THE “STUMP” IN PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5473, 11 October 1878, Page 2

THE “STUMP” IN PARLIAMENT.

The Government having declared their determination to stand or fall by their fiscal policy, they fell; but they appear determined valiantly to lie where they have fallen. Under these circumstances, as noone can wish them politicallyany greater harm or disgrace than that which their own idleness, conceit, and obstinacy have brought upon them, there is a very general desire amongst the members of the Assembly that Ministers should now collect together the shattered “ planks ” of their imposing platform, and betake themselves to reconsideration and the reconstruction of another policy during the recess, if they can by any means agree amongst themselves as to the conditions. Smarting under the sting of failure and the contempt of the House, it would be unfair to expect them now, at this late period of the session, to attempt the feat which Sir George Grey, on a memorable occasion when in opposition, boasted his ability to perform, viz., to alter the incidence of taxation so as to free all the necessaries of life—■ tea, sugar, clothing, &c., &c.—from duty, and to secure at once the happiness of the human race, and provision for the exigencies of the Public Service, all “in half-an-hour.” Wo do not suppose that there is in tho Cabinet a bottle of “ policies,” out of which doses may be administered to the suffering House, pro re nata (occasionally), or that Mr. Ballakce can be permitted to playthe part of Mrs. Squeers, and do tho brimstone and treacle business with the boys just at his will and pleasure. A financier, unlike a pool, is not born ; ha is made by training and experience. Mr. Ballancb’s coup d’essai has been a dismal failure. He may be more fortunate next time, and there is a fail; disposition to lot him try again. If the - Government now accept the situation with all its disagreeable surroundings they will have the additional claim of having subordinated merely personal considerations to their sense of what is good for the people, and of having broken another pledge in order to keep their places and to save tho State. Under these circumstances wo think the Land Tax Bill, the Customs Tariff Bill, and tho Electoral Bill should follow the Beer Tax Bill and tho Companies Income Tax Bill into the waste paper basket, and a clear field be thus loft for tho fiscal policy of the future. The estimates for public works and tor the establishments having been agreed,to, tho passing of tho Appropriation Bills may end the labors of the Senators and bring the session to a close.

Aa thoro is no dosiro on the part of Ministers to go to tho country, and, in tlioir present sliattored condition, to meet their constituents, there appears no pressing need for tho passing of the Electoral Bill. Tho Premier described it as being “ one of a consecutive series of measures relating to tho representation of tho people, to the perfecting of which dm' efforts of himself and colleagues have been directed.” The redistribution of seats, alteration of electoral districts, and some provision for the representation of minorities would necessarily be measures belonging to tho series ; the whole question could bo most conveniently dis-' cussed at once aa a complete scheme. In tho meantime no harm can come of its postponement for a season. Its true purpose is said to be an extension of the franchise by the introduction of manhood suffrage under tho residential qualification. It has been shown, wo think, in the debate which has taken place upon the question in tho Legislative Council, that the franchise is already pretty nearly as widely extended as under tho proposals of the Bill it could be, and that tho assertions that have been made by tho Premier regarding the number ..of persons in this colony who : are. suffering taxation without representation are pure rant and gross exaggerations. This is tho view which Sir George Gunv takes of a question upon which it was his duty to be himself well informed, and to convey accurate knowledge to the representatives of tho people in Parliament. In his speech on the Electoral Bill ho said Tho Hon. “ the Attorney-General told the .House “ the other evening that tho Rogistrar- “ General estimated the number of adult ‘‘males in Now Zealand at 123,000. I i‘ believe that to be an under-calculation. i‘ I have myself hitherto put it at 150,000, i‘ and that, I think, will, bo found nearer tho mark. ’ However, I think it will be found that the number of adult males din tho country is at least 130,000, Of P those 130,000, 60,000 are, tho KegiStrar-

“ General states, on the electoral roll. “ These 60,000 are made up in great part “of persons who have votes intho van- “ ous electoral districts, "repeated, perilhaps, four or five times over. T have “ heard of gentlemen haying qualifications “ in almost every electoral district in the “ colony. Then there are a large number “ of persons who have left the country, “ and many who have died, so that I do “ not imagine that the absolute number “of electors exceeds 40,000. In addi- “ tion there are a largo number of per‘l sons who are entitled to have their “names placed on the roll, but who, “ from idleness, indifference, or some “ similar cause, have failed to place them “there. There are, therefore, at least, “ 70,000 adult males at the present time “ in New Zealand who are not electors ; “ and I have no hesitation in saying that “ these 70,000 adult males contain in 1 ‘ great part what I may call the pith and “ marrow of New Zealand—the sons of “ our country farmers, the sons of our “merchants, the clerks in offices, young “ men in various situations in life—young “ men qualified in every way justly and “ well to exercise the privileges proposed “to bo conferred upon them. We can- “ not then shut our eyes to the fact that “ there are at present probably 70,000 “ males in New Zealand who have no “ electoral rights ; and not only that, but “who, from the peculiar Constitution of “ the country, are not qualified to be “members of this House.” The franchise which now exists is classed as freehold, leasehold, household, ratepayers, lodgers, and miners’ rights. A tolerably broad basis, which succeeding Parliaments have shown a disposition to extend whenever the desire for such extension found expression on the part of the people, or of their representatives. It was left for Sir George Grey to discover the unfelt oppression which the people were suffering, and to reveal to them that 70,000 adult males in this colony were without votes.

On the 3rd of March last our colonial census was taken, and in the published tables tho whole number of the population in New Zealand, including Chinese and half-castes, is 414,412 souls. Of these, 231,000 in round numbers, were males. The exact numbers are not yet found, but it may be' assumed that one-half of those males are adults, 21 years of age and upwards, say 115,500, who, theoretically, would have a claim to be placed on the roll of European voters. But from that total must be deducted 4424 Chinese and 968 half-caste males ; 581 males in the lunatic asylums ; a greater number, say 600, in prison ; 767 men of the New Zealand Constabulary ; and an estimated 1000 for tourists and travellers, who, not being residents of New Zealand, were yet caught in the net of the Census returns on the 3rd March. These several numbers, amounting to 8342, being deducted from 1i5,500, leave a total of possible adult electors for the whole colony of 107,158. The new electoral rolls for this year are not, we believe, completed, but a good many of them have been sent in, and it appears that the number of electors now on the rolls may be about 76,000 in round numbers. Holders of miners’ rights are not registered as voters upon that qualification. Tho Secretary of•the Goldfields in the report laid before Parliament gives the mean number of miners at workduring the past year throughout the colony as 16,180. Under tho Miner’s right franchise these men would bo entitled to vote at the election of members of the House of Representatives for the electoral districts in which they may bo. That number added 1 to the '76,000 registered electors would give a total of 92,180 qualified voters out of a possible total which wo gave above as 107,158. The difference ; would be 14,978. , Now, under the new Electoral Bill a certain term of residence, first in the-colony and next in an electoral district, is an essential qualification for registration as an elector. Tho floating population in the colony is large. Great numbers of men are employed on the public works who have no permanent residence; great numbers of men are constantly changing their abodes, moving from one electoral district to another, and from one Island to tho other. There are also large numbers of men who, from indifference or from dislike to electioneering worry, do not ever seek to have their names put on an electoral roll at all. These are unknown quantities; but it would not able to estimate that the total of their number would be sufficient to cover the 14,978 above given, and the result would then bo that there are at this moment as many qualified electors in New Zealand as there would probably be under the new electoral law if it were now passed. It is oven possible that as the necessity for registration would limit the exercise of the franchise in mining districts the actual number would be less than it is now.

Yiotoria has manhood suffrage. There is no more democratic Or demagogueridden community in the world ; nowhere is the “political education" of the people, in the worst party sense, more advanced. The registration of electors there wo may assume has been carefully attended to. The total male population of Victoria by the latest statistical returns is 461,541. The adults, 21 years and upwards, are 214,543. The number on the roll of electors for tho members of the Legislative Assembly is 184,400. The total of our male population, 230,998, is very nearly equal to one-halt of the male population of Victoria, and bur 92,000 qualified electors is nearly equal to the half of the registered electors there. .The relative proportion of voters to population in both colonies may thus be said tobeahnostexact. It is, worth noting here that at the last ■general election in Victoria only 02 per cent, of tho electors on the roll recorded their votes.

Tho 70,000 sufferers of Sir George Grey’s imagination have thus no existence in fact; they are a part of the machirieryof his atump exhibitions, which, with characteristic recklessness, ho has reproduced in Parliament. There can bo no urgent necessity to legislate for them. There is a provision in the Electoral Bill for swamping tho European electors in tho North Island by means of the Maori vote to which we must take another opportunity to refer.

In our loading article of October 7 that portion of the Electoral Bill which purports to give a special extension of tho franchise to the natives, was'described as a provision for swamping the European electors in tho North Island by means of the Maori vote. The effect of tho provision and the purpose of the Government were accurately defined by these words. At present tho Maoris havo the-same electoral privileges as the Europeans havo, if they choose to qualify themselves. Whenever a Maori obtains a Crown grant for his freehold, if the land bo of the value of £SO, he is entitled to bo placed on the eleceoral roll. If he live in a house of the annual value, of five pounds in tho country, or ten pounds in a town,, ho is qualified for the household franchise. If he pays rates he will have his name placed on the electoral roll now without the trouble of making a claim. In all these respects he is now upon an equality with the European ; he has, moreover, a special representation under which, by Maori votes alone, four members are returned to the House,—one for each of four.electoral districts. The privilege which Mr. Sheehan and Sir. George Grey seek to confer is in addition to all this, and ; would entitle an individual Maori \ to ‘ bo registered upon the communal title to native reserves and to the tribal lands, If he will himself declare, or. if. some one will declare for him, that .his interest in cither is of the clear value of twenty-five pounds. Thus he would havo, over and above the electoral privileges which Europeans possess, his special representation and his

communistic title. Mr. Sheehan and 1 Sir George Grey bog that this extrava- 1 gant extension of the franchise may be j allowed to them for one year, as it forms i part of what they are pleased to call i their “ policy.” The natives Jthemselves, i wherever: their voice has' been heard by i petitions to the Parliament and other- i wise, pray that the dual,vote which they now have may be done away with;" that i they may obtain representatives in the Assembly in proportion to their numbers,, to be elected by themselves ; and that whilst they object to any interference on the part of the Europeans in their own elections, so they do not desire to have tho power of interfering in any way with the elections ofjthe Europeans. This, we venture to assert, is the general wish of the native people. But Mr. Sheehan and Sir George Grey want something more than the natives want, and that is, the power of controlling the European electorates by means of the Maori vote. An example of the way in which that can be accomplished is afforded by their operations at the Bay of Islands, where, by their own deliberate and shameless act of dismissing the Registration and Returning Officer on the day before the sitting of the Revision Court, more thanfourhundred bogus Maori votes were placed on tho roll of that district. It is alleged, and is certainly true, that not twenty out of the four hundred and odd have a shadow of a legal claim to tho franchise ; it is alleged, and is certainly true, that many of the signatures to the claims to vote are forgeries, and. it is alleged, and i$ certainly true, that the claims of the great majority had been pre"ferred : and rejected before, on account of their insufficiency, by the same Revising Officer who permitted on this occasion the scandalous trick played by tho Government to succeed. Natives from Hokianga and from Mangonui petitioned the Parliament against these malpractices of ; the Government. These petitions were referred to the Committee on Native Affairs. Wo quote from “Hansard” the account given by Mr. Ormond of what transpired there : —“Just before “ tho Revision Court sat the Government “ did take action. About three days be- “ fore the Revising Officer sat a telegram “ was received by the Government from “ the honorable member for Eden. He “ (Mr. Ormond) would not have gone into “ this matter were it not that the honor- “ able member for Eden had spoken of it. “ The Government received a telegram “ from that gentleman to the effect that “ it was important that action should be “ taken by the Government in regard to “ the Returning Officer. The Govern- “ ment did take action, and, on the “ day previous to that on which the “ Revision Court was going to sit, tho “ Returning Officer, who had raised objeo- “ tions to some four hundred voters, was “ informed that he had better resign his “position. Of course he did so. It then “ transpired that the honorable member “ for Eden was tho legal representative “ of the natives ; and when the Revision “ Court sat, on the day after the Return- “ ing Officer had resigned, tho honorable “ member for Eden, who appeared in “ Court as solicitor for the natives, sub- “ mitted that, as theßeturuiugOffioer who “ had objected to the names had resigned “his office, the objection could not bo “ sustained. His objection- was held by ‘ ‘ the Court to be good. What would the “ honorable gentleman have said, about “ the late Government it they had 1 1 been connected with such a traus- “ action as that! Tho committee who “ investigated this subject desired to have “ tho various persons implicated in the “ matter before them, but the Native “ Minister moved a resolution to the “ effect that a Special Commission should “ be appointed by the Government to “ inquire into the matter; and the “ motion was carried. He (Mr. Ormond) “ was of opinion, however, that this Bay “of Islands affair, had a history of its “ own which would come to light here- “ after.” The inquiry before the committee was thus practically “burked.” Of course there will be no hurry to appoint tho Commission, and if the Electoral Bill passes with tho Maori franchise clause in its present form the trick will have completely succeeded, the wrong done to the European voters in the North will be perpetuated, and the means bo placed in the hands of the Government for the infliction of a similar injustice wherever Maoris ax-e to bo found in any electoral district. It needs no wizard to foresee the consequence ; the Europeans will xiot quietly endure disfranchisement in this fashion, and ill-will and dissension between tho races must come of it. The natives themselves are conscious of this danger, and they pray that they may not be exposed to it; but the representatives of the people in the House have preferred to listen to Mr. Sheehan and Sir George Grey.