Bribed with their Own Money.

To the city voter the doctrine that "to the victors belong the spoils" finds its most persuasive expression in the enormous number of offices at the disposal of the Government, and habitually and in growing disregard of the Civil Service Acts, as we pointed out yesterday, distributed among its favourites; and the same powerful argument also appeals, though in a smaller degree, to the rural elector, whom Ministerial benevolence, untrammelled by any statutory cheeky may suddenly transport from the wilds of Westland to a happy position in the Government or Parliamentary Buildings over the heads of men who have grown old in the service. But to the country electors generally the Ministry is able to appeal in a much more comprehensive fashion through the control which it possesses over the Public Works Fund. The actual expenditure from that fund in the year 1904-5 was £1,208,933; and almost double that amount—to be exact, £2,286,719—was voted last session for the year 1905-6. Under the specific heading of "Construction and Maintenance and Supervision of Roads, Bridges, and other Public Works," £226,462 was spent during the year 1904-5, and no less than £513,969 was voted on the eve of the general election in the following year. It would be no exaggeration to say that ninety per cent, of the members of the House had no idea, and in the nature of things could form no idea, of the merits of ninety per cent, of the expenditure proposed under the last-mentioned head. The duty of the rural representative page 10 is to obtain a liberal proportion of this expenditure for his own district; and his only chance of achieving even a moderate success is by turning an indulgent eye on the similar demands of his fellow members. In so acting, the politicians are simply conforming to the test of statesmanship applied by their constituents; for if roads and bridges are not rural politics, they are not far from it. Beyond all question they are the most powerful weapons that the rural politician can wield, and "happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them"—happy indeed, and well-nigh invincible !

In such a condition of our administrative system, and such a tendency of the public mind, the part to be played by the masterful and ambitious personality of Mr. Seddon, as trustee of the Public Works Fund, was a foregone conclusion. He impressed the country constituencies with the notion that a district which did not favour the Government need not expect the Government to favour it, and the doctrine was proclaimed as openly as the conventions based upon a more wholesome state of things would permit, and sometimes a little more so. In his last electoral campaign a minimum of statesmanship was so eked out by a maximum of Public Works Fund that opponents went down like nine-pins before the man who could scatter promises of roads and bridges broadcast about the country, and was believed to have the power to make them all good. In the strength of its central conception, in its relentless vigour, and in its unqualified success, that campaign may fairly be described as Napoleonic; and in another of its aspects it recalls one of Napoleon's triumphs in civil administration. It was Napoleon who bequeathed to France the highly centralised system which was admirably contrived to serve the purposes of [unclear: despot] government, but has proved less suitable for a Parliamentary regime; while Mr. Seddon, by a converse process, has been showing how admirably a centralised administration of such a matter as public works may be made to serve the end of despotism under democratic forms will indeed at once set our own troubles is true perspective, and point the [unclear: way] the true remedy, if we realise [unclear: that o] is not an isolated case.

Though the spoils system of the United States might, as we have seen have stood as a model for our own [unclear: in] application to the Civil Service, it [unclear: is] France and Italy that we must turn for the best parallel to the disastrous [unclear: an] degrading part which is played by [unclear: ros] and bridges in New Zealand politics Expressing his acknowledgment to the careful examination of the question by Italian statesmen, M. de Laveleye, [unclear: o] of the greatest of French authorities diagnoses the evil as follows;—"Political works give rise to a new species of political corruption, whence results an [unclear: ev] use of the revenues of the State. [unclear: T] secure the votes of this district or [unclear: th] locality, it is given a wharf, a [unclear: railroo] a church, or a canal. Other district claim in their turn, and thus [unclear: works] which there is very little need [unclear: abso] enormous sums, and the budget is marked for regular contributions, The Government makes public works, [unclear: distributed] favours, an almost irresistible [unclear: means] influence in electoral contests, This [unclear: is] to be seen in all countries where the rules of Parliament is found combined [unclear: with] centralised administration." The remedy which M. Laveleye prescribes for a [unclear: disea] which every candid observer will [unclear: ad] to be exactly our own is an [unclear: extens] of "le self-government local," which [unclear: w] delegate to local control all purely [unclear: loc] page 11 works and reserve for the central administration only those exceptional undertakings which concern the whole country equally. Thirty years ago in this colony the same remedy was advocated andp as he thought, supplied by one of the ablest of our statesmen. Sir Julius Vogel, whose first Budget after the abolition of the provinces contains the following remarkable statement: "I dreaded doing away with the provinces because I thought we should have to sit here in judgment on works, and that gradually we should find creeping upon us the demoralising system of mutual compromise called by the Americans 'log-rolling.' But we have avoided this difficulty. If our system be carried out, the name of any particular road or "bridge—of any work, indeed, but the building of the Government and the main railways of the colony—should rarely be heard in this House; at least not for purposes of supplication, though it might be as the subject for congratulation at the triumph of the form of local government that could give to the country the works it required without the necessity of Parliamentary intervention."

It was the Counties Act of 1876 which Sir Julius Vogel believed to have achieved this happy consummation, and his prophecy must now be classed among the bitterest ironies of our history. Not Sir Julius Vogel's prophecy, but that of Burke about the probable degradation of national representation into "a confused and scuffling bustle of local agency," has been realised in the demoralising scramble which has converted roads and bridges into a political synonym for loaves and fishes. "What are we here for if not for the offices?" cheerfully enquired a Texas delegate at a Republican National Convention some years ago. With the same engaging candour the average Government supporter from the country districts might ask at any Parliamentary caucus of the party during the last ten years,. "What are we here for if not to get roads and bridges for our districts and to serve as ballot-papers for the Ministers who enable us to get them?" This scandalous system, which gives the Premier of the day the privileges of an American boss ladling out the "sugar" to the "boys," enables him to bribe the country constituencies with their own money, and to stuff Parliament with political commission agents and errand boys pledged to do his bidding, is a disgrace to a democratic country; and despite the failure of Sir Julius Vogel's prophecy, the soundness of his principle is unimpeachable. To delegate local public works to local control is the only way to purge our political life of its most virulent poison.