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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24

What Should be Done.—a Constitutional Party

What Should be Done.—a Constitutional Party.

I must ask you to consider well the proposition, that we should not lightly abandon institutions which we have adopted and endeavored to work out, and which have worked—to some extent, at the least—beneficially. We hear, constantly, a great deal of sentimental nonsense as to "visions of future greatness" for New Zealand, and as to the country exercising a commanding influence in the Southern Seas." I don't know whether the commanding influence" is to be amongst the whales—(laughter)—or over the Chatham Islands—or what it is to be, and where exercised. No doubt, ambition is a most laudable thing. Many young men, no doubt, constantly indulge in ideas of future greatness, and determine, in their ambitious dreams, to work out for themselves noble careers. But would such young men be so utterly absurd as to suppose that, in order to carry out these aspirations in the future, they should refuse to adopt any obvious course for improving their present conditions, and so really aiding towards the ends they desired to shape for themselves? Do we not remember the story—told in the "Arabian Nights," I think—of the very ambitious person whose mode of life had been cast in the direction of hawking glassware? He sits down one day, and indulges in brilliant visions—great wealth, the start towards which was to be made by the sale of the brittle fabrics he had in his basket—a fine house and servants, as the result of his great wealth—a desire, because of his high position, to kick one of his servants for insolence—his kicking—and so shattering all, upon the possession of which his brilliant visions had been based.—(Laughter.) If we are to talk of "commanding influence" and "future greatness," are we to forget that, however high our aspirations, we must look after the means that will lead us up to The realisation of such aspirations? Warren Hastings, in his youth, cherished great dreams of the future, his hope being to be able to buy back for himself, the landed estate of his ancestors. He lived to do that of which he dreamed: but because he had the dream, did he resolve that all was done, and that he needed not to be industrious? No, he succeeded by indefatigable industry and energy. So, in a lesser degree, with all of us who entertain visions of our brilliant successes that are to be: we work, that when the success c mes, we page 12 may use and enjoy it worthily. And so as to this vision of the "future greatness" of New Zealand. I hope, nay, I feel sure, that we have great resources in this Colony, and that New Zealand may become a most important country. But I also feel that we should be guilty of the utmost imprudence, if, because of this possible future, we agreed to neglect obvious means of improving the country—means which we have used, and with success, up to the present time. I ask you to discard altogether, not the sentiment of aspiring to make of New Zealand a great country, but those unhealthy fungus growths which are made to hang upon the false sentiment, that because of the possibility of greatness, we should ignore or destroy the means which are present to us of taking steps necessary to the attainment of that greatness.—(Applause.) It is beneath our dignity, we are told, to have so many Provinces and Provincial Governments, because, ultimately, we are to grow up to be a great State : but, am I to be told, that when the time comes that we have attained to such a position that we ought to be relieved from further dependence upon Great Britain, it will not then be soon enough to make arrangements to bring the Colony together as one kingdom or State? In the existing division of the Colony into Provinces, we have the best guarantee possible that hasty steps will not be taken to sever that connection with Great Britain, which, I believe, the vast majority of the Colonists are proud to recognise and to acknowledge.—-(Applause.) I have said that this cry for Local Government, which we are told comes from every part of the Colony, is evidence of no more than this—that the taxation imposed is greatly heavier than it should be, keeping in view the fairly colonising purposes to which taxation ought to be alone applied. But we are not to suppose that the few thousand pounds a-year spent upon Provincial Institutions—an expenditure which will be very much exceeded if the Provinces are divided into Counties and Road Districts under the General Government—we are not to suppose that those few thousand pounds will suffice to ena le to be given to the new districts that which they really ask for—a larger share, for industrial and reproductive purposes, of the revenue of the Colony. The Colony is groaning under past misgovernment and general mismanagement; and the very men who are the cause of that state of things are the very men who attempt to take advantage of it, and who say to their victims, "It is we who are your friends. You had better give up to us what powers remain to you"—powers under which the people have obtained some protection, at any rate. It reminds one of a man who has his pocket picked in a crowd, by a thief who cannot contrive to escape; and who, therefore, raises a cry of "Thief," in order to direct suspicion to his victim.—(Hear, hear.) The Provinces have the utmost cause of complaint against the General Government, at whose hands they have suffered so much; but the General Government turns upon the Provinces, and charges them with the mismanagement for which that Government ought to be alone held responsible. The Provinces want from a General Government something more than money—they want sympathy and assistance. The same ingenuity which has been employed to frustrate the Provinces, and to place them in an altogether false position, would, if it had been devoted to aiding them, have placed the Provinces in a wholly different position. The Provinces have been guilty of faults, no doubt; but it is not from those faults alone they suffer, nor do Provincial faults constitute the majority of those which have been committed. You cannot have a greater curse, in such a country as this, than that the General Government should be constantly educating the people to dissatisfaction with Provincial Institutions. You may take away the Constitution under which the Colony has proceeded so far; but you cannot give to the people another Constitution which will earn so much of their respect and veneration.—(Hear, hear.) You will have to deal with a disappointed people—a people which once reverenced its Constitution, but which has been taught to believe that it did so under a mistake; and, though you give to the country a new Constitution, the people will be susceptibly open to the idea that it wants a third new Charter, and then a fourth, and so on. We have seen instances innumerable of this, in the people under the Spanish rule in South America. Those people never can be happy or contented, because they never see a form of Government which they can reverence—they never live under a form of Government which they do not recognise it as a duty to change, whenever the inclination and the opportunity to do so arise. What we want, is a Constitutional Party in New Zealand.—(Hear, hear.) There has been growing up, of late years, a feeling that we are at liberty continually to page 13 meddle with our Constitution, in the direction of revolutionising it. I hope that, in the coming session of the Assembly, there will be a determination by the party with which I have hitherto acted, to discard the title "Provincial," and to adopt that of "The Constitutional Party"—(applause)—and that it will devote itself to the maintainance of the integrity of the Constitution.—(Applause.) I do not ask that it shall be said that the Constitution is not susceptible of improvement: I only ask, that it shall not be revolutionised.—(Applause.) Let it be declared that, of the free will of their peoples, Provinces may unite; and declare other modifications if you will, so long as they are in the direction which the Constitution itself contemplates. Do what you will, tending to mature the Constitution; but let there be resistance to everything tending to revolutionise it.—(Applause.) I hope we shall soon see in existence, and in activity, a party which has for its motto, "The Preservation of the Constitution, as it was given to New Zealand!"—(Applause.)