The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1879.

Patea Mail, Volume V, Issue 474, 8 November 1879, Page 2

The Patea Mail. (Published Wednesdays and Saturdays.) SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1879.

Sir George Grey is letting off tlie bile that recent events have raised, by introducing “ The Prevention of Corruption Act.” It is of course intended to reflect on the present Government, and their connexion with the famous Auckland quartette. He raved considerably over the jocular motion of Mr McLean respecting the hardening effect of exemption from taxation, but though he is so nervous about the integrity of his own glass house, he persists in throwing stones. Why did he not pass this Bill before the Dissolution, when any “undebatable” matter might have been hurried through the House ? We venture to say that there would have been no dissenting voice raised, and that it would have been hailed as a most opportune measure. But Sir George had no thought of tying his own hands on the verge of a death struggle. But now, knowing full well, by experience, the formidable character of the weapon which he can no longer use, he is anxious to wrest it from the hand of his successful rival. “ Set a thief to catch a thief,” is a proverb of a somewhat extended application. The proposed Bill provides that “ Every person who gives, or offers to give, a bribe to any member of the New Zealand Assembly, or to another person for him, or attempts, by menace, deceit, suppression of truth, offer or promise of any office, or offer or promise of expenditure of public money, or erection of public works, or any particular advantage in or to any locality, or by any other corrupt means to influence a member in giving or withholding his vote, or in not attending the House or any Committee of which he is a member, or giving assistance or support to any particular measure, or to any particular side of any .question upon which he shall be required to act in bis official capacity, shall be punishable by imprisonment for not less than one or more than years.” It then proceeds in another clause to make the receiver of the “ consideration” liable ia the same way as the giver, and finally provides that the convicted member shall, besides the other penalties, forfeit his seat in Parliament, and never again be eligible forelection to the House, or for holding any office under tfiP Go • vernment of the colony. We have noi a word to say against this. We heartily condemn the malpractices at which the Bill is aimed, and would rejoice at their being brought to a perpetual end ; at the same time, our blood warms a little when we hear Satan reproving sin. Our ( only complaint against the Bill is that it does not go far enough. It does not touch the Minister who bribes his own constituency to return him and a follower unopposed. Why should it be so labored ir> its effort to prevent the escape of the tempter and his prey, while there is no provisions whatever for preventing a Thames Bailway job? Why, again, does it not make some attempt to regulate the conduct of the Ministers during a General Election? Should not a “ Prevention of Corruption Act” provide against a Premier giving a clock to the city that he hoped would elect him on the following day ? Should it not provide against his promising that city to make a Quixotic, cloud-catching railway, and to adopt a protective tariff? Should there be no pains and penalties in such an Act for offering a bribe to a man, by telegram at public expense, to stand |n the Government interest; or no pains and penalties against using the before named cloud-catching railway to catch the West Coast votes ? These are questions which will probably have to bo answered when the Bill gets into Committee, if ever it gets so far; and we have no doubt when Sir George’s infant emerges from that ordeal, it won’t know its own father, and will contain clauses which, if they were only retrospective, would separate that father from his inr fceresting offspring for the remainder of his mortal career.

Another Bill before the House is .»The Election Petitions Bilk” This is .in the bands of the Premier, and it must be allowed that it is generous ou ibis part tp wis.fi to reform a system o.f

deciding tin bc petitions, which, in the case of Chnstchurcli, operated in his favor and against Sir George. It will be apparent to every thinking mind that the House, or a committee of the House, is no more qualified to decide Election Petitions than the Licensed Victuallers’ Association is to determine the fate of applications for licences, and the Good Templar petitions that oppose them. When the question is raised as to whether a man can bo legally elected for Christchurch when he is already a member for the Thames, there is in the question purely a point of law. Why thep should bight or nine lay men, who happen- to be M.H.R.’s, be drafted off to untie this legal knot? If they can solve the riddle, why may not another eight or nine M.H.R.’s try the Maori prisoners? Indeed, they would be much more likely to arrive at a just decision in the case of the ploughmen than in the case of the election—for in it they are interested parties. We need not dilate on the power of interest to blind men. There are none so blind as those who won’t see, and those who areinterosted in not seeing, won’t see. The decision is almost sure to go according ;to the politics of the member petitioned against, ns in a committee of an odd number, parties cannot be evenly balanced, and the strongest side will serve its party. The Premier’s Bill proposes to remedy this crying evil, and to relegate Election Petitions to the Judges of the land. Witnesses will no longer dragged to Wellington from every part of the colony to be examined before a committee, but will simply have to appear before a Judge of the Supremo Court in their own neighborhood. The Judge will weigh the case without fear or favour, and his decision will be final.

The Triennial Bill has got through Committee, and will probably soon be passed into law. It is the least debatable, the shortest, the most popular, and in some respects the most important of the great triad of Liberal measures that are the chief corner stones of the Government policy. It will probably be the first of the three to take it place in the Statute Book, as both the Electoral Bill and the Redistribution of Seats Bill will involve prolonged debates. In the Triennial Bill there was nothing to debate, except the duration of the present Parliament. There was a strong effort made to give it a lease of life till February 28th, 1883, but it was carried by a large majority that this was a year too much. The present Parliament will, therefore, only attain the age of two years and five months.

The Redistribution of Scats Bill has not yet been brought down. It will probabably be the great bone of contention, and will occupy a great deal of time, as every seat will be discussed separately, and will call forth petitions and protests ad infinitum. Parliament is pledged to exert itself to the utmost to get the Bill through this session, but, seeing that the House cannot sit much more than three weeks longer, there is room for a grave doubt as to whether there will be time. There are many matters that absolutely must be attended to, such, for instance, as the financial proposals of the Government, that will occupy considerable time, and with the Bills already in progress, may crowd out the Bill to which we arc referring. It is certainly a measure that will keep, and if it were quite certain that a Dissolution would not take place before 1882, it would bebettertoletit wait, so as to carry the remedy of the present evils as far onward as possible, and thus postpone their reappearance. But if this important Bill is allowed to stand over, the Opposition will certainly make great, capital out of that fact. It might be so effectually used that, during the recess, a powerful Opposition would be organised, which, on the re-assembling of Parliament, would defeat the Government. In such a contingency a dissolution would be sure to take place, and the present very unjust distribution of seats would be prolonged by another Parliament. It is to be hoped, therefore, that although the Bill would be more effectual in two years’ time, it will be passed by the moribund session of 1879.