The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5423, 14 August 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14, 1878.

The Government Electoral Bill, like the Government financial policy; is a compromise between public professionsoutof, and fixed principles in the Cabinet, and appears not to command full sympathy or complete approval, we will not say from the House, but from the Government party itself. Some great land-owners and proprietors of counties may be, as they are said to have expressed themselves, “ perfectly satisfied,” but neither in the Cabinet itself nor in the ranks of the Ministerial followers is the satisfaction reciprocal. All kinds of rumors have been current in the lobbies as to the possible results to the ‘ ‘ party ’ of the admitted difference of opinions between the Premier and his colleagues upon the fundamental point of his declared policy in relation to the franchise. Everywhere in public Sir George Grey has been preaching manhood suffrage with ono vote and one vote only for each individual ; redistribution of representation according to population ; equal electoral divisions ; one possible elector with forty-five votes should never again oppress the poor man, who could only have one vote. The Government Bill provides for no single one of these conditions, yet, last night, the Premier in his place in Parliament undertook the task of defending that Bill, of urging the representatives of the people to aid him in passing it, of showing that it satisfied the conditions of the declared policy of his Government, and that it represented the views of a united Cabinet. Oratorically the speech was a noble effort, quite remarkable for graceful and vigorous expression, and full of the eloquent rhapsodies and stump platitudes which, delivered as Sir George Grey knows how to deliver them, have so often 1 • brought down the house ” in the crowded theatres in which ho has been exhibiting during the recess. But, somehow, last night, all fell coldly upon an unsympathetic audience ; it is a remarkable fact, because it is unusual, that from the first to the last the regular dramatic incidents were wanting, and not even a solitary “hear, hear,” or the faintest attempt at a cheer, marked the highest flight, or the teuderest appeal, in an exceedingly clever rhetorical performance. The cause was that sincerity was wholly absent ; it was felt, even painfully, that the Premier was only using verbal artifices to conceal his own dislike to a measure of which, with any decent regard for his solemn promises and public professions, he could not express his approval. Sir George Grey is right in thinking, as he must think, that the Electoral Bill is a sham, and that, as he suggested, no harm will come of the postponement of its consideration for a year or eighteen months, or, we may add, even indefinitely. The old trick of fitting figures to prove statistical facts was performed again in regard to the number of persons disfranchised under the existing system. Sir George Grey insists that there must be one hundred and thirty thousand of adult males in our population of 400,000 souls; —be insists that there are only 60,000 electors now on the rolls, and that there would be an addition of seventy thousand voters to the new rolls under the Government Bill. On all these points ascertained statistical facts and sane inferences are against him, but it is of course so much the worse for the facts. In Victoria the basis of the franchise is as broad as it can be made. The political education of the people there is active, and elections are so frequent and party spirit so violent that we may take it for granted the regisstration of electors is carried to its highest point ; and yet in a total population of 850,000 there are on the roll of electors for the Legislative Assembly only 181,423 electors, —that is, nearly one in five of the population; whilst here he asserts that with manhood suffrage the number will be 130,000, or nearly 1 in 3 of the whole. True Democracy, wo repeal, seeks a full and real representation of the whole of the people, and not of the majority only. In the House, where every elector could appear by his deputy, the rule of the majority would always be accepted as the governing power. The Government Bill does not recognise this principle, and does not affect to make any provision for it. Practically it may be said that it changes nothing, and if the magic paper then in his hands, to which Sir George Grey referred so eloquently as the charter of the public liberty, were put in the fire or into the waste basket, no man in New Zealand would be sensibly affected to his injury by either operation. If we cannot improve, it is much better not to disturb. There are now two electoral projects before the House differing widely from each other ; there is no present need to decide upon the important change proposed to be effected by Mr. Whitaker’s Bill. If both projects are allowed to remain before the people during the recess, free discussion will tend to form public opinion, and in the next session hon. members will be able ta approach the consideration of a question, than which- none is more important, with matured judgment, and with the guidance which may be obtained by free communion with their constituents.