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.
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.
Chapter XXI
SOME BONES OF CONTENTION
"Now who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,