The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1888. POLITICAL FAILURE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1794, 25 September 1888, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1888. POLITICAL FAILURE.

At. the banquet given by the Protection League of Otago to the local members of Parliament, Dr Fitchett is reported to have said :

“ Ho had spoken and voted for a reduction, but now, if the matter came before the House again, h# should vote against it, as a reduction in the number of members in the present state of the colony would bo an evil. The reason was that, so tar as his judgment enabled him to speak, there were in the House two parties, called Liberals and Conservatives, but they were neither Liberals nor Conservatives in the English sense. The colonial Conservatives—the landed proprietors, the rich men—were the backbone of the present Government parly. A colonial Conservative was a man who held large quantities of land, whether Native or European land. It .was the ' Russells, the Orraoods, the Buchanans, the Rhodes’, who had the bulk of the land of the co'ony in their . grip, and who constituted the Conservative p’rty, and ho was satisfied from the observations in the House that if the number of members was reduced they would find nobody but these moneyed men in the House. No ordinary man would be able to contest a country constituency, and Parliament would be controlled. by these large landed proprietors. For these reasons he should retract the position h» had taken, and endeavor to maintain the number of members as at present. If the number of members was decreased, it would sot be raised again wi bin i he next 30 years.”

It is very kincl of Dr Fitchett to tell us this nowj but Sir Robert Stout told Dr Fitchett exactly the same thing before ever he was elected, and if he had much sense he would have profited by the information. Bathe did not. He went to Wellington and voted for reducing the number of members—and for reducing their honorarii —and he cackled a great deal about it at the time, and caused the correspondents of the papers of his town to telegraph specially that he had done .so, How he finds that the reduction is mischievous, _ and he promises to try to remedy it; but we cannot for the life of us see how he can do it. Josh Billings said that there was far more harm done in the world by fools than by rascals. This is an instance of it. It was not rascality, but foolishness, which caused Dr Fitchett to contribute to the mischief of reducing the number of members’ and their honorarii. Alter 12 months’ experience he now admits that he has done wrong, because he has in his head some confused notions tKat there are two parties in the House. Perhaps the next couple of years will show him more clearly what the result of allowing the government of the country to

fall exclusively into the hands of one of these parties would be. It would simply be national bankruptcy, and the ruin of us all.

It was doubtless foolishness, and not rascality, which made Dr Fitchott vote against the £IO,OOO for labor settlements, too. He deplores the fact that the land is in the hands of the Bussells, the Ormonds, the Buchanans, and the Rhodes’, but he voted with these gentry against giving the poor working man a home on the land on which he toils. Contempt on such Liberals as he is! He gave as his reason that there was power under the Land Act of 1885 to establish such settlements, but was there money set aside for that purpose ? Was it power to establish the settlements the Government sought ? It was not. The Government knew they had the power, but they had not the money, and they asked the House to grant it to them —and Dr Fitchett was one of those who refused it. Every old and tried and trusted Liberal worth his salt in the House voted for this, but Dr Fitchett knew better than tuuse, and voted with the large landowner*. Auch is his priggish conceit that he would not be guided by superior experience and intelligence. In this proposal was involved the grand principle that every man who toils on the land has a right to a home on it. If the vote of £IO,OOO had passed this principle would have been affirmed, i and the system inaugurated. The success with which it would undoubtedly be crowned would ultimately lead to an extension of it. But Dr Fitchett, to his eternal shams, voted against it, in company with the large landowners—and it was not carried. We have no hesitation in pronouncing Dr Fitchett as a muddling politician; We once placed confidence in hiraj and we rejoiced exceedingly in his election, but we cannot look upon him now except as an unmitigated failure —the very quintescence of incompetency —or else a double-dyed traitor to Liberal principles. We think it premature to accuse him of the latter crime yet, and, if the truth were i known, we believe his faults would be found to be more of the head than of the heart. He is too learned in political economy, and theories and old world notions hold his mind in as firm a grip as a straight-jacket would his body. If he would take our advice, he would study the books of common sense and human sympathy, and take counsel from active, living statesmen instead of dead theorists. Wey regret exceedingly that ha has out so erratic, as he was one of our political heroes not long ago, and it makes us sad to think that he has fallen to the level of a shuffling, senseless, useless member, who has nothing bettor to say for himself than that he blunderingly voted away the liberties of the people in the reduction of their Parliamentary representation.