III.

We charge the Ministry with having carried the separation of representation from taxation so far that the proletariate here can now dispose as they please of the rights and property of the whole People.

The extension of the representation to universal suffrage, without the necessary balances and checks, is the saddest misfortune that could befall a young and promising country like this. It has put an altogether disproportionate share of political power into the hands of those who have no stake in the colony, and on whom falls no taxation except that of the Customs. It has thus created a bitter sense of wrong in those on whom mainly lies the heavy burden of supporting the Government and paying the interest of the Public Debt. The outcome of universal suffrage, and of the one-man-one-vote injustice, is that those who are untaxed, or taxed so slightly that they scarcely feel it, are in a position now to tax and tyrannize over those who are the main-stay of the colony, the industrious and the thrifty. Three years ago we sprang into the saddle of universal suffrage with such force that, like a tipsy man, we tumbled over, and we now lie sprawling on the wrong side. The principle that taxation and representation should be co-extensive was the ladder by which the adult population of New Zealand reached full citizenship; and having reached that height, they have foolishly allowed the ladder by which the ascent was effected to be thrown down, and the props and buttresses of the constitution shaken. In other words, under the regime of universal suffrage, taxation and representation have got divorced—widely separated. In New Zealand our Sham-Liberal Government has brought matters to this pass: Taxes are imposed by the majority and paid by the minority; and the more you are taxed, the less you are represented; and the whole means and substance of the Colonists to-day lies completely at the mercy of the classes that are largely without means and substance. Now they who can impose taxes from which they are themselves nearly exempt—who are in a position to put their hands into other people's pockets for whatever money they may page 6 fancy the general welfare or their own class interests may require—will never scruple to run the Parliamentary machine under their control in order to accomplish their ends. Nor will their leaders ever scruple to use the Parliamentary taxing screw in order to squeeze their savings out of the pockets of the thrifty and industrious into the public chest, and to employ this plundered wealth mainly for the benefit of idlers, loafers, and political supporters.

Now, what we at present accuse Ministers of is that during the whole time they have been in office they have been worsening instead of bettering the state of things here. Surely it is time that all who have the welfare of the colony at heart should bestir themselves, and devise the necessary counteractives and correctives of the despotism of unlimited democracy. Let us strive to restore the union of taxation and representation—to join together again in holy matrimony what our incompetent Government has so mischievously helped to sunder. Let us do justice, by making the voting power in some degree proportionate to the taxes paid Several ways of effecting this righteous reform are open to us. We may adopt the principle of the Joint-Stock Company; for what is a colony, a nation, but a large joint-stock company?—the principle of proportioning the number of votes to the number of shares we hold. Or we may make the Upper Chamber of the Legislature elective and representative—elected by the property and intelligence of the community, and more representative of that property and intelligence than it has been for the last few years. Or we might give additional votes to those who pay a certain amount of direct taxation, and employ some form, such as Sir John Lubbock's, of Proportional Representation.