PARLIAMENTARY.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 31, 5 August 1867, Page 3

PARLIAMENTARY.

(from our special correspondent.)

During the debate on the second reading of the Disqualification Bill moved by Mr Reynolds, the House of Representatives was utterly lost in a dense fog of ignorance and uncertainty as to the principles on which a Disqualification Act should be baaed. In fact, the House did not appear to trouble its hydra head about any principle at all in the matter. It was quite evident to any one who listened to the debate, that Mr Reynolds had utterly failed to convey to the House his own idea of the object sought to be obtained by the Bill. The Bill was rejected by members upon the plea that it did not go far enough. That it did not go to the length of excluding members from the House who occupy their positions independent of the General Government -—that it would not purge Parliament from every member who held an office of profit under the Provincial Institutions of the colony—that in a word it would not at all weaken the Provincial interest in the General Assembly. In addition to the Centralists that opposed the Bill, were some Ultra-Proviu-cialists that feared that a clause might be inserted in Committee that would weaken their forces, perhaps they feared that a clause would be inserted to exclude from a seat in the General Assembly not only those who now hold office under a Provincial Council, but also all those who ever held such an office, and therefore may reasonably expect to succeed some day in turning out the present occupants, and get themselves in, nay why stop short at that, but also disqualify any man who will not make a solemn declaration that if elected to the House of Representatives or nominated to the Legislative Council, he will do his' utmost tooth and nail in tearing down and destroying our Provincial Institutions without stopping to consider what other local institutions are to replace them. When members attempt to legislate without submitting themselves to the guidance and control of sound rational principles, there cannot be the slightest estimate formed as to how far they may stray into the fields of impracticable legislation where they are continually doing and undoing what is enacted in one session and repealed the next. The primary principle upon which a Disqualification Bill should be founded is simply to establish the independence of members of the General Assembly from the control and influence of the General Government. Anything further than that will be more than the legislature has any constitutional right to go. At present a public servant under the control of the General Government, eligible for a seat in either house, and if elected to the one house, or nominated to the other, he must vote with any Government that happens to be in power. To do otherwise would not rightly be tolerated by any government, therefore such public servants ought not to be eligible for a seat in a House where the utmost independence of position is absolutely necessary to enable a member to do his duty to the colony. A Disqualification Act should be confined to making the election of a repreresentative or the nomination of a Councillor holding any office of profit under the General Government null and void, and also preventing the General Government from appointing any representative or Councillor any such office of profit not only during the time he may be a member, but also for not less than six months afterwards. The reason for the probationary period of six months is to put it out of the power of the Government from bribing an active opponent to resign, and leave the House by giving him a good and permanent appointment in the public service for which he_ may be very ill fitted. As such an appointment would most likely be made when the Government felt themselves in danger of being turned out of office by a stormy opposition, the probationary period of six months would remove the temptation as the appointment would then most likely be in the hands of their successors, so much for a preventative against bribing an opponent, and the same argument may apply to rewarding a thick and thin supporter with a good fat billet in the public service, just when he can be of no further use to his patrons. Your space will not permit me to analyse the speeches of members on this question, but as your readers will be interested in knowing what Mr Bunny said, I regret to state that he blew both hot and cold in one speech. He voted against the second reading because he thought the public servants in the Assembly protected the House from the Provincial influence that is in it, but if they excluded the Superintendents, the House would be deprived of its ablest men. Mr Bunny is so much afraid of Provincial influence that he would erect a rampart of paid officials to resist its encroachments, _ and having like a good captain made his position impregnable, he then proceeds to strengthen the Provincial enemy’s means of attack, taking care that all these who are most interested in Provincial'sm are nor excluded. So much for speaking to a question that one don’t understand. It is the independence of Parliament not its purity that is required.