The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5290, 9 March 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, MARCH 9, 1878.

The Constitutional difficulty in Victoria still continues. The Home Government has declined to interfere in what it considered a purely local question, ; and great is the wrath of the supporters of the Upper House. The unspeakable Turk, and the fiendish Bulgarian, possess the sympathies of a Disraeli or a Gladstone, but the wealthy proletariats of Victoria, with political death at the hands of a vile democracy staring them in the face, are to be left to their fate. The Constitutional war is to be fought out by the present belligerents. Downing-street will take no act cr part in it; and no succoring Imperial hand will be stretched out to save the Council from destruction.' 1 Henceforth “ law and order ” will be scattered to'the winds, and the people of Victoria will be allowed to govern ; themselves, and honest and effective laws will' be enacted to settle the people on the lands of the Colony. That certainly will be wonderful change. Some years ago the oligarchical idea of Graham Berry was a dray ; in the Eastern Market, and a demagogue addressing a rabble, who cheered, him to the echo when, with stirring words, ho called upon the Council to unlock the lands. As long as Graham Berry occupied that position the monopolists could afford to laugh at his puny, efforts; but: Mr. Beery is now the Prime Minister of Victoria, and the thunder of the Treasury benches is more potent than that of the Eastern Market. The land question has in reality been at the bottom of all the disturbances between the two, branches of the Legislature of Victoria. The Legislative Assembly have ■■ passed measures for the settlement of a farming population on the public lands;: the Legis-, lative Council either threw the Bills out or altered them in such a manner as to render them inoperative. The members of the Council acted according to their lights. Most: of them , had been orignally settlers in Tasmania and New South Wales, when they" were Crown colonies, and the people were'ruled with a rod of iron. Everyone has read of the state of society in these two colonies thirty yeays ago. Those who did not belong to’ ithe| governing class dare not call their souls their own. However, when gold was discovered in Victoria, a brighter ; era: dawned; upon Australian history. Men with English ideas of Government landed in thousands in Melbourne, If they had heard of Crown colonies, the idea was : associated with black men and convicts. It never entered into their heads that when they landed, in Australia they would ’ be governed by : other than British ideas. But they ■ found , out-their However, as long as gold ..was plentiful, and mining ipaid better .than farming,;

there was not much enmity displayed .between the two principal classes of the community. In a few years mining, in a measure, ceased tobeaprdfitable industry; the people turned their'attention to settlement on the lands of the Colony, and from that time ,the people of Victoria have had one continual struggle with an ignorant oligarchy, who, as Governor after' Governor has said, have ho' English ideas of,, constitutional, government, )No better, class' of ; men’ and, women ever., left the ,shores ,of Great. Britain than the colonists of "Victoria, yet up to jthe present day'-'there is a party in Australia who would govern them according to the ideas; which prevailed fin Crown and convict! colonies upwards of a generation ago. 'Because the Governor of Victoria would not' side with 1 them, they have” been subjected to the vilest abuse. Sir George Bowen; at Ballarat, the other day, stated that members of the sham' aristocracy are how boasting that they had killed two Governors, and that they .would, make it very unpleasant for the present representative of her Majesty in, Victoria.’i ; It must , be admitted that the Berry Ministry has adopted an extreme course to bring the’ Council to reason’; but desperate' cases require strong remedies. Times out of number proposals have been made' to reform the Council, but it would' neither listen to them nor take any action itself. Mr. Francis, who was to be the leader of tlm Opposition”™ Victoria, but who was defeated for., West Melbourne by a Bbrryite,, some time ago proposed..;a scheme by i which deadlocks' would be prevented in,the future. • But the Council would have none; of it, and the Assembly was not enamored of it/ Mr. Francis’s scheme was this—that when there was a difference between'the two branches of the Legislature, they both should meet together, and a majority of both Houses should have, the power, of ■passing or ! rejecting a measure. .That is what is known as the Norwegian scheme. Had.it been adopted the present difficulty would soon be at :an end, for Mr. Berry has got a majority at his back equal in number, to the wholeof the Council. We notice that the Ministerial organ in Melbburne advocates another way to avoid the perpetual deadlocks between , the Upper and Lower, Houses. It is, that’ when a! measure which has passed the Assembly, is rejected by . the Council, a plebisoitnm should bo resorted to, and that the result should be binding on both parties. The organs of the Council are opposed to such a. scheme on the ground that it is "un-English; but, as a Mel-: bourne contemporary says, that argument comes with singularly bad grace from; persons whom Sir George Bowen, characterised as being. “ for the most part hostile'to free parliamentary institutions on the English model.” . Blit whether the Council is consistent or not does not affect the argument that, plebiscitums have not, proved conducive to liberty. France has had considerable experience of the system, and the result in all instances has been that no matter what tyranny was in power it was sustained by the votes of the people. A large majority of the Chamber of Deputies is opposed to Marshal MacMamon, and if an appeal were made' to, the departments, that majority would still be returned. One would naturally think; in , that case, should the President call for, a plebisoitum, he would be. placed in a minority. Yet closejobservers of French events are of opinion that such might not be the case. Of course the people of Victoria are better educated in political knowledge than the French, and would be more capable of giving an intelligent vote on an abstract question ; but we are inclined to the belief that if elections were robbed of the personal element success would attend the hardest workers during the contest, and that party would work the hardest whose interests were the most directly affected. Under such a system it is quite possible that the minority would triumph through the carelessness of the majority. Mr. Graham Berry’s proposal for a nominee Upper House is by far the best proposal, and the one which is most in harmony with British institututions. How he is to carry it is a subject for speculation. This much is tolerably certain, that the Legislative Council will not consent to the alteration in its constitution which the Ministry is pledged to ; carry out. The ‘ 1 revolution” in Victoria will not be a,t an end for many a day. ' ' '''' "