PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

Observer, Volume 3, Issue 69, 7 January 1882, Page 265

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

At two o'clock on Friday morning the following conversation took place in a well-known hostelry in Auckland. Those who had become bemused iiad gone to bed, and a party of five remained in the bar-parlour, prepared to drink or discuss aught that the house contained. They were pJI boarders in the hotel, so the police can continue to pay their individual attention to housebreakers and smugglers. The party was somewhat mixed as to nationality. There was a Russian, who ■could have passed for an Englishman but for the precision of his language 5 an Irishman of Catholic extraction, but leaning on most occasions to the side of authority ; the landlord, an Englishman, who believed, as he may have been taught wisely to believe, that Englishmen were the favoured of the Lord, and English institutions the. outcome of Christianity ; a Scotchman, addicted to whiskey and money-making ; and a Jialf -breed. They had all in their youth been to ■school. For some half -hour they had been bat- I tling over the precision of the spirit question which had divided the Latin and Greek Churches, when politics came on the board, and the constitution of the Upper House in New Zealand especially. It is this portion of the conversation, dealing with the Council, I only hope to reproduce. Landlord: I sometimes find that I am ten shillings or a pound poorer than I thought I was, and for a long time I could not make out where the deficit had gone. lam never in any doubt now. When the loss is forced on my attention I know that out of the ten shillings Dan Pollen gets half-a-crown, Chamberlain a second, Dignan a third, and Whitaker a fourth. It is the hardest part of all the taxation I pay to bear. Irishman : When I was dining with Mr Pharazyn in Wellington a few months since, I told him what I thought should be done with the Legislature. He looked quite astonished when I said that the best thing which could happen New Zealand would be to sweep away the whole legislative machinery, and let the Crown send some half-dozen able men to manage our affairs. Get rid of your so-called constitution lock, stock, and barrel, and begin afresh. There would be some hope for New Zealand then, but not while the present travesty of Parliament continues. Russian : Many years ago this same old gentleman called Pharazyn lost a pair of spectacles in Wellington. He did not like to go to the expense of advertising them in the papers, and so had the loss notified on a placard offering five shillings reward for their recovery. He had the placard pinned to his back, and walked down Lambton■quay advertising the loss. Scotchman : It is the function of the Upper •Chamber to conserve property. Is this the same man that voted twice for Levin at Thorndon ? Russian : Yes, the same man. The family is of Hebrew extraction, I have reason to believe. Those who know its members best assert that they should be called Pharisee, not Pharazyn. Landlord : The direct interference of English peers (as such) at ejections is declared by a standing order to be a high breach of the privileges of the House of Commons ; and yet in New Zealand the spurious article is subject to no such restriction. When the first Charles had lost his head, Parliament decreed the abolition of the House of Peers, and passed a resolution that the office of a Eing was unnecessary, burthensome, and dangerous. The teachings of secular education will soon obtain the like result, and our ennobled grog-sellers and cigar-sellers in our honourable Upper Chamber will follow the power that ennobled them. Russian : English representative government was founded on a property, not a numerical basis ; and the same plan was adopted in her •Colonies. The whole theory of the English Government is the protection of property first, .and life second. Landlord : What I want to know is this — Why should I have to pay men of property to conserve property for ? James Williamson, for instance, is a very wealthy man, and yet I have to help to pay for the tea and sugar he uses and the boots he wears. Irishman : What sort of a looking man is this Mr Williamson, the president of the bank P Half -breed : A tall, elderly man generally •dressed in a black frock coat, coloured trousers, wearing a white tie. Irishman : Faith all the City of Glasgow fellows wore white ties. A d — d bad sign that. But why should you not pay for the bank man's tea and sugar ? Landlord : Because he has more money than I have and no children ? Scotchman : The old story. Property versus Poverty. But I will toll you fellows something that is not very clear te many. Privilege and Property have had their innings. Progress and its handmaid Poverty will kill the other two P.'s. If Grey lives ten years longer, there will not be a barrier left to break down. Half-breed, who is something of a book worm : •The change that has come over English feeling as to the uses of an Upper House within the last 20 years, is something wonderful. Russian : English society is moved from beneath, Continental from above. Half-breed (petulantly) : Perhaps so. I don't •care how it is moved. lam only speaking of the movement. There can be no aristocracy maintained among an educated people and in England the shewing spectacle is seen of the people educating the aristocrats. The newspaper man kills the peer. Privilege is like Royalty. You must not poke about it with curious fingers or it becomes only laughable. lam speaking of that section of the Press, be it remembered, which circulates among what is called the upper classes.

The Press of the peasant has hardened the mind of the Lord.

Russian : The main educational instruction comes to England from across the Atlantic. There the farmer ploughs up not only his portion of the prairie, but the feudal institutions he left behind him, lingering beyond their time and usefulness. Irishman : Fellows like Morley and Labouchere intend, it appears, to destroy all they can. Thank God, they can have no effect on the Roman Catholic Church. She will survive the national storm unaltered by the fermenting elements which seek to destroy the base of a society they will be utterly unable to reconstruct. Half-breed: The English merchant sees whither the world around him is drifting, and would fain help the Proletarial on his path on his path of progress. ■ Listen to what Rathbone says by this mail about the House of Lords in the Fortnightly. Irishman : What Rathbone ? A relative of the Observer man ? Half-breed : Yes. Irishman : Go ahead then. Half-breed reads while others listen: "The Lords do not now debate the Bills laid on their tables in such a manner as either to draw the attention or educate the opinion of the country. . . They resist without sympathy. They yield without conviction. . . They have delayed remedial measures so long that when they came they came too late to conciliate Ireland or to rebut the charge that they were extorted by tradition. . . They do not so much legislate as register, and often with a bad grace the decrees of the House of Commons. . . Were the House of Lords much more diligent than it can ever be, under the present system it would find all its work hampered for want of information. That its members as compared with those of the Lower House have, in their own persons, a less varied experience of men and affairs, is but the least part of their misfortune. The worst is that they have no constituents. Men who are born to riches and honours are not always born to

that sympathy -with thciv felloes which is the key to true knowledge. Their best chance of becoming acquainted with the common man is the necessity of conciliating his good opinion. From that necessity the peers are exempt. ""^ Landlord : How much of that are you going to read ? Half-bred : Only one passage more. I've only drawn attention to the matter because it is tlie voice of tlie Trader tliat is speaking — tlie only voice, the only power in our civilization which can kill the King. He says : It is the clanger of an age like ours that whilst the people grow in want and indigence, the idle and wealthy too often grow more wealthy and idle. In our age every really useless class must fall into contempt and disappear, h-iqajy?. Irishman : Faith all this talking is dry and useless work. Let us have something to eat and drink, as Friday is a fast day. Ye fellows, between ye, will break down all that you can, and then God knows how you will be enabled to build up again. Landlord : I'll make it a personal matter at the next election for City North. I will ask tlie candidate plainly, " Will you do all that you can if you are sent to Wellington to prevent my having to pay half-crown contributions to Pollen, Whitaker, Dignan, and others, to help them to purchase tea and sugar, and boots and shoes ?" Scotchman : Remember the motto of the Drummonds, " Gang warily." If the Lower House would vote the Upper no salary, the councillors would not go to Wellington. Landlord : When we get a man as Colonial Treasurer who has any regard for the truth, and the Turkish character of the finance of the Continuous Ministry made known, there will be no more cheap Tea and Sugar for Pollen and Dignan, and devilish, little for the members themselves. When that happy day arrives we shall see O'Rorke keeping a store or a grog shop. Russian, N'lmporte. Let us have a drink, and go to bed. R. A. A. Shekkin.