THE MULTIPLICATION OF LEGISLATURES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 209, 1 February 1872, Page 7

THE MULTIPLICATION OF LEGISLATURES.

The following, from the " Pall Mall Gazette," with reference to what it considers to have been one of the main causes of the state of corruption into which the Municipal G-overnment of New York has of late fallen, is worthy of attention in a country like our own, where the question of local v. central Government is pre-eminently the question of the day : — " A few, though not all, of the causes which have led to or facilitated this extraordinary series of frauds, deserve notice on this side of the Atlantic. One of them has unquestionably been the extensive multiplication in the United States of administrative bodies formed on the parliamentary model. It is remarkable that this accumulation of Parliament on Parliament was especially admired by De Tocqueville, who has no words too strong for the value of a system which began by giving a popular organisation to the township, and went on to apply the same mode of Government to the larger territorial areas, till it culminated in the Congress of the United States. But institutions which possibly deserve much of De Tocqueville's praise so long as they are confined to populations comparatively poor and of comparatively simple manners, are proving extremely ill adapted to so much of the American people as is collected in great and wealthy cities. In the first place, an excessive number of popular bodies cannot be properly watched. Most Englishmen find it quite enough to observe the proceedings of Parliament, and at most take some small degree of interest beside in their own borough council or -parish vestry. But a citizen of New York may have his comfort and fortune most seriously affected at any moment by the votes of at least three assemblies — the Congress of the United State", the Legislature of his own State, and the Common Council of New York. It is impossible that public attention should be strongly or .continuously attrated to all tliese bodic-3, and it is acknowledged by Americans of New York, that the corruption generally attributed to the Legislature at Albany, and unanimously imputed to the Now York Corporation, is mainly the eonsnquonce af fcHe secrecy with which their pro. ceediags are surrounded through pub-

lic indifference and neglect. Again, it is one of the defects of popular government, which has not, perhaps, been as much noticed as it ought to be, that it requires the co-operation of *o very large a mrrber of persons. Just, however, as the quantity of iuterest and attention which is availab'o for the supervision of popular bodies is limited, so also the quality of honesty which is available for filling them with men beyond temptation is limited. The American system requires a great many men to work it, who shall also be extremely honest men, and the simple truth is that they are not to be found. It was doubtless perceived by the authors of American, institutions that they placed opportunities for gain in the hands of morepersons than could presumably resist temptation, and to a certain extent they guarded against the danger by providing that American administrators should be paid for their trouble. But this security for public honesty failed whenever the payment of public service ceased to bear any proportion to the magnitude of private interests which had to be dealt with by administration or legislation. Nothing paid as compensation for his time and trouble to a member of the New York Legislature, or to an Alderman or Common Councilman of the Corporation of the City, approaches in amount the profit which he may make by illicit traffic ; and thus, according to the general belief, he soon sets about getting himself paid on a scale corresponding to the practical importance of his duties. The true reasons, then, why New York is plundered are, first, that the supply of honest politicians is more than exhausted by the demands of the Washington Congress and the Albany Legislature; and nex^, that its citizens, at once very rich and verybusy, have no sustained observations to- spare for the proceedings of a body of men who, for the most part, without a fragment of character to begin with, are trusted to levy and expend local taxes amounting to Beveral millions sterling. When to these incomparable facilities for illicit gain are added the advantages of an electoral body, consisting largely of ignorant Irishmen without a spark of American public spirit, and of a system of local taxation which, by the exemptions it allows to the masses, takes away from them all interest in economy, it becomes rather wonderful that the sudden fortunes of the New York civio functionaries are not even moi'e colossal than they havo been supposed to be.