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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Personal Volume

Views on Government

Views on Government.

His lecture on government I think should be read to-day for its wisdom and its lesson. I have not time to give you more than one or two short extracts. He ever kept in view the need of freedom, and he saw, as who has not seen P that a government democratice [unclear: n] form may be tyrannical in action. Hear what he said (in 1870):—

"Now it seems a prevalent idea in these days that liberty depends solely upon the share which the people obtain of political power. Hence the enlargement of franchises, and the more complete subordination of the Executive to the Legislature, are spoken of as if they were the only guarantees for the preservation of liberty. But all that these things can do is to render government more completely subservient to the will of the popular majority. That, no doubt, in for certain purposes desirable. But how does it protect personal liberty? A majority may be as intolerant and tyrannical as an individual; and more so, because the tyrant has a head to be chopped off if the worst comes to the worst, which the majority has not. The tyranny of an individual is the evil of past times in civilised nations; at the present day, of still sem-barbarous people. But, in free countries, there is increasing danger of the tyranny of the majority of the hour. An act is not less unjust when done by a multitude than when done by one Liberty is equally destroyed if stabbed by a monarch or trampled under the feet of a mob. Hence [unclear: n] the struggles for liberty in past times it was not sought merely to render government popular, to substitute representative authority for hereditary right, to subordinate the will of the one to that of the many; it was found necessary to surround power, no matter in whose hands it might be, with a network of contrivances for its just use, amongst which we have had this handed down to us as the surest guarantee for personal liberty, the entire exclusion of those whose duty it is to administer the law from all political power, and their in dependence of those in whose hands the executive government is placed. And they are but shallow politicians who fancy that, because the representatives of the political majority of the day have become the depositaries of political power, the guarantees against its unlawful use which have been handed down to us from the past may be safely removed, I venture to speak thus, because there is a school of politicians who, in the eager desire for further improvement, and perhaps in a somewhat overstrained admiration for their own age, regard too lightly what we have received from the past. Let us not mistake forms for principles; and, rudely as we sweep away the technicalities and contrivances of a past age whenever they stand in the way of substantial improvements in the political machine, at least let us endeavour to understand the great principles of the structure we propose to improve, I think no one can have watched the working of the democratic governments page 11 established in most of the British colonies, without perceiving a tendency to rely too largely upon the powers of the executive government under the impression that, because it represents the majority of the hour, the ancient restraints upon the authority of the executive may be safely set aside. And, if I regard with some apprehension the results of this doctrine, it is from no pedantic regard for antique forms, but because it seems to me to tend towards a resumption by the supreme authority of those various powers of government, the disposition of which in separate and independent depositaries was, and ever will be, the surest if not the only real guarantee for personal liberty."

And he ended his lecture with these wise words:—"Far distant, apparently, is the promised era, when men shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into reaping hooks. The worship of physical force will, perhaps, long be the reigning superstition of mankind. But, if there be any difference between one government and another, if there be any standard by which we can measure the value of government, surely our judgment should pronounce a government better or worse in proportion as it leads or obstructs the people under its rule in the march towards a higher national life."

In 1886 he wrote an essay on Imperial Federation which was submitted to the London Chamber of Commerce for their prize. Froude. Seeley, and Rawson, the judges placed it second on the list of essays on the subject. It was not only an essay, but it put in practical shape what the constitution of England should be if it became a federation, and I would refer you to it. The essays were published under the title of "England and her Colonies, by Swan, Souneschein, Lowrey and Co.

There are, I suppose, some present to-night who heard his inaugural address to the Wellington Citizens' Institute in 1893: if so, you will remember his concluding sentences:—"For my own part, I cannot but hold that, of all the words which have ever been spoken by human voice, or written by human hand, the most valuable—the most precious of all the records of the past—those which have exercised the largest influence on the destinies of the human race, and may yet exercise an influence more extensive than the boldest visionary can imagine, are those two charters of human rights and human duties—the first, which claims to have descended from the mountain mists of Sinai, and laid the foundation of law; the second, which were spoken on a mount in Galilee, and taught, 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' "

I might mention some other subjects which were discussed by Fitzgerald:—"Possible Future Development of Governments in Free States," "Darwinian Theology," "Fourth Dimension," "Socialism," "Public Debts," "Gymnastic Training," " Self-reliant Policy in New Zealand," etc.

I have said he was an artist. He painted many pictures, and many of them were of "great merit. I remember being greatly struck by one which was a picture of a great wave. He said that while watching the waves during his last voyage to England in 1889 he had become so impressed with their majesty and beauty that he desired to put on canvas what had never been put there by a painter before, a huge wave, without any accessories or foreground. He found a great difficulty in getting a colour sufficiently blue and deep. He communicated with Mr Dicksee, the eminent painter, and obtained seme hints from him as to colour. Anything artistic came easily to him. He could carve in wood, and you will see in the museum a picture-frame carve l in walnut from a tree cut down by Mr Gladstone and containing Mr Gladstone's portrait. He was a man of great wit and humour. His fondness for a joke, his ready wit in appreciating one and his delightful fund of anecdotes could only have been fully appreciated if you had had the good fortune to have been a listener. You must have known the man to have appreciated this trait of his character. I can only say that no more delightful evenings were ever spent by me than those in his company. When he visited Dunedin on business I always called on him. I remember once calling on him when he was staying at the Criterion Hotel. There was a street musician playing not far from the window of the room in which we were seated. The hotelkeeper came in to know whether he should not send this musician away. Fitzgerald's reply was:—"For goodness sake, no. It is the best accessory to your hotel. Give the man 5s—here it is—and tell him to go on."

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He took an intense interest in all social development, and it could never have been said that he was on what is termed the conservative side. But, above all, he was a man of the highest rectitude, and unbiassed in the performance of his public duties. He did what he believed to be his duty undeterred by fear or favour. He was one of the public servants of the colony of whom New Zealanders should ever be proud. Among the many able men who gave their lives to lay the foundations of this young nation, he was perhaps unique in his public spirit, in his high character, in the variety of his intellectual abilities and attainments, for he was orator, poet, artist, financier, statesman, essayist, and philosopher. And so long as the name and remembrance of New Zealand and her pioneers endure, James Edward Fitzgerald will be revered and his memory honoured.

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Printed at the New Zealand Times Office, Lambton Quay. Wellington.