UNCONSTITUTIONAL STUMPING TOURS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5770, 26 September 1879, Page 3

UNCONSTITUTIONAL STUMPING TOURS.

(From the Argus , September 9.) The proposed stumping expedition of the! Chief Secretary is a matter upon which award; may be profitably said. We imagine that the lion, gentleman will find it difficult to reconcile any such provincial tour with tlie practice and principles of the British Constitution, of which practice and of which principles it has been the cue of the Chief Secretary of late to express a somewhat fervent measure of admiration. “ Give us the British Constitution,” Mr. Berry has pleaded, “ give us the Imperial practice, and we ask no more.” As a matter of fact, the Chief Secretary does ask for a great deal more, and of this his latest project is evidence, for it may be fairly argued that the I scheme is in direct violation of English policy. I Tlie avowed object of the Ministerial progress - is to enable the head of the Executive to influence a series of elections, and, aa every student of the constitution is aware, any and all interference by Ministers in elections, on any excuse whatever, has always been explicitly condemned in Great Britain, and has been carefully guarded against. The resolution which Mr. H. E. Williams has placed on the business paper of the Assembly is copied and adopted from the standing orders of the House of Commons, and though we have quoted it before, we are by no means averse to printing the terse and weighty English of the original again : That it is highly criminal in any Minister or Ministers, or other servants of the Crown of Great Britain, directly or indirectly to use the powers of office in the election of a representative to serve in Parliament, and an attempt at such influence will at all times be resented by this House as aimed at its own honor, dignity, and independence, as an infringement of the dearest rights of every subject throughout the Empire, and tending to sap the basis of this free and happy constitution.” We defy anyone to read this resolutionwhich we hope soon to see inscribed upon our own records—without an instinctive feeling that it condemns the talked-of tour, no matter how plausibly the proceedings may be represented. Mr. Berry will doubtless aver that he will stump the provinces not to use his power as a Minister, but to display his abilities as an orator, but the fact will remain that he is Chief Secretary ; that he does possess enormous powers in the way of Government patronage, and ofj public works, and that a few quiet words from him—such as Mr. Woods found it convenient to utter in the Lancefield hotels—may have more weight in some electorates than all his rhetoric. It is in order not to expose either constituencies or Ministers to the temptation we have indicated that the British practice of non-intervention is insisted upon, and very good reasons will be required to convince the public chat the British practice is inexpedient, and ought to be set aside. And most people will admit that Mr. Berry and his colleagues are the last men who should be permitted to throw themselves into the path of peril, for even their supporters must confess that their antecedents are a little more than suspicious. To the notorious Woods’ case we have already referred. And when Mr. Berry was moved by one of bis impulses to hurry to Warnambool in order to confront Sir James McCulloch, we are bound to remember that what he relied upon was not political professions, but the breakwater; that he would have guaranteed that work in order to win the seat, and that when he was defeated—and presumably because he was defeated—he turned round and stigmatised the breakwater as a job. A Minister of this class, if he is to have the run of the provinces, may do a great deal to influence the elections, but we submit that it would be neither judicious nor seemly for the hon. gentleman to enjoy any such extraordinary privilege. We may remind Mr. Berry also that he is in receipt of £2175 per annum as a salary from the State in order to enable him to devote his time to public business, and not to give him leisure for partisan electioneering work. So soon as he accepts office he is presumed to oease from any labors as a tout. When Mr. Berry mada the announcement of his tour at Geelong, an elector advised him to mind and “ take little Mirams with you.” If there is to be a tour, it would accord much more with the fitness of things were the aspiring secretary of the Kaform League allowed to travel on his own account.

The theory of the English Constitution in this matter is plain enough, and the practice exactly agrees with it. It is that the electors shall hear the candidates who present themselves and judge between them, and not take a Ministerial nominee at the instance either of a Chief Secretary or of a ileform League. The theory and the practice are also that the constituencies shall vote on the issues as they am stated and explained by local men, and not as they may he put by some interested professional politicians. And this latter difference is most important. We know how Mr. Berry states the case already. He put it to the electors of Geelong that they were required to say whether the Council should rule or the Assembly, whereas independent thinkers not led away by their passions might be disposed to state honestly to the people that the problem is to establish a modus viixudi for the two bodies, and might invite the co-operation of the people in the task. We want both Houses. The work to be done is to lay down rules which will enable the two to live and to work together, and candidates and constituencies consulting together may strike out new ideas and valuable suggestions. But all the benefit of separate thought, fall the advantage of a thousand new minds considering the question is lost, if the head of the Executive is to travel

bout with a retinue to impress his views upon he electorates, and to demand the of ien exactly of his own pattern. Under f be ow .arrangement - ,v candidate who w ill no. e a mere tool of the Government, who has a r.dn of i; d'/pcndc-c ■. will have p,-. -on*il.v t - o-'.t itgait.-t ‘the Chief Secretary and the fill; 'Tight' of the Ministerial influent---, and_ it it o part of the British Constitution tnat in !e- ---- nt members should be subject to sucu •his. As we have said, tlicre is no British runt-dent for this manipuh-ti m of tne elec--rates, but everyone will remember that a tour f the head of the Executive, followed by the itr-.duction of the pkbisdtam, was the very -ep by which Bonis Napoleon paved the way ir a democratic despotism in trance. Mr, Jerry’s programme is admirably adapted me the domination of one particular man, ouis no less certain a Wow at the independence f Parliament ; and we submit that the Asembly will not be alive to its own interests—vill he culpably careless of its own future—if t does not deal on an early day with the motion vliich Mr. H. E. Williams has tabled, and does iot express an emphatic opinion that in the aiming struggle the constituencies ought to be eft alone.