IN PARLIAMENT
"Shapes of all sorts and sizes, great and small
That stood upon the floor or by the wall,
And some loquacious Vessels were, and some
Listened, perhaps, but never talked at all."
When we come to look at the men as distinct from the measures of the
parliament of New Zealand between 1870 and 1890, perhaps the most
interesting and curious feature was the Continuous Ministry. With
some approach to accuracy it may be said to have come into office in
August, 1869, and to have finally expired in January, 1891. Out of
twenty-one years and a half it held office for between sixteen and
seventeen years. Sir Edward Stafford turned and kept it out for a
month in 1872; Sir George Grey for two years, 1877-79; Sir Robert
Stout for three years, 1884-7. None of the ministries which thus
for longer or shorter periods supplanted it ever commanded strong
majorities, or held any thorough control over the House. The
Continuous Ministry was a name given to a shifting combination, or
rather series of combinations, amongst public men, by which the
cabinet was from time to time modified without being completely
changed at any one moment. It might be likened to the pearly nautilus,
which passes, by gradual growth and movement, from cell to cell in
slow succession; or, more prosaically, to that oft-repaired garment,
which at last consisted entirely of patches. Like the nautilus, too,
it had respectable sailing and floating powers. The continuous process
was rather the outcome of rapidly changing conditions and personal
exigencies than of any set plan or purpose. With its men its
opinions and actions underwent alterations. Naturally the complete
transformation which came over the Colony during the two decades
between 1870 and 1890, had its effect on the point of view of
colonists and their public men. The Continuous Ministry began by
borrowing, and never really ceased to borrow; but its efforts at
certain periods of the second of these two decades to restrict
borrowing and retrench ordinary expenditure were in striking contrast
to the lavishness of the years between 1872 and 1877. At its birth
under Sir William Fox its sympathies were provincial and mildly
democratic. It quickly quarrelled with and overthrew the Provinces,
and became identified with Conservatism as that term is understood
in New Zealand. From 1869 to 1872 its leaders were Fox, Vogel, and
McLean. Fox left it in 1872; Major Atkinson joined it in 1874; Vogel
quitted it in 1876; McLean died in 1877. Put out of office by Sir
George Grey, it was for a short time led once more by Sir William Fox.
It came back again in 1879 as a Hall-Atkinson-Whitaker combination.
Hall retired in 1881, but Atkinson and Whitaker, helped by his advice,
continued to direct it to the end.
Now for its opponents. Rallying under Sir George Grey in 1876, the
beaten Provincialists formed a party of progress, taking the good old
name of Liberal. Though Sir George had failed to save their
Provinces, his eloquent exhortations rapidly revived in the House of
Representatives the democratic tendencies of some of the Councils.
Hitherto any concessions to Radicalism or Collectivism made by the
House had been viewed in the most easy-going fashion. Vogel in his
earlier years had adopted the ballot, and had set up a State Life
Insurance Department, which has been successfully managed, and has now
about ten millions assured in it. More interesting and valuable still
was his establishment of the office of Public Trustee. So well has the
experiment worked, that it may be said as a plain truth that in New
Zealand, the best possible Trustee, the one least subject to accidents
of fortune, and most exempt from the errors which beset man's honesty
and judgment, has been found by experience to be the State. The Public
Trust Office of the Colony worked at first in a humble way, chiefly in
taking charge of small intestate estates. Experience, however, showed
its advantages so clearly, that it has now property approaching two
millions' worth in its care. Any owner of property, whether he be
resident in the Colony or not, wishing to create a trust, may use the
Public Trustee, subject, of course, to that officer's consent. Any one
who desires so to do may appoint him the executor of his will. Any one
about to leave, or who has left the Colony, may make him his attorney.
The Public Trustee may step in and take charge, not only of intestate
estates, but of an inheritance where no executor has been named under
the will, or where those named will not act. He manages and protects
the property of lunatics. Where private trust estates become the cause
of disputes and quarrels, between trustees and beneficiaries, the
parties thereto may relieve themselves by handing over their burden to
the public office. The Public Trustee never dies, never goes out of
his mind, never leaves the Colony, never becomes disqualified, and
never becomes that extremely disagreeable and unpleasant person--a
trustee whom you do not trust. In addition to his other manifold
duties he holds and administers very large areas of land reserved for
the use of certain Maori tribes. These he leases to working settlers,
paying over the rents to the Maori beneficiaries. Naturally, the class
which has the most cause to be grateful to the Public Trust Office
is that composed of widows and orphans and other unbusinesslike
inheritors of small properties, persons whose little inheritances are
so often mismanaged by private trustees or wasted in law costs.
Another reform carried out by Vogel had been the adoption of the
Torrens system of land transfer. Henceforth under the Land Transfer
Law, Government officers did nearly all the conveyancing business of
the Colony. Land titles were investigated, registered, and guaranteed,
and sales and mortgages then became as simple and almost as cheap as
the transfer of a parcel of shares in a company.
Even earlier the legislature had done a creditable thing in being the
first in the Empire to abolish the scandal of public executions.
1877 may be accounted the birth year of more militant and systematic
reform.
Grey's platform speeches in the summer of 1876-77 brought home the new
Radicalism to the feelings of the mass of the electors, and to the
number, then considerable, who were not electors. For the first time
one of the Colony's leaders appealed to the mass of the colonists
with a policy distinctly and deliberately democratic. The result was
awakening. Then and subsequently Grey advocated triennial parliaments,
one man one vote, a land tax, and a land policy based upon the leasing
of land rather than its sale, and particularly upon a restriction of
the area which any one man might acquire. The definite views of the
Radicals bore fruit at once in the session of 1877. It was necessary
to establish a national system of education to replace the useful, but
ill-jointed work done peacemeal by the Provinces. A bill--and not a
bad bill--was introduced by Mr. Charles Bowen, a gentleman honourably
connected with the founding of education in Canterbury. This measure
the Radicals took hold of and turned it into the free, secular,
compulsory system of primary school-teaching of which the Colony
is to-day justly proud, and under which the State educates
thirteen-fourteenths of the children of the Colony. Now, in 1898, out
of an estimated population of about 780,000 all told, some 150,000 are
at school or college. Of children between ten and fifteen years of
age the proportion unable to read is but o·68. The annual average of
attendance is much higher in New Zealand than in any of the Australian
Colonies. The primary school system is excellent on its literary, not
so excellent on its technical side. Nearly three-fourths of the Roman
Catholic children do not take advantage of it. Their parents prefer to
support the schools of their church, though without State aid of any
kind. These, and a proportion of the children of the wealthier, are
the only exceptions to the general use made of the public schools. It
is not likely that any change, either in the direction of teaching
religion in these, or granting money to church schools, will be made.
Each political party in turn is only too eager to charge the other
with tampering with the National system--a sin, the bare hint of which
is like suspicion of witchcraft or heresy in the Middle Ages.
Grey gained office in 1877, but with a majority too small to enable
him to carry his measures. Ballance, his treasurer, did indeed carry
a tax upon land values. But its chief result at the time was to
alarm and exasperate owners of land, and to league them against the
Radicals, who after a not very brilliant experience of office without
power fell in 1879. Thereafter, so utterly had Grey's angry followers
lost faith in his generalship, that they deposed him--a humiliation
which it could be wished they had seen their way to forego, or he to
forgive. Yet he was, it must be confessed, a very trying leader. His
cloudy eloquence would not do for human nature's daily food. His
opponents, Atkinson and Hall, had not a tithe of his emotional power,
but their facts and figures riddled his fine speeches. Stout and
Ballance, lieutenants of talent and character, became estranged from
him; others of his friends were enough to have damned any government.
The leader of a colonial party must have certain qualities which Sir
George Grey did not possess. He may dispense with eloquence, but must
be a debater; whether able or not able to rouse public meetings,
he must know how to conduct wearisome and complicated business by
discussion; he must not only have a grasp of great principles, but
readiness to devote himself to the mastery of uninteresting minds and
unappetizing details; above all, he must be generous and considerate
to lieutenants who have their own views and their own followers, and
who expect to have their full share of credit and influence. In one
word, he should be what Ballance was and Grey was not. Nevertheless,
one of Grey's courage, talent, and prestige was not likely to fail to
leave his mark upon the politics of the country; nor did he. Though he
failed to pass the reforms just mentioned, he had the satisfaction of
seeing them adopted and carried into law, some by his opponents, some
by his friends. Only one of his pet proposals seems to have been
altogether lost sight of, his oft-repeated demand that the Governor of
the Colony should be elected by the people.
The Grey Ministry had committed what in a Colonial Cabinet is the one
unpardonable crime--it had encountered a commercial depression, with
its concomitant, a shrunken revenue. When Hall and Atkinson succeeded
Grey with a mission to abolish the land-tax, they had at once to
impose a different but more severe burden. They also reduced--for a
time--the cost of the public departments by the rough-and-ready method
of knocking ten per cent. off all salaries and wages paid by the
treasury, a method which, applied as it was at first equally to low
and high, had the unpopularity as well as the simplicity of the
poll-tax. That retrenchment and fresh taxation were unpleasant
necessities, and that Hall and Atkinson more than once tackled the
disagreeable task of applying them, remains true and to their credit.
Between 1880 and 1890 the colonists were for the most part resolutely
at work adapting themselves to the new order of things--to lower
prices and slower progress. They increased their output of wool and
coal--the latter a compensation for the falling-off of the gold. They
found in frozen meat an export larger and more profitable than wheat.
Later on they began, with marked success, to organize co-operative
dairy factories and send cheese and butter to England. Public affairs
during the decade resolved themselves chiefly into a series of
expedients for filling the treasury and carrying on the work of land
settlement. Borrowing went on, but more and more slowly. Times did not
soon get better.
In 1885 and 1886 the industrial outlook was perhaps at its worst. In
1887, Atkinson and Whitaker, coming again into power, with Hall as
adviser, administered a second dose of taxation-cum-retrenchment. They
cut down the salaries of the Governor and the ministers, and the size
and pay of the elected chamber. They made efforts, more equitable this
time, to reduce the cost of the public departments. They stiffened
the property-tax, and for the second time raised the Customs Duties,
giving them a distinctly Protectionist complexion. The broad result
was the achievement of financial equilibrium. For ten years there have
been no deficits in New Zealand. Apart from retrenchment, Atkinson had
to rely upon the Opposition in forcing his financial measures through
against the Free Traders amongst his own following. This strained his
party. Moreover, in forming his cabinet in 1887 he had not picked some
of his colleagues well. In particular, the absence of Mr. Rolleston's
experience and knowledge from the House and the government weakened
him. Mr. Rolleston has his limitations, and his friends did the enemy
a service when, after his return to public life in 1891, they tried to
make a guerilla chief out of a scrupulous administrator. But he was
a capable and not illiberal minister of lands, and his value at that
post to his party may be gauged by what they suffered when they had
to do without him. The lands administration of the Atkinson cabinet
became unpopular, and the discontent therewith found a forcible
exponent in an Otago farmer, Mr. John McKenzie, a gigantic Gael, in
grim earnest in the cause of close settlement, and whose plain-spoken
exposures of monopoly and "dummyism" not only woke up the Radicals,
but went home to the smaller settlers far and wide. It may be that
these things hastened the breaking-down of Sir Harry Atkinson's health
in 1890. At any rate fail it did, unhappily. His colleague, Sir
Frederick Whitaker, was ageing palpably. Nor did Sir John Hall's
health allow him to take office.
[Illustration: THE HON. JOHN MACKENZIE
_By permission of_ Messrs. SAMPSON LOW]
With their _tres Magi_ thus disabled, the Conservative party began to
lose ground. More than one cause, no doubt, explains how it was that
up to 1891 the Liberals hardly ever had a command of Parliament equal
to their hold upon the country. But the abilities of the three men
just named had, I believe, a great share in holding them in check. Sir
John Hall's devotion to work, grasp of detail, and shrewd judgment
were proverbial. He was the most businesslike critic of a bill in
committee the House of Representatives ever had, and was all the more
effective in politics for his studiously conciliatory manner. Astute
and wary, Sir Frederick Whitaker was oftener felt than seen. But with
more directness than Whitaker, and more fighting force than Hall, it
was Atkinson who, from 1875 to his physical collapse in 1890, was
the mainstay of his party. He carried through the abolition of the
Provinces; he twice reorganized the finances; he was the protagonist
of his side in their battles with Grey, Ballance, and Stout, and they
could not easily have had a better. This chief of Grey's opponents was
as unlike him in demeanour and disposition as one man can well be
to another. The two seemed to have nothing in common, except
inexhaustible courage. Grey had been trained in the theory of war,
and any part he took therein was as leader. Atkinson had picked up a
practical knowledge of bush-fighting by exchanging hard knocks with
the Maoris as a captain of militia. Grey was all courtesy; the other
almost oddly tart and abrupt. Grey's oratory consisted of high-pitched
appeals to great principles, which were sometimes eloquent, sometimes
empty. His antagonist regarded Parliament as a place for the
transaction of public business. When he had anything to say, he
said it plainly; when he had a statement to make, he made it, and
straightway went on to the next matter. His scorn of the graces of
speech did not prevent him from being a punishing debater. Theories
he had--of a quasi-socialistic kind. But his life was passed in
confronting hard facts. Outside the House he was a working colonist;
inside it a practical politician. The only glory he sought was "the
glory of going on," and of helping the Colony to go on. When, with
tragic suddenness, he died in harness, in the Legislative Council in
1892, there was not alone sincere sorrow among the circle of friends
and allies who knew his sterling character, but, inasmuch as however
hard he had hit in debate it had never been below the belt, his
opponents joined in regretting that so brave and faithful a public
servant had not been spared to enjoy the rest he had well earned.
[Illustration: SIR HARRY ATKINSON
_By permission of_ Messrs. SAMPSON LOW.]
What kind of an assembly, it may be asked, is the New Zealand
Parliament which Atkinson's force of character enabled him to lead so
long, and which has borne undivided rule over the Colony since 1876?
The best answer can be found in the story of the Colony, for the
General Assembly, at all events, has never been a _fainéant_ ruler.
It has done wrong as well as right, but it has always done something.
After the various false starts before referred to, it has, since
getting fairly to work in 1856, completed forty-three years of talk,
toil, legislation and obstruction. It may fairly be claimed that its
life has been interesting, laborious and not dishonourable. It has
exactly doubled in size since Governor Wynyard's day. Old settlers say
that it has not doubled in ability. But old settlers, with all their
virtues, are incorrigible _laudatores temporis acti_. The industry
of the members, the difficulties they had to cope with in the last
generation, and the number and variety and novelty of the questions
they have essayed to solve in this, are undoubted. Their work must, of
course, be tested by time. Much of it has already borne good fruit,
and any that does manifest harm is not likely to cumber the earth
long. If laws in colonies are more quickly passed, they are also more
easy to amend than in older countries.
The Lower House of a Colonial Parliament resembles, in most ways,
the London County Council more than the House of Commons. But in New
Zealand members have always been paid--their salary is now £240 a
year. Farmers and professional men make up the largest element. The
Labour members have never numbered more than half a dozen. At present
there are five in each House. In the more important debates speeches
are now limited to an hour, otherwise to half an hour. The length of
speeches in committee must not exceed ten minutes. About twenty per
cent. of the speaking is good; most of it is made with little or no
preparation, and suffers--together with its hearers--accordingly.
Bores are never shouted or coughed down--the House is too small, and
nearly all the members are on friendly terms with each other. Until
the adoption of the time limit business was in daily danger of being
arrested by speeches of phenomenal length and dreariness. Anthony
Trollope, who listened to a debate at Wellington in 1872, thought
the New Zealand parliamentary bores the worst he had known. The
discussions in Committee are often admirably businesslike, except when
there is obstruction, as there frequently is. As elsewhere, special
committees do much work and get little thanks therefor. As compared
with the House of Commons, the debates would seem to lack dignity; as
compared with the proceedings of the Sydney Parliament, they would
have appeared models of decorum, at any rate until quite recently. No
New Zealand debater would be held great in England, but seven or eight
would be called distinctly good. The House supports a strong Speaker,
but is disposed to bully weakness in the chair.
For the last thirty years the Maori race has returned four members
to the House. They usually speak through an interpreter. In spite of
that, when discussing native questions they often show themselves
fluent and even eloquent. Outside local and private bills, nearly all
important legislation is conducted by Government. Private members
often profess to put this down to the jealousy and tyranny of
Ministers, but the truth is that Parliament, as a whole, has always
been intolerant of private members' bills. There is no direct personal
corruption. If the House were as free from small-minded jealousy and
disloyalty as it is from bribery and idleness, it would be a very
noble assembly. In character, the politicians have been at least equal
to the average of their fellow-colonists. But party ties are much
looser than in England. Members will sometimes support Governments for
what they can get for their districts, or leave them because they
have not been given a portfolio. Attempts to form a third party are
incessant but unsuccessful. Ministries, if not strangled at the
birth--as was the "Clean Shirt" Cabinet--usually last for three years.
Since August, 1884, there have virtually been but two changes of the
party in power. Reconstructions owing to death or retirement of a
Premier have now and then added to the number of apparently new
Cabinets. Of the seven or eight Ministers who make up a Cabinet, four
or five are usually able and overworked men. The stress of New Zealand
public life has told on many of her statesmen. Beside Governor Hobson,
McLean, Featherston, Crosbie Ward, Atkinson and Ballance died in
harness, and Hall had to save his life by resigning. Most of the
Colony's leaders have lived and died poor men. Parliaments are
triennial, and about one-third of the constituencies are pretty
certain to return new members at a general election. All the elections
take place on one day, and if a member--even the leader of a
party--loses his seat, he may be cut out for years. This is a
misfortune, as experience is a quality of which the House is apt to
run short. Block votes frequently prevent elections from being fought
on the practical questions of the hour. The contests are inexpensive,
and there is very little of the cynical blackmailing of candidates and
open subsidising by members which jar so unpleasantly on the observer
of English constituencies. Indeed, cynicism is by no means a fault of
New Zealand political life. The most marked failings are, perhaps, the
savagely personal character of some of its conflicts, and a general
over-strained earnestness and lack of sense of proportion or humour.
Newspapers and speeches teem with denunciations which might have been
in place if hurled at the corruption of Walpole, the bureaucracy of
Prussia, the finance of the _Ancien Régime_, or the treatment of
native races by the Spanish conquerors of the New World. Nor is
bitterness confined to wild language in or out of parliament. The
terrible saying of Gibbon Wakefield, fifty years ago, that in Colonial
politics "every one strikes at his opponent's heart," has still
unhappily some truth in it. The man who would serve New Zealand in any
more brilliant fashion than by silent voting or anonymous writing must
tread a path set with the thorns of malice, and be satisfied to find a
few friends loyal and a few foes chivalrous.