The Waikato Times. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1877

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 826, 2 October 1877, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1877

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religims o political * # # # #

Here shall the Presi the Peoplb's rigi.t maintain, Unawetl bv iafl uence and unbribed by i?a

The Assembly has now been iu session two months, during which period the time of the House has been taken up, not with the discussion of useful measures, but with a continued trial of strength between the Government and the Opposition. The only measure of any real moment that has been passed is tbe Education Bill. Ministers have made their several Statements, and though notoriously the question of finance is one of those, of all others, which needs the fullest and calmest consideration of Parliament, no debate, as yet, has followed even on the Treasurer's Budge.-. The Estimates remain untouched, and the amended Counties Act, to which the settlers of the Colony have been anxiously looking forward as the oil which should set in smooth motion the local governing- machinery, has not yet been brought down to the House. Wrangling and disputation took the place of argument and business, and the work of the country has been neglected while Government and Opposition were engaged in an unseemly struggle for the T r ea3iuy Benches. It is time that this were ended. As we write, we are yet unaware of the result of the no-confidence debate; but we take it that the Ministry will pull through with a small majority, as they have hitherto done, to be agaiu bionght to bay before they have had full breathing time to recover themselves. And so, as the House is constituted, it will continue to be, to the detriment of the j üblic Svork. The divisiou lists show that parties are far too evenly balanced. .. The Government have been practically defeated more than once when the issue was oue on which its existence was noc sraked. But the discussion on the Settlements.; Works Advances Bill, the voting." was 36 to 37 on Mr Sheehan's ameudment, That the Bill be read a second time that day six months; and the second reading like the first, was ultimately carried on the casting vote of the Speaker. On Mr Bees' motion respecting the Hawke's Bay land purchases, which not merely affected the position of the Ministry but the very character of certain of its members, the Government, it is true, gained a majority of. seven—but how ? by moving the previous question, aud evading the real matter at issue, a

course which, in its very nature, was a coufessiou of weakness.

truth is, a radical change is needed," and the only remedy in the present state of things is a dissolution.- The Government is too weak :.to carry its measures, but then the Opposition is no stronger, and the fdriner may be well excused if it hold on to office rather than yield up the reins into hands not one whit more capable of holding them than are its own. To retrace our steps a couple of sessions. Let us review the history of the present Parliament. It was created for a special purpose, to negative or affirm the Abolition of Provinces measure. That was the hustings cry of the general elections of 1876. All else was merged in that one absorbing question of constitutional reform ; every other .question was made subservient w it, even if touched upon at all. Toall intents and purposes the House was futictus officio when it had once settled the question ot abolition, and if, after a short session, it had been then dissolved, the Colony would have been saved the present deadlock, which has been the result of a process of demoralisation and disintegration going on ever since, till the present Assembly has at last become a corpus vile, which every man with the love of the Colony at heart would fain see buried decently out of sight. Abolition and Provincialism were two such opposite platforms, hedged round with so much of bitterness and illfeeling, that the men who have rallied under either flag cannot shake hands when the fight i 3 over and work together for the common good. The struggle was neither more nor less than a political civil war, and it is followed by the same bitter plotting and counter - plotting which keep a country in a chronio state of disr turbance whenever the conquered party has been withdifficulty repressed and feels strong enough to attempt its re-assertion. The only cure for this is a dissolution, There are important questions agitating the public mind which would lead to the infusion of much "new blood into the House, and break up the present political chaos. Unless this remedy be applied, we see no hope for the country, Its best interests arq being sacrificed while Miuistry and Opposition, like two tribes of natives, afraid to come to blows, dress themselves in war-paint and feathers, and, wildly gesticulating, taunt each other with every opprobrious epithet, JSTpr does there seem any likelihood of a bettor state of things spriugiug up. Mr Sheehan, who we may take as really cne of the shrewdest and most important members of the Opposition, does not hesitate to say that there are many points, independently altogother of the Waka Maori atfair, on which they can attack the Go vernment. And will they hesitate to do so? What, indeed, can we expect when each day brings us fresh advices of new causes of bitterness and hostility between the menb bers of either camp. It is no longer thecause that either one fights for, but true party feeling has narrowed itself into a passionate outburst of individual strife and bitterness, and each is bent, on the destruction of some personal enemy in the opposite camp. The fact that the wire now daily sends us some new attempt to disqualify a personal or political opponent, shows how this feeling has become intensified. It culminated, not a fortnight ago, in a political esclandre, which has been matter of grief to moderate men of all shades of opinion—that it will do so again who can doubt,—-for vvhat else is the natural outcome when parties are so embittered and so equally matched in the Assembly as- the present Government and the Opposition ? There is but one remedy for this, and it is a dissolution.