FAMILY GOVERNMENT.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1284, 15 August 1883, Page 2

FAMILY GOVERNMENT.

In the ; House recently, Sir George Grey said:— "lt is impossible that these bonds of relationship which bind the great Civil Service together, can exist without exercising an influence adverse to the interests of the community at large. We have here a scattered State with a great network spread over it— this Civil Service

bound together by iuter marriage, byoriginal relationship— the meshes neatly tied together— the people, likfc fish, sporting about underneath, readyto be caught or entrapped, unable to communicate with one another to any advantage to represent the unfairness of what is going ou ; aud when the Colonial Treasurer skilfully gives the slightest pull at one of the distant extremities he makes every fibre tremble. ' Oue common interest binds ÜB..together,' for, as I say, the Civil Service is made up almost entirely of a very few families. Ido not wish to startle ; honorable members, and therefore I will speak in allegory, aud say it*is quite possible, under the present state of things— the Colonial Treasurer may laugh, but he knows as well as I do that these are sad truth for the people of New Zealand — I say it' is quite posI sible that the whole of the legislation I of New Zealand might pass into tho I hands of one family. This may ap- ! pear ridiculous. Honorable members I laugh at what is so' possible; but it is quite possible. It is but an allegory. Let them near me. Iti this Chamber a single individual might be the sole legislator for the people of _f 6 W Zealand, and in the other- .Chamber, another member of the same family miwht have absolute l'ulea't' the samcr time. lam only speaking m attegbry, but I say that such a w ' thing might happen, and there, ought to be no possibility of such a thing. I just allude to that. 1 say further that any* individual who might become involved in an} trouble with the Government might be passed on from one member of that family to another to an exteut unknown anywhere else. He could be charged by one, arrested by another, ordered to be tried by another, prosecuted by another, tivd actually by another sitting on the Bench, handed over to a great police officer, another member of the family, placed under a military force commanded by another, and so on. This might happen, to any individual who quarrelled _ny member of that family: It honorable gentlemen will look inj» tbe m'aAer they will see that this is the truth..