The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1884. THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1826, 29 October 1884, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1884. THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL.

The Legislative Council in Now Zealand is just now prominently before the public. The Government arc trying to place it in the position of being antagonistic to the will of the people, and threaten members of the House of Representatives with a dissolution if they do not fall out with the other Chamber. Such an episode in our political records is most humiliating. Even the supporters of the Ministry admit that tho Legislative Council merely did its duty by throwing out the District Railway Purchase Bill, Possibly some way might have been found to consider this measure on its merits had the Government been represented in the Legislative Council by a competent Minister. Unfortunately the members of the Cabinet selected by Messrs Stout and Vogel to do their work in the Upper House appear to combine a want of capacity with a deficiency of experience. Mr Stout, in his attack on the Upper House, could find nothing worse tosay against it than than there was an nndue proportion of Northern members in it, and that they, having got what they wanted for the North Island, did not care to help the South Island, Ministers are taking their policy bills on the lowest possible grounds. Because the late Atkinson Ministry has given the North Island its trunk line the Middle Island must have a proportionate amount of unprofitable public works expenditure. If the Upper House will not open its mouth and shut its eyes to the Ministerial requirements, the Lower House must be called upon to fight it, and if the Lower House won't fight it, why then it is to be dissolved—that is, if His Excellency, who fortunately is a sensible man, would grant the Ministry a dissolntion. Unless Mr Stout has been fortified with a promise of a dissolution, and this is decidedly improbable, his late threat was ;i piece of pure bounce, which is very unlikely to accomplish his purpose, We do not think the .Upper House will give way to a bully, and we do not believe that the country would wish it to do so. A few more mistakes like the one Mr Stout made in his recant foolish declaration, and it will not be the Legislative Council, but the Minisiry that will have to be put down.