was imposed oii this colony by the Imperial Parliament, and until this representative House was got together, it might be said that each House had an equal right. I now feel it ray duty, in consequence of tho doctrine laid down here, to stand up and say that I contend that only those who represent tho people of New Zealand—chosen by themselves to legislate for them —have
any natural right to legislate in this country. That doctrine I shall always maintain.”, Well, after expressing Ifiraself in this" style, and in a manner denying the right of the Council to make alterations in the Bill, and claiming it as the natural and exclusive right of those elected by the people of the colony to legislate for them, this great ex-proconsul, after he ousts the Atkinson Ministry from the Treasury benches, very shortly contrives (and we use the word contrives advisedly) to “ get into a row ” with his Excellency the Governor on the question of the nomination of Mr. J. N. Wilson to a seat in the Legislative' Council. Although that august body has, in the opinion of the Knight of Kawau, no right to legislate for this colony, he has no objection immediately after his accession to office to forward to his Excellency the Governor the memorandum of his colleagues in which the grounds for the recommendation of Mr. Wilson’s appointment are set forth as being of a nonpolitical character, and merely for the benefit of the Council and country, “as it is exceedingly desirable that the Council should have further legal assistance to aid them in their discussions.” If the Council has no right to take its part in legislating for the people of New Zealand, and should constitutionally have none, why increase the evil by resuscitating it in its last moments by the influx of the high legal talent and ability which is centred in the person of Mr. , Wilson, of Ahuriri. Doctors proverbially differ, and if the introduction of another scion of “his dark majesty’s own ” into the Legislative Council is to be attended with the same results as have accrued from the election of Messrs. Stout, Rees, Lusk, and Co. to the Lower House, it is to be hoped that his Excellency the Governor and his successors in that office will decline to appoint any more legal limbs. History is said to repeat itself, blit in that page which will perhaps hereafter be devoted to the character of Sir George Grey by the Now Zealander who is to sit on a bridge and survey the ruins of London, we think there will bo some difficulty in bridging over the stream of inconsistency and inveracity in - which that so-called astute statesman is now floundering, and which will eventually engulf him. The less his history is repeated will probably be the better for him. Without in the slightest degree wishing to impute to Sir George Grey vacillation or inconsistency, we have turned to his despatch of the 30th August, 1851, to Earl Grey, Secretary of State for.the Colonies : and what do we find there written ? His Excellency Sir George Grey there suggests the formation of five provinces—Auckland (or New Ulster), Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury, and Otago—each of these provinces to have a council composed of two chambers, one of which was to be elected by the people and the other to be nominated by the Governor. Then there was proposed to be a General Legislature, consisting firstly of a Governor-in-Chief, appointed in the usual manner by the Crown; secondly of a Legislative Council, elected from the Provincial Legislative Council nominees by themselves; and thirdly a Representative Assembly, to be elected by ordinary voters. Here we find the friend of the human race—the political father of posterity, and the Demosthenes of our existing Parliament—advocating to a much greater degree the nominee system which he now unsparingly condemns, and which he says was imposed on this colony by the Imperial Parliament. A reference to Sir John Pakington’s despatch of the 16th July, 1852, will show how much more liberal the measure then forwarded, intituled an Act to grant a ■ Representative Constitution to the Colony of New Zealand, was than that proposed by the great constitution and policy-monger, who deems himself to be tho only politically virtuous and patriotic representative of the people of this’ colony. In Sir John Pakington’s letter, he says “it has been thought advisable that the Provincial Councils should consist of a single Chamber consisting wholly of elected members.” Had Sir George Grey been able to impose his system of Constitutional Government we should have had the nominee element in the Provincial Councils as well as in the General Assembly. Had his suggestions been adopted instead of the more liberal measure of the Imperial Parliament, and Sir George Grey been the autocratic Governor administering our institutions, would we then have heard any objection to a nominated chamber? We trow not. Sir George Grey in those days could argue that it was necessary for the maintenance of the peace, order, and prosperity of the European and native races in the colony, that there should be a large nominee element in the Legislature in order to give him power to carry out his own views of the subject, “and in the event of any question of an exciting kind arising between the European and native populations, to enable the General Government to pursue such a line of policy towards the natives as justice and humanity might demand.” We would earnestly recommend Sir George Grey to ponder these things in his heart, and for the future to be more charitable towards his political opponents, and not so unscrupulously condemn their acts, and impute the worst possible motives for their proceedings, especially when his own inconsistency in constitutional matters is so glaring. A new state of affairs is now proposed by Sir George Grey, Governors-in-Chief are to be elected by the people, and not “appointed in the usual manner by the Crown,” and the nominee Upper House is to vanish. He who aided to build up our Parliamentary institutions is the first to now attempt to pull them down. Let him take warning by Samson, and avoid being crushed by his own efforts.
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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5186, 5 November 1877, Page 2
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1,361The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1877. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5186, 5 November 1877, Page 2
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