OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 399, 4 January 1890, Page 3

OUR SYDNEY LETTER.

[fbom our own correspondent ] Sydney, Dec. 12.

The ignominious collapse of Mr Dibbs’ motion of censure was a foregone conclusion. Indeed there are those who say that if any other conclusion bad been expected it would not have been moved. The only justification that can be alleged for it is that it is sometimes a good party move to rally the forces and lead them to some definite point of attack. But whatever advantage may have been gained in this way was gained at the expense of the public good. A week of valuable time has been lost, and it is now doubtful whether, by the most strenuous exertions of both parties, it is possible to pass the estimates of next year before the expenditure of the money has actually commenced. Yet the form of our Government is govern ment by party, and it seems more just to blame a system which offers overwhelming inducements to demonstrations of thia kind, than tbe individual politicians who resort to them. The latter merely do what, until the system is changed, their opponents would do if in their place. The affectation therefore by partiaans of horror and disgust at the evils which fl >w from party warfare needs to be taken with a good many grains of salt. We inaugurated a system of strife and contention. We offer splendid prizes to the combatants to strain every nerve 10 trip up or otherwise hinder one another, and then we wonder that we do not get from such a system the blessings of peace and good government. As reasonably might be expected to get grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles. The action of Mr J. P. Abbott, in defending the Government and declining to vote with his patty, has of course, provoked the dire wrath of the extremists. At Wagga a party of ardent Protectionists proceeded to burn the recalcitrant member in effigy. But burning in effigy is a game that two can play at. The Freetraders also had an effigy, but it was one of Mr Dibbs. They burned that therefore, and moreover, after an exciting contest,they succeeded in rescuing the effigy of Abbot from the hands of their foes. The incident caused great excitement, and some of the combatants did not escape without burns and bruises. It was a childish and unreasonable affair all through, but perhaps, as I said before, in effect, it was not more childish and unreasonable than the foolish system which gives it birth. The decision of the Privy Council in the case Alison v. Burns is a great blow, not so much to the present Government who are in* nocent of any connection with it, as to the colony generally. It will be remembered that under the Land Act of 188* Mt Garrett, when Minister for Lands, claimed the right to fix pastoral rents at his own discretion after receiving the appraisements of tbe Land Board. He deemed those appraisements too low, in most cases, and raised the pent* 1° an amount which according to the Lands Department, represents an excess of £320,000. Mr Alison, one of the leading pastoralists of the colony, protested against the assessment of his runs, and his case was taken as a test one, Ha was worsted in the Supreme Court of the Colony, hut appealed successfully to the Privy Council, so that the whole of the sum in dispute" will unquestionably have to ba refunded. The Herald and the Telegraph avow great distrust of tbs decision and seem to think that the Privy Council was not seized of all the facts of the case. But unquestionably the Council had the Act of 188* before it, and what wretched slipshod draughting must that be which ooqld leave it possible to be in doubt on such an important and vital point, There is reason to beheve that many of our Acts of Parliament would not stand the test of seratiny by the Privy Council, though no doubt they would be accepted as valid by our own courts. The Payment of Members Bill, for instance, seems a direct contravention of tbe principle which forbids members to vote on any subject in which they are pecuniarily interested, or to receive emolument r {rom the Crown except in certain carefully specified cases. Until the provisions of the Constitution Act have been abrogated or altered so as to admit of members voting the money of the public into their own pockets, it is conceivable that the Privy Council would have great difficulty in harmonising them. The cure appears to lie, not in separating from the jurisdiction of the Privy Council, but in being more circumspect in the inception of legislation and more definite and accurate in the expression of its provisions.