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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24

The New Zealand Confederation. — I

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The New Zealand Confederation.

I.

One result of the legislation attending the abolition of Provincial Institutions has been the material increase of the political power of the richer classes of the community, notably the run-holders, in which term I include all persons occupying runs, whether as freeholders or as pastoral tenants of the Crown. It has consolidated the strength of the runholding party in the General Assembly by enabling it to act more effectively, since the land laws for the whole Colony will, for the future, be dealt with in a general measure whenever amendments are proposed; whereas, in the past, this party has frequently found itself embarrassed by having to deal with the land laws for each Province seriatim, and so been unable to check the progress of liberal principles. An illustration of its augmented strength has already been furnished by the action of the Legislative Council, in excising the clauses of the Waste Lands Administration Bill, which provided for the extension of the deferred payment system throughout the Colony; and a further proof will be found in the attempt (which failed of success more by accident than anything else) made last session to renew the leases of the Canterbury pastoral tenants without public competition. The Waste Lands Boards have likewise been virtually placed under the control of the same party. The principle of popular election has never prevailed in respect of these bodies' but they have, to all intents, been I ranches of the Provincial page 4 Governments, the General Government having a voice in their proceedings through the media of the Chief Commissioners. They have been strictly local bodies, and amenable to local control, whereas, under the new order of things, they are Boards nominated by the Ministry and responsible to it alone, nor will the County Councils possess the faintest right to complain of their conduct, even should it meet with public disapproval. While the Boards are thus removed from popular influence, their powers are augmented; and they will henceforth exercise many of the functions which formerly appertained to the Provincial Councils and Executives. The Otago Board, for example, will be required to perform the delicate task of deciding what blocks of land shall be set apart for hundreds and for sale on deferred payments, subject, indeed, to the approval of the Governor, but still wielding a power which is liable to be used in the most mischievous manner. The Counties Act is likewise calculated to strengthen the political power of the rich. By the system of multiple voting which it introduces, it will be possible for a large property holder to possess forty-five votes in a single county, whereas the poor man can enjoy but one, while the corrective originally provided whereby the Chairman of the County Council was made elective by the single votes of the whole body of ratepayers, has been taken away by the Legislative Council, and the election of Chairman entrusted to the County Council itself, thus aggravating the inequality of the franchise.

The power of the runholding party is likely to continue growing, by reason of its numerical strength in the Legislature and in the Cabinet. There are sixteen large landholders in the Lower House—a number preposterously out of proportion to the representation enjoyed by the rest of the community; and this phalanx is supported by a few other members so closely connected by business ties and otherwise with the large landholders, that they may be considered to represent the same interest. It would be superfluous to descant upon the immense influence of the runholders in the Upper House, which is entirely under their control. The same interest is preponderant in the Cabinet. When page 5 the session closed, matters stood thus:—The Premiership and the Colonial Treasurership were held by Major Atkinson, who i3 not a runholder, and cannot indeed be said to represent any particular interest. Dr. Pollen was Colonial Secretary. He likewise, so far as I am aware, is not connected with the runholding interest, but from his many years' service in the Government departments, must be looked upon, if anything, as representing the Civil Service in the Cabinet. Sir Donald McLean was Native Minister, Mr. Richardson Minister for Public Works, Mr. Bowen Minister of Justice, and Mr. G. McLean Commissioner of Customs. The two former are runholders. Mr. McLean avowedly represents the same interest, and it is perhaps not unfair to class Mr. Bowen in the same category. Mr. Whitaker, the most prominent member of the Cabinet, is likewise the most active agent which the large landholders possess there. His name has been repeatedly before the public in connection with various transactions which show clearly the direction of his political views, one of the latest and most notable being the sale of the Piako Swamp, wherein he acted as attorney for the purchasers, and from his place in the House defended the transaction, although he did not vote in the division. It is confirmatory of the general scope of these remarks that all the runholders in the House voted with the Government on this question. Then, when the Ministry, unmindful of the law, increased its number to nine, it did so by taking into the Cabinet two more runholders in the persons of Mr. John Hall and Mr. Ormond, who, however, after a few days' tenure of office, disappeared abruptly from view. Just now the Ministry is in one of its periodical states of solution, and until a definite compound is again formed, its precise composition must remain a matter of some vncer tainty. What has, up to the present time been effected, is the replacement of Sir Donald McLean and Mr. Richardson by Messrs. Ormond and Donald Reid, accompanied by a slight shuffling of portfolios. Had Mr. Reid joined the Ministry two or three years ago, it would have been a pretty sure pledge that the progress of settlement would not have been sacrificed to the private interests of the large landholders; but in pro- page 6 portion as Mr. Reid has grown older, the native Toryness of his disposition has developed at an alarming rate, and his political conduct has latterly been of such a character as to make him a by no means unfit member of a squatting Cabinet. Had indeed Mr. Reid remained staunch to his old opinions, it is very questionable whether he would have been permitted the opportunity of bringing those liberal ideas into play, now that the powers of the Government over the administration of the public estate have been so greatly augmented; for apart from the proclivities of the members of the present Cabinet, if the reader will take the trouble to review the composition of the Ministries which have held office during the past few years, he will be struck with the immense influence which the squatting interest, in its various branchings, has wielded in the counsels of the Government. The same hand disclosed itself in those land and timber-right transactions in the North Island which recently shocked the moral sense of the community; and if any inquisitive person would like to gather a little information, put into euphemistical language, as to the manner in which the New Zealand Ministry is sometimes mixed up with mercantile speculators, let him read the report of and evidence taken before the Public Petitions Committee relative to Mr. Coleman Phillips' petition, together with the debate in the Lower House thereon, and the letters from Sir Julius Vogel and Mr. Phillips to the 'New Zealand Times' on the same subject; while he will further reflect that it is unusual, in the practice of Responsible Government, for the principal legal adviser of a Bank which is the sole depository of the Government Account to occupy a seat in the Ministry.

It is not from a desire to aggravate political animosities that I review these circumstances, but all parties will admit that the present political situation cannot continue; that fresh constitutional legislation must take place; and the first thing to be done is to gain an accurate idea of the ground upon which we stand, blinding ourselves neither to its advantages nor its disadvantages. I take it to be undeniable that recent legislation has augmented the power of the richer classes of the community, and that power page 7 is fortified by a strange abandonment of one of the fundamental principles of Parliamentary Government which has occurred. Without counting the formal change of Ministry necessitated by the "Indemnity" escapade of last session, eight Ministries have been sworn into office since Mr. Stafford resigned in 1869; but in one instance only was the change the result of a parliamentary vote of want of confidence. With the exception of the break occasioned by Mr. Stafford's brief tenure of power in 1872, the same Ministry has, to all intents and purposes, remained in office during the whole period. The mode of procedure has been this : When Mr. A. got unpopular as a member of the Cabinet, he has been thrown overboard, and Mr. B. shipped; when the Ministry, as a whole, has begun to find things unpleasant, it has been "reconstructed" by all the Ministers resigning, and the leaders being sworn in again, with fresh colleagues. This performance having been accomplished, the remodelled Ministry has come down to the House and declared that it was not responsible for the acts of its predecessors, the delinquents thus escaping punishment, and yet continuing to rule. The principles of Parliamentary Government have been further invaded by another objectionable practice. It is an essential feature of this form of Government that the Cabinet Ministers should be chosen from amongst the members of Parliament; but Mr. Fox, when forming his Ministry in 18G9, departed from the constitutional rule by appointing Mr. Gisborne, the Under Secretary for the Colony, and who had been for a large part of his life in the Civil Service, Colonial Secretary, a sacrifice being made to the proprieties by giving him a seat in the Legislative Council. This bad precedent was followed in the case of Mr. Bowen. This gentleman had been discharging the duties of Resident Magistrate of Christchurch for several years, and was suddenly raised by Mr. Vogel, in 1874, to the rank of Minister of Justice. Mr. Bowen, like Mr. Gisborne, was to have been made a Legislative Councillor, but a vacancy fortunately occurring in the representation of Kaiapoi, the necessity for a sham compliance with constitutional rules was saved, as Mr. Bowen succeeded in securing the empty seat in the Lower page 8 House. A still further inroad upon sound principles was effectually ventilated by Sir George Grey a few months ago. The dependence of the Ministers upon Parliament has been greatly impaired by their connection with the Civil Service. Mr. Gisborne had become entitled to a pension, but, in order that it might be larger, he was made Commissioner of Annuities while a member of the Cabinet, and permitted to retire into that office upon leaving the Ministry, so as to be able to complete the requisite term. Dr. Pollen and Sir Donald McLean are likewise on the pension list. Then there is the case of Mr. Bathgate, who, unlike Mr. Bowen, was not promoted from a Resident Magistracy to be Minister of Justice, but resigned that portfolio in order to become a Resident Magistrate and District Judgs. It is a noticeable feature of these proceedings, that they render the subordinate Ministers mere dependents of the Premier.

The Civil Service of New Zealand is peculiarly fitted to lend political support to any Ministry which happens to be in office, and so to obstruct the free working of Responsible Government, which requires the possession of office by the Ministry to hinge solely upon political reasons—the outcome of public opinion. A largo and compact body of the Civil Service resides permanently at Wellington, where it exercises an immense social influence over both the Ministry and Parliament, while from its isolation there, it is practically exempt from the criticisms of, the bulk of the inhabitants of the Colony, who may feel that wrong is being done, but are quite unable to see for themselves the exact mode in which the mischief is being perpetrated, and so are powerless to check it. Wellington is swiftly degenerating into the Washington of New Zealand, but it will become, if left alone, a Washington of a very low kind, because of the impossibility of bringing it under the constant light of public opinion. Its very smallness renders it the more dangerous, because in a large city the Civil Service would be one of many social influences, while here it is all in all; and a town which, from its geographical situation, ought to attain commercial importance, will be converted into an official barracks and the haunt of political jobbers. The page 9 Government servants residing at Wellington form, however but a detachment of the glorious army of persons required to administer the affairs of a community four hundred thousand strong. The Civil Roll is of appalling length, but contains the names of but a portion of the army, many clerks in Government employ not ranking nominally as members of the Civil Service. The Government of New Zealand too has permanently increased its need for a larger staff than is requisite to conduct the ordinary business of Government, by taking upon itself the management of telegraphs and railways and creating an insurance department. The railways, as they develop, will remove from civil avocations, and convert into Government officers a large number of men, while the insurance department, whoso business is being pushed in the manner usually adopted by a private trading concern, is drawing within its grasp persons who, in most British communities, are free from the contamination of Government money. A bureaucracy is being spread around the country, and the inhabitants are being proportionately enervated in spirit, and rendered unable to bear the healthy breezes of political freedom; while the application of these facts to the text is, that the Ministry in power and in a position to offer increase of pay to its officers is, by the undue extension of the Civil Service, sheltered from that full play of public and Parliamentary criticism which is essential to the proper working of the system of Responsible Government. The Acts relating to the abolition of the Provinces have augmented the previously excessive power of the Ministry through the medium of the Civil Service, by placing in its hands the control of the police throughout the Colony. I look upon this measure with considerable alarm. It is entirely opposed to the Constitutional policy which has been hitherto followed by our nation. The Imperial Parliament has always regarded with excessive jealousy the military strength of the Government. To this day it will not renew the Mutiny Act for a longer period than a year. The police in England are all under the control of the local authorities, with the exception of the metropolitan force, which, for obvious reasons, is at the disposal of the Government. The same policy has hitherto been page 10 pursued here; but the effect of the recent changes is, that the Government has now, roundly speaking, a body of one thousand drilled and armed men ready to obey its nod, without asking questions, while the local bodies have not a man at their command.

When we reflect upon the manner in which responsibility to Parliament has been evaded for several years past; the composition of the various Ministries; the peculiar influence which certain individuals seem to exercise over the administration of public affairs; the sway of the Civil Service, and its fortification of the power of the Ministry of the day, we shall perceive that the Government of New Zealand has imperceptibly got a long way on the road to an oligarchy.

To the General Assembly the Colony naturally looks as the guardian of its political liberties; but the Assembly, like the Ministry, is grown corrupt. Much as the Ministry deserves censure for its successful efforts to escape due responsibility to the Assembly, the latter is equally to blame; and the Assembly, in endorsing the constitutional irregularities committed by Sir Julius Vogel, did a bitter wrong to the country. Constitutional forms are not idle ceremonies, and no country ever disregarded them without ultimately bewailing the loss of the whole or a part of its liberty. They are like the etiquette which surrounds a woman : possessing little or no abstract merit, but forming an outwork to the citadel of virtue. The Assembly has violated the fundamental principles of justice. It is the boast of our jurists that the English law draws no distinction between rich and poor; but the Assembly has deliberately made one law for the governors and another for the governed: The [affair is of so recent a date that it would be superfluous to repeat in detail the circumstances attendant upon the passage of the Indemnity Bill (the Civil List Act Amendment Bill) last Session, although every patriotic man should ponder upon them and ask himself what the administration of justice would become if such things were done frequently, and that is the real test to be applied. The leading features of the case are clear enough. Sir Julius Vogel having resigned the Premiership, the Ministry was reformed under the presidency of Major Atkinson. It contained page 11 nine European members, including a political Attorney-General. Now, the Civil List Act of 1873 expressly declares that the Cabinet shall contain but seven Europeans, while the Attorney-General's Act of 1866, with equal explicitness, forbids the Attorney-General to hold a seat in either House of Assembly. This is the common-sense meaning of the language of the Acts, and all the lawyers whose opinions were asked, except Mr. Whitaker, said it was likewise their legal interpretation, although with regard to the Attorney-General's Act it must be confessed that a little doubt existed whether by dint of legal ingenuity its provisions might not be twisted so as to sanction the appointment of a political Attorney-General. The Civil List Act too had been passed so recently that its object was familiar to politicians; and moreover, three of the members of the Atkinson - Ministry had likewise been members of the Ministry which fathered the Act. To fit the cap of knowledge still tighter upon the heads of the offenders, Major Atkinson and his colleagues had excluded two of their number from receipt of salaries, one of the two being the Commissioner of Customs, to whose portfolio a salary is invariably attached. The Ministry had thus deliberately violated the law and brought itself within reach of the Disqualification Act. The leader of the Opposition, being challenged to do so, thereupon issued writs in the Supreme Court for the recovery of penalties, and the House, being called upon by the Ministry, actually intervened to stay the process of the Court, and passed a retrospective Act to protect the Ministers from the legal consequences of their own misdeeds. So disregardful was the House of Representatives of the first principles of justice that it refused to insert a clause exempting Sir George Grey from payment of costs, which, by the ordinary rules of law, he would incur on the Indemnity Act being pleaded; but the Legislative Council fortunately, declined to assist in such a monstrous outrage upon right. The heinousness of the crime against order committed by the Assembly cannot be overrated. If a private individual had broken a penal law, even inadvertently, would page 12 the Assembly Lave stopped the action of the Court in his favour? Undoubtedly it would not. There is, of course, a further consideration involved in the fact that by breaking the Disqualification Act, the Ministers holding seats in the Lower House thereby forfeited them, but that is a political matter; and I wish to concentrate attention upon the disregard shown by the Assembly to the law of the land. It was not the first occasion of its trespassing. In the session of 1875, certain members of the Legislature having broken the Disqualification Act by entering into contracts with the Government, and it being doubtful whether others were not implicated, a general Indemnity Act was passed to save them all from the penalties. It is needless to discuss the degree of moral guilt attached to any of these transactions. That might be a question for a Judge to consider in meting out the punishment, or for the Assembly after the penalty had been imposed, but could not justify the latter in interfering with the Court in the discharge of its duty. If, for example, it was thought that Major Atkinson and his colleagues should be exempted from payment of money penalties, the proper course would have been to wait until the decision of the Court had been pronounced, and then, if that had been adverse to Ministers, to vote them a sum of money to cover the penalties imposed; but to stay the action of the Court and to pass retrospective laws in favor of men in high places, is subversive of all justice.

It is an essential function of a representative house to control the finances, but the House of Representatives has for years past abandoned this duty, and simply voted the sums of money which the Government has asked it to vote, notwithstanding the fact that a wide divergence of opinion existed in the community respecting the wisdom of the financial policy that was being pursued. The new House seems little better disposed to perform its duty. It is acknowledged on all sides that the finances of the country are in a critical condition. The Press last session was clamoring for an exhaustive criticism in the House; and it was even made a matter page 13 of reproach to the Opposition that, by their insisting upon a full discussion of the Constitutional question, they were preventing a financial debate. At last the great day arrived, and what happened? This was the intelligence communicated to the country: "Finance was discussed this afternoon to empty benches. Most of the members were playing lawn tennis." The House has in just the same manner abandoned its functions in native affairs. Sir Donald M'Lean has just resigned the post of Native Minister, but for nearly seven years the entire management of Native affairs was vested in hi3 hands, and until last Session, when a little independence of spirit was manifested, the House, to whom he was supposed to be responsible, bowed before him when he spoke, and voted whatever money he asked it to vote, and did not presume to enquire how it was spent.

The utter inability of the Assembly to perform the functions appertaining to a Parliament is further illustrated by the manner in which it worships the Ministry of the day. The personal rudeness of the Government towards the leaders of the Opposition was a marked feature of the proceedings of last Session. Now, it can scarcely be said to be the duty of the leader of a Parliamentary Opposition to make himself agreeable to the Ministry; nor is he guilty of impropriety, or displaying unfitness for his post if, when vast constitutional issues are at stake, he exhibits great pertinacity in endeavoring to carry the views of his party into effect. Yet the House of Representatives seems to regard such conduct in that light. The majority acts as though it occupied the position of a military conqueror of the vanquished minority. Opposition to the Government measures is treated as a crime; and this feeling has prevailed in the House for years. If a member has presumed to criticise the Colonial Treasurer's Budget, he has been dubbed "a traducer of the Colony," and told that he is "endeavoring to injure the public credit." If anybody has ventured to say that the Native Department is not properly conducted, he has been immediately silenced with the accusation that he is striving to bring about war between the two races. The demoralisation of the House in this respect was manifested in 1873, when the Legislative Council, acting within page 14 the strict limits of its authority, and in a perfectly fair and reasonable manner, engaged in a discussion upon the financial state of the Colony, and as a sequence, passed a resolution hostile to the Government's policy, whereupon Mr. Vogel got up from his place in the Lower House, where he was sitting as Premier, and vehemently denounced, in unbecoming language, the members of the Council for so doing; while the House, instead of resenting such a gross breach of constitutional usage, actually applauded the Premier for his conduct.

The Assembly, too, permits the Ministry to break solemn pledges, upon the most important subjects, with impunity; and to such a pitch has this got, that there is probably not an intelligent man in the country who expects the Ministry, when great political issues are at stake, to observe a pledge longer than is convenient; and certainly the public is not astonished when a Ministry, in order to retain office, brings down measures in violation of all its former promises. No one thinks that moral turpitude of this kind will affect the voting in the Assembly.

As has been frequently said of lute, the House of Representatives has degenerated into a huge Board of Works; and a very corrupt Board too. It has corrupted the whole Colony until the constituencies have learnt to believe that the prime test of a candidate's fitness to represent them in the Assembly is his probable capacity of bowing and scraping before Ministers in their private rooms, with the view of persuading them to spend public money in his district. Sir George Grey has often been censured by his opponents for his frequent reiteration of general principles; but it seems to me that it was just such a lesson as this that the Colony wanted. It had altogether forgotten what the real functions of government were; and the epithets of "wild," "fanatical," "absurd," "insane," and so forth, which have greeted Sir George upon his enunciating elementary principles lying at the root of all government, shew how far the Colony bad strayed from the true path. Nor is it apparent how the Assembly can be purified, since its purification or further corruption rests with itself. Towards the close of the last Parliament the whole country was crying out for a readjustment of page 15 the representation, which, by the unequal growth of different parts of the Colony, had become urgently needed. It was a season when, if at any time, the House might have been expected to cast aside selfish motives, and display patriotism; but what did it do? The majority, with the Ministry at its head, created ten fresh seats, and distributed them, not with a regard to a proper representation of population and interests, but mainly with a view to secure an Abolitionist majority at the elections. The fact was glaring and undeniable. Ex uno disce omnes.

The pith of Abolition, so far as the Government is concerned, is its finance. What the Government has accomplished up to the present time, is the getting control of the Provincial revenues; so that henceforth when it runs short of funds, it can take what it wants from this source. Doubtless, it returns the bulk of these revenues to the different Provincial Districts for the present. The cake is now being distributed; the birch will come afterwards. Had the Government not secured the Provincial revenues in this fashion, it must next year at the latest have imposed revenue and property taxes; while now, the burden of taxation will be thrown upon the local bodies. This is a singularly objectionable feature in the Abolitionist programme. It raises a screen between the taxpayer and the hand which imposes the taxes. The taxpayers are sure to blame the local bodies, because the latter will have to perform the unpleasant task of levying the taxes, whereas the real culprit will be the General Government, whose monstrous extravagance necessitated the proceeding. Then, too, it seems but fair that those persons who have benefitted the most by the heavy loan expenditure which has taken place should pay a proportionate share of the taxation resulting from that expenditure; but, by the abolition of the Provinces, they have been enabled to partly avoid this responsibility, because although the large landholders may suffer a little from the taxation of the County Councils (which is a point that can only be determined by experience), it will not be to the extent which is their due, while the importers, and persons of a similar class, will escape altogether. The proper means of reaching all these persons is through income and property taxes.

page 16
It would be beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the financial state of the Colony in its entirety; but it will be profitable to review the leading items of the departmental expenditure of the Government. The abstract of the Public Accounts for the financial year ending 30th June, 1876, appended to the Colonial Treasurer's statement, discloses the following outlay in this direction, omitting fractions :—
Civil List £27,391
Charges under Permanent Acts 56,838
Public Departments 77,029
Law and Justice 68,340
Postal and Telegraph 216,649
Customs 49,771
Miscellaneous 49,037
Native 36,396
Militia and Volunteers 19,947
Armed Constabulary 105,114
Contingent Defence 40,293
Public Domains and Buildings 16,206
Commissioners of Crown Lands, &c, 5,532
Confiscated Lands 7,720
Native Lands Court, &c. 6,375
Native Lands Surveys 7,039
Public Works Department (Head Office) 15,250
Immigration Department (in Colony) 8,489
Agent-General's Department* 17,118
£820,534
The above sum does not include a penny for police, gaols, ordinary surveys, or education, the responsibility of maintaining which services devolved upon the Provincial Governments. The management of the railways will, in the future, be an important part of the duties of the Government; but the outlay under this head is ex- page 17 eluded from the account, because it gives no clue to what the permanent expenditure will be when the lines in course of construction are completed. The cost of the Public Works and Immigration Departments will doubtless be reduced as soon as the loans are expended, but the head office of the former is sure to be a standing charge; and it is to be presumed that some sort of Immigration staff will be kept up for several years to come, at all events. The expenditure on the Insurance Department is also omitted. The items mentioned, indeed, have been chosen merely to give a general idea of the cost of the permanent departmental machinery of the General Government—the machinery by which it discharges its ordinary functions, and which cost will, of course, be greatly augmented by the abolition of Provincial Institutions. It is admitted that the cost of the General Government is beyond the means of the Colony. The Press says it is monstrous; and the public declares that it can no longer be endured. Now and then the House (just at present it is the Government) is seized with a spasmodic fit of economy, but permanent retrenchment is never made; and for years the cost of the General Government has been growing in a much greater ratio than the increase in the population warrants. It seems impossible to stop it. The vice is in the system, and until that is radically changed the departmental expenditure will continue to grow. Let the reader ask any old member of the House what he thinks on this point.

* This is the amount voted, the exact expenditure not appearing in the abstracted accounts.