Page:Life·of·Seddon•James·Drummond•1907.pdf/130



by the labour of human beings, should be fairly shared between those human beings and the masters who employ them. A fair division of capital is the one object which should engross them. It is the one thing which they can win for their little ones to save them from the fate which nearly all children in great cities have to undergo at present—namely, lives of misery and woe almost indescribable. Both the town and the country require this one equal weapon of the single vote. They require union of heart and union of mind, and there should be no division between them. I cannot impress upon members too strongly that our duty to ourselves and even to our Maker, who has given us the power of determining this great question, is to insist on one vote being given to one man.”

When the Representation Bill was in committee on August 5th, he moved that no man should be allowed to vote in respect of more than one electorate. The motion was carried by the splendid majority of 27, and the old Liberal leader placed the coping-stone on the manhood franchise. It is one of the few of his reforms he was allowed to complete with his own hands. It is the greatest practical gift he gave to the party he had created.

Otherwise the session of 1889 was not productive of great results. The Government announced at the beginning that “a number of Bills dealing with matters of great public interest would be placed before the House.” To nearly all these policy measures the Opposition took strong exception. Under Mr. Ballance’s leadership it fought each measure as it came up.

The Government tried to alter the constitution of the Legislative Council. The Legislative Council, however, quickly decided the matter itself, and said that its constitution did not need alteration. It was then announced that the electoral laws would be reviewed, and that a new departure would be taken. The new departure took the shape of a Bill to introduce the Hare system of voting, and the “rash and revolutionary proposal,” as it was called by the Opposition, was practically kicked to death. Then came a proposal to deal with the whole question of the Civil Service, going into the promotion, classification, and payment of Civil Servants on defined principles; but nothing resulted, and no Bill embodying the proposals was submitted. A Hospitals and Charitable Aid Bill was strongly opposed by local bodies as soon as its provisions were published,