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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 46

The Political Aspect

The Political Aspect.

The old New Zealand institutions were based upon the incontestible fact that its people were a Democracy. They had left behind them the well-established and varied political orders and social classes which time and circumstance have produced at home. The Provincial Governments were almost entirely democratic. There was a wide suffrage, with elected Legislatures and elected Executive Chiefs. The General Government was somewhat differently constituted. Prerogative was represented by a nominated Upper House and a nominated Executive Chief, The Governor of the Colony was supposed to exercise this prerogative as the representative of our gracious Queen. In reality it was exercised by the Colonial Ministry, uncontrolled by the constant regard for the good understanding between the Sovereign and the people, and by the ancient usages and traditions, which influence a Ministry at home. Nor did there rest upon our Upper House a shadow even of the personal and political responsibilities which press upon the House of Lords, whose place in our system it was designed to fill.

Unfortunately the Imperial Act which created our Government was passed at a time when democracy was regarded in England with a hatred and mistrust which have now happily passed away. That New Zealand was a Democracy, and that its physical formation precluded the country being governed from any one centre, could not be gainsaid. But it was resolved that democracy should be controlled. Hence the general Government, embodying the antagonistic element of nomineeism, was not only made supreme but was endowed with a concurrent jurisdiction against which Mr Gladstone and other eminent men in Parliament vainly protested at the time. They urged, in the strongest terms, that Democracy and hearty Loyalty had gone together in the best times in the old colonies of England's earlier days, and that they might well be trusted to go together in the new. But they urged in vain. A provision that the Upper House should be elected by the Provincial Councils was struck out and they were left defenceless in the hands of the General Legislature. Gradually the General Government developed the principle of antagonism on which it rested. In creasing wealth and population, and increasing diversity of interests and pursuits, gave to it ever increasing temptations and opportunities. In the conflict that ensued the Provincial Councils broke away from the control of the powerful party which aspired, in those days, "to curb democracy" by establishing the English system of a governing class in a country in which such a class had always been unknown, The General Government, on the contrary, unobserved and unregarded, fell into their hands. Skilfully taking advantage of their own power and of defects in the constitution of Provincial Governments, they reduced them, by constant aggression, to poverty, weakness and contempt. In 1876, the conflict culminated in the destruction of the provinces, and hundreds of trained men went forth from the provincial councils bent on making their principles prevail in the General Legislature which they had previously been too well occupied to regard. The House of Representatives was overwhelmed by what those of the old school called "a wave of democracy," and its halls were filled with men determined, above all things, to guard against the ascendancy of particular classes or particular sets of men which they clearly saw that Centralism was sure to produce.