PARLIAMENTARY DETERIORATIONS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5391, 8 July 1878, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY DETERIORATIONS.

(From the Australasian, June 29.) . The worst effect of the state of • demoralisation and corruption into which colonial Parliaments occasionally fall is that it tends to drive many honorable, but not sufficiently determined, men from public life, and so renders tho evil irremediable. One of the strongest instances of this unfortunate condition of things is now visible in New Zea. land. The decline in tho tone and spint_ of Parliamentary discussion under the reyime of Sir George Grey has been commented upon by many prominent politicians. The violence and unscrupulousness, and readiness to impute the basest motives,_ exhibited by the Premier, have not been without their natural effect on the character of Parliament, The foulest, most malignant calumny and reckless aspersion can easily plead in their justification the conduct of the leader of the Housa of Representatives, and to all who know the speed with which a bad example spreads it is needloss to chnracteri-e the effect produced. ' The result is that the New Zealand Parliament, which for many years hold perhaps the highest place in all colonial assemblies for the ability, cultivation, and tone of its, debates, has sunk so low as to occasion a feeling of disgust and llurailitation to some of its most valuable members, And now wo find a member of tho

ability and high character of Mr. Donald Reid resigning his seat in.the House of Representatives on the express ground that he could no longer retain it and preserve his self-respect. Mr. Reid, in his farewell address to his constituents, said, “ I have been in politics for some time, and I cannot say that I do not like the political arena, when fairly conducted ; but I must say that the tone that has gradually come and is coming into the Parliament of New Zealand—indeed the tone that has been extending since the advent into it one to whose appearance I looked very much pleasure—l mean the Premier of the colony—is detonating and degrading ; and instead of discussing matters fairly upon their merits, half of our time is taken up with bitter personalities, in burling charges of jobbery and corruption at each other.” A retreat on such grounds as these must always be looked upon as in some degree weak and unpatriotic. It is when tho institutions of the country are in (linger of being submerged by a. flood of violence and corruption that the duty of standing to ones post, and of resisting such an invasion to the last, becomes the ' most imperative. But while we disapprove of the weak desertion, how much more must we cqnsure the shameless and disgraceful conduct by which it is occasioned.