THE SATURDAY REVIEW ON VICTORIAN POLITICS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1245, 14 April 1880, Page 3

THE SATURDAY REVIEW ON VICTORIAN POLITICS.

A London telegram to the,-Melbourne Age, under date Match 13, gives a short rzxuTne of an article on "Victorian politics which was published in the Saturday Review on the above date, and from that telegram we make the following extract: —lt (the Saturday Review) declares its belief that Mr. Service will be able to re-adjust the relations between the Council and the Assembly in a satisfactory manner. The Council had erred in the past by improperly straining its powers, under a mistaken idea of analogy existing between the Colonial Chamber and the English Parliament. The Council had exhibited a want of hereditary tact and pvudence, which invariably characterised the proceedings of the House of Lords. The Review lays down the principle that the Legislative Council mast disclaim all interference with taxation, which properly belongs to the representation Chamber of the people. The Assembly should renounce the power of taking up measures to which opposition is likely to be raised. As to the Appropriation Bills, the privilege which the Council possessed of wholly rejecting money Bills was a nominal one, and not to be exercised except in cases of extreme emergency." It is a standing complaint among colonists that when Homo politicians discuss colonial affairs, they do not always take the trouble to make themselves acquainted with the facts of the subject discussed by them ; and if we are to believe the above telegram, the article in the Saturday Review is no exception to this rule. The reviewer accuses the Victorian Council of " straining its power," through not paying attention to the analogy between itself and the House of JLords. So we understand the telegram, and the answer to the charge is that there is no analogy between the Chamber of Peers and the Victorian Upper House. The latter i 3, the former Is not, a representative chamber, and it is hardly conceivable that the Saturday Reviewer should have been aware of this fact, when he reasoned, as he is said to have done, from the practice of the one body to that of the other. Inasmuch as the Victorian Council is elected by a section of the constituency fully equal in importance to that which elects the Lower House, it is ridiculous to say that the former body " must disclaim all interference with taxation." It cannot do so if it would. If the members of the Council were to announce their intention of accepting the position of a revising chamber like the House of Lords, the consequence would be the loas of their seats, which their constituents would take care to fill with men who should assert the equality of the two chambers in a practical way at least. The fault lies in the constitution which provides for an elective Upper House—a body that neither will nor can accept the position of a revising Chamber.—Wanganui Herald.