STAND TO YOUR GUNS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5441, 4 September 1878, Page 3

STAND TO YOUR GUNS.

TO THE EDITOR OE THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —Your Parliamentary reports disclose alpeculiarly anomalous condition of things in the House of Representatives. Member 1 after member rises to condemn most unsparingly the various electoral and financial proposals of the Government ; yet each concludes his speech by announcing that his vote, nevertheless, will be with Ministers. What can be more inconsistent ? A year or two ago the walls of the. House echoed the pmans of triumph which arose from the members of the present Ministry and their more enthusiastic supporters, for that a time had “ at hist ” arrived when a man might speak the thing he willed—when hon. members had escaped the thraldom of the Vogelian era, and could raise their voices in independent criticism. Sir, surely wo have escaped Seylla to drift on to Charyhdis. The House now criticises boldly, but no man has the courage of his opinions. All seem to fear to let the vote, follow tho voice and to reject that which is so bitterly denounced. If representatives are content thus to swallow their opinions in order to please the mobs in various cities over whom Sir George Grey, in his “■ liberal ” crusade, has thrown a glamour, then the sooner Parliamentary institutions, as at present constituted, are abolished and the Attorney-General’s pet scheme of delegation inaugurated as the governing system the better. We should at least know what to trust to. —I am, &c., Ceito.