Excerpt from DemocracyNo English politician could fail to notice the absence from political life of the leading men in the country. He would find them immersed in business, in squatting pursuits, or what in England would be called country life, or in the practice of the professions, but would rarely see them in the Assembly, still more rarely in the Ministry. He would, on the other hand, be extremely shocked to hear accusations of the most shameless corruption constantly brought against Ministers, Members, and even the House itself, and that, too, not by men who, despising or disliking the institutions of the colony, hold aloof from them, but by the very members of the House, and in the columns of the daily Press.For the practical work of legislation New South Wales is undoubtedly many years behind England, and on some subjects, such as insolvency and public health, most lamentably so.Such a matter as law reform is almost ignored by the Assembly. It requires special knowledge, and excites no popular enthusiasm consequently an old Insolvency Act of 1841 is still in force in the colony, though there is not an honest trader that does not annually lose considerable sums from the want of a more adequate measure.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.