POLITICAL REFORM.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4529, 11 July 1883, Page 3

POLITICAL REFORM.

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) | Sie—Tbe sciences of Theology and | Politics, which inrolTe the highest human ' interests, are far behind other sciences < either exact or speculative. This fact may in a great measure be directly traced to the adoption of syllogistic instead of inductive processes of thought and inves- : tigation, and to the esoteric and exoteric systems, formerly—and even now, to some :-< extent—accepted and practised by the initiated. Syllogistic .examination, although a convenient form of reasoning, is not essentially an instrument of discovery. 1 Natural and Christian theology, and lepis : latire and executive politics, involve re- ! ' spectively, much of the supernatural and 1 / considerable ambiguity, owing to the -1 difficuHy of agreeing npon what the terms qbsed in those sciences precisely denote: Thus we talk about our " Democratic institution," but having regard to. the true meaning of the word, a democratic ideal is remote indeed. Democracy is a Greek word signifying tbe power to rule by the general body of the people as distinguished from the tyranny of a noble family, and the oligarchy of a wealthy, priestly, or: military clans. It means equality of rights, it restricts the exaltation of tbe family or class to c. prevent the debasement and denial of rights to all, especially tbe unenfranchised and unrepresented class. The people are , td^gWern themselves, and accordingly 'much of the multifarious executive business of government is entrusted to

local machinery. Thus, democracy as - a means of elevating tbe moral tonp, and

developing tbe mental energy/ becomes very powerful. In profession the New - < Zealand Government is for the people; in -' practice it is plutocratic, oligarchic, aristocratic, and even absolute. Demo--1 would not only be the opposite of all' these, hut be based upon the posses sion of all the raw material of government and wealth—the land, which is also the source of all power and happiness. This raw material like the other elements, jrr.. is the property of all, and Bbould bp administered for, all by wise and judicious leasing laws, and the inauguration o a scientific system for the equitable- ' xchange of labour. Education, sobriety, industry and thrift will improve to some rxtent the condition' of the wealth producers, but it is a first duty of a government to see that the conditions for doing so exirt, that no material opportunities are withheld or denied. Moral qualities follow, bu A do not, as a general rule, preceded .material progress. How do these proposition* as to democracy, consist with IHew Zealand's gigantic evils'* of land. monopoly, its Patatere, its North Island Land Company, its 'individual private interest.in hundreds of thousands of its hestacrts, its pension list, and the open 1 ditobediebce andjlnfraetion of the laws by ?s!>» very Governments who framed and enacted them with hundreds of other treasury tricks and political-job*? Even the borrow+d million* upon which our, labonring wealth producing . classes have '.to pay the interest, are. spent in bringing -out immigrants to lower wages and increase the price of the monopolists land, to whom additional political power is being secured by multiple votes. The working men must trust to themselves for political re form and social advancement. They must establish a fine and simple democracy to check the advance of tbe aristocratic and land monopolising classes, who are yearly gaining strength. Let ail that is useful be retained in the constitution, and all else rejected as dangerous. The present franchise is framed to protect property. In a real democracy every man should have one vote, and only one; and weman with all her refining and purifying influences, should be welcomed to political privileges. A large, liberal, comprehensive, and simple system-of local self gofercment, must supercede the present bathos of inanity and corruption. The Governors and heads of the democracy should be elected for a period to be determined by the people.—l am, &c, ' ' '% " RIFOBMEB. ,