Poverty Bay Standard. PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 948, 1 June 1881, Page 2

Poverty Bay Standard.

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, 1881.

We shall sell to no man Justice or Hight; We shall deng to no man Justice or Right; We shall defer to no man Justice or Right.

Our political footballers appear to be actively employed in making as many “ goals ” as they can. They have the ball at their feet, and they are kicking it from one end of the Colony to the other. One of the questions that arises is : What does all this unusual, pre- sessional activity mean ? The larger lights that rule the day have spoken; and the lesser lights that rule the night, are now going the round of their orbit. Even the member for the East Coast —a little light, truly ; but, according to report, one that shineth, nevertheless, most effulgently by night—even he may essay something. Who knows ? If he has nothing to say of his own, he may yet find it desirable to say something of someone else’s, as a sort of pre-ses-sional feeler by which to gauge his chances in the next election.

Possibly, amongst the many speeches that have been delivered lately, that of the Hon. the Premier, will attract most attention. And most assuredly it ought, for there is none other that has been delivered, that deals so eminently practically with the current questions of the day, as it does. We do not except even that of Sir George Grey himself; although we must reserve to our use the option of not, in all things, agreeing with what he says. In our Saturday’s issue we gave, a lengthy synopsis of the Hon. Mr. Hall’s speech before his constituents, at Leeston, on the preceding Thursday, and, beyond one or two minor matters, we find that our correspondent telegraphed all that it contained, necessary to forestal the ordinary course of post. One of the principal features in Mr. Hall’s programme (planks, he calls them, in the new platform) is a re-constitution of the Legislative Council. And, above all methods, so far proposed, he inclines most to that suggested by Mr. Curtis, member for Nelson, in 1878, namely, that the number of members of the Council should be one-half the number of members of the House; that whenever a vacancy occurred it should be filled by a vote of the House taken by ballot, and if there were a prolonged difference of opinion as to any measure it should be settled by the two Chambers sitting as one, and voting on the question. It was supposed that by such a plan elections to the Council would as far as possible be freed from party character, and that there would be more probability than at present of the members of the Council being chosen from those who had rendered eminent services to the Colony, whether in the House, upon the J udge’s Bench, or in any other capacity; or from those who had become conspicuous by general ability and high character. That there must be an Upper Chamber, so long as our Constitutional Government rests upon its present basis, there can be no doubt. That the present “ House of Lords ” requires purging from its sins and iniquities, there is even less doubt; but, whether Mr. Hall will be able at

one stroke, to maintain the Upper Chamber as a part of the political machinery of Government, and eliminate from it all that is of a party character, admits of much more doubt. We commend him for his new-born purity in seeking to divest the Nominee Council of its nursery conveniences, the value of which none know better than the present Premier himself. But we have little faith in the political contineney of the man, who, having used to his own ends the highest and noblest objects of the Upper Chamber—one who has, in his dav, shovelled men with money in their pockets, but void of either brains or reputation, into the Legislative Council, with the sole desire of sustaining that “ party character ” of the proceedings he now, most virtuously appears to deprecate —turns suddenly round and attempts to extract virtue from necessity. Doubtless, a reform of the Legislative Council is required ; but it is quite on the cards that the Premier’s desire to forestall public opinion, and by such suddenly revolutionary means, will defeat the end he has in view.