The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5847, 25 December 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1879.

| Intercolonial telegrams have recently | contained scraps of information, all more or less foggy, with regard to the fate of the Bill for reforming the Constitution of Victoria, but papers to hand explain the whole proceedings, and show how completely the agitation of blazing radicals and unscrupulous demagogues has failed to solve satisfactory, or even unsatisfactorily, the great problem n 'hich has exercised the body politic of the* sister colony for the last decade. In accordance with the request of Sir Michael Hicks - Beach, for a measure expressing the will of the people of tl'ie colony, Mr. Berry, on his return to Victoria, introduced to the notice of the Legislative Assembly a Reform Bill which abolished the present elective Council, and substituted in its place a nominee chamber so destitute of power as to be thoroughly purposeless, providing the plebiscite as a court of appeal, in certain cases, from the decision of the Lower Chamber. The measure was in no sense palatable to the country, because however improperly the Council may lu'.vo acted in particular instances in tin bs past, the people were not anxious r o see the Assembly endowed with in irestricted power. What was required was amoderate bf re£o.Vm, r ,whic^ Vlnle' ' the continuance' of. 3 tbtl ; b jcameraii) system; t.in i.faoty 1 ms in name, would still give Chamber overriding power jtingency. The Bill was read a< second. 4-ipne- by- fifty* tb v tf { majority' ‘could ' C T'd lU.vi.kT fl.'j.TTO

in favor of the principle of the Bill as in favor of reform of some sort. Many of tho votes for the second reading were given by men who altogether objected to the Government proposals, and who announced their intention of endeavoring to modify the most characteristic clauses. In committee the contest commenced, and the safient features wore only retained by small majorities, which at times narrowed themselves down to a single vote. The Bill as reported contained three principles —(1) The removal of all checks upon the Assembly in the matter of finance, (2) nomineeism, and (3) the restricted plebiscite. It is noticeable that Me. Berry has always objected to the plebiscite, the country by its voice in three contested elections during tho discussion of the Bill altogether rejected the nominee system, while the 6th clause, which embodied the first-mentioned principle, would certainly have been thrown out in committee had not two prominent members of the Opposition been absent from the colony at the time. Under these cir. cumstances the Bill came up for third reading, and the result was—ayes, 43 ; noes, 38. Two members of the Opposition—Messrs. Purves and Lyell—were still absent from the colony, while Mr Munro, who had a few days previously resigned his seat in order to test the feeling of Carlton, the most democratic constituency in an ultra-democratic colony, and had been re-elected to oppose the Bill, was prevented by illness from recording his vote. The third reading was therefore agreed to by a majority of two. A single vote turned the scale, and an extract in another column describes how the Government whips obtained the suffrage of a besotted drunkard, and so won a nominal victory. But then a legal question arose involving the fate of the Bill. According to law there must be an absolute majority of the whole number of the members of each Chamber in favor of a change in the Constitution, before any alteration can be effected. The GOth clause of the Victorian Constitution Act, giving power to alter the statute, has tho following proviso;— Provided that it shall not be lawful to present to the Governor of the said colony for her Majesty’s assent any Bill by which an alteration in the constitution of the said Legislative Council or Legislative Assembly .... may be made unless the second and third readings of such Bill shall have been passed with the concurrence of an absolute majority of the whole number of themembers of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly respectively. And as the House is composed of eighty-six members, it was clear that an absolute majority had not been obtained. The Government pointed to the third section of the Electoral Act The colony shall be and the same is hereby divided into electoral districts, each of which electoral districts shall return the number of members assigned to it in the second schedule to this Act, and the Legislative Assembly shall consist of the members so returned. contending that “the Assembly for the “ time being must be held to consist of “ the number of members actually elected “at any given date.” If this view could have been sustained, Ministers saw a prospect of getting out of the difficulty, because a Mr. Dwyer happened just at this point to have vacated his seat owing to bankruptcy, and the number of members for the time being had been reduced to 85. However, the Fates were against the Bill. The Attorney-General very irregularly submitted the question to the eight or nine leading barristers of the colony, all of whom, save one, arrived at the conclusion that the statutory majority had not been obtained. The Government yielded to the inevitable, and dropped the Bill. Such, so far, is the barren result of a struggle which has simply convulsed Victoria for the past three years, which has cost her money and prestige, and has led to a decadence in her material prosperity that cannot be recovered for years. As the “Argus” points out, Mr. Berry, before the last general election, cried, “ Give me fifty “ staunch followers, and I will settle the “ reform question in a few months.” The country responded to his request by giving him sixty followers or thereabouts; and yet, after nearly three years of turmoil and disaster, he is obliged to confess ignominious failure. He is now making another appeal to the constituencies, but we are much mistaken if he will repeat the coup of the 11th of May, 187 T. There is every probability that much-needed reform will be indefinitely postponed, because the man who had the power to effect it endeavored to use his power vindictively rather than in that spirit of moderation which is the keystone to political success, and a cardinal political virtue.