The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas, et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1882. The Minister of Lands at Papanui.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 792, 14 November 1882, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas, et Prevalebit. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1882. The Minister of Lands at Papanui.

It used to be a standing joke among members of the House of Representatives during the time of the “ Continuous Ministry,” that Mr Rolleston always “ deeply deplored,” everything which was going on in the work of legislation. Since that time Mr Rolleston has himself become a Minister pretty firmly ensconced in office, and he now “ deeply deplores ” nothing. He is no more the same man that he was than an undertaker’s mute at a funeral is the same when displaying his lugubrious official duties, and when, after he has done work, he has taken a few refreshers with friends and colleagues, and is comfortably riding homeward on the top o.f a hearse. Last Friday night, when ad-

dressing his constituents at Papanbi, Mr Rolleston proved to his own satisfaction that the colony is already in a sort of millennium. The lately elected members of the House of Representatives were the most patriotic and sensible who ever sat at Wellington; the Government was the ablest and most upright ; the work of the past session was the most valuable ever done; the colony itself is flourshing in every respect, and money was never so abundant as it is at present. If only the itinerent patriots, Clephane, Lee, Andrews, Howland, and the rest would not bother a comfortable Minister of Lands with impertinent questions when he is addressing his constituents, all would be well with us, and Heaven on earth begun. All this is cheerful news to us, but it is news; and we feel duly thankful to the respectable member for the Avon for now telling us the facts. Mr Rolleston started, after a preliminary flourish of trumpets, with referring to the extension of the franchise and expressed his complete satisfaction with the change. It certainly seemed a little as if he did it with the same politeness and at the same time the same contortions of countenance which a Frenchman exhibits when he tastes English bitter ale for the first occasion, and exclaims, “it is an excellent tonic !” Passing on from the franchise Mr Rolleston dived at once in medias tes. Referring to native affairs, and the suppression of the Te Whiti sedition ayearago, when an ignorant madman was inciting the Maoris at Parihaka to war, the speaker had little difficulty in carrying his audience with him in his eulogy of the Government’s mixture of firmness, good sense, and moderation in their action. Mr Rolleston next referred to his Lands Bill, and made a very fair defence of the concessions granted in the end to the Legislative Council by limiting the leasing area to the gold fields, in order to get the measure passed, and the leasing principle which has been strongly approved of by many very eminent men, affirmed. Nor was he unsuccessful in showing that the charge against the Ministry of postponing their Financial and Public Works Statements until it was too late to consider them, was groundless, as he pointed out that the former of these was brought forward in June and the latter in July, though the session did not close until September. In defending the loan, Mr Rolleston was by no means equally successful. It is true that in England money is- plentiful, and three per cent, consols are at over ico. But then he ought to know ‘ that for at least two hundred years past in England, in times of peace, money has been steadily becoming more and more plentiful, and the interest upon it for loan getting lower and lower, and there is therefore every prospect of the same effect continuing, so that ten years hence the colony would be able to borrow in all probability on better terms than even now. And, then, Mr Rolleston omitted to tell his hearers that already the colony is heavily taxed, because it has to pay annually over a million and a half of money, simply for interest and sinking fund of past borrowed money, and that it is therefore foolish to borrow unless for remunerative works. Still more unsuccessful was Mr Rolleston in defend ing the works themselves proposed b] the Ministry. In giving a modifiec support to the East Coast Railwa; swindle, he was indeed careful to avoid pledging himself to that line at the expense of the railway to the West Coast, but the whole rendering of his argument was to that effect. It is quite true, as he urged, that when the first loan was contracted by Sir Julius Vogel’s Ministry, it was distinctly understood that all the great centres of population should beconnected with one another by railway, but Mr Rolleston omitted to insist upon it also, as he should have done, that the completion of the numerous works thus required would be a matter of considerable time, and that there is not the slightest reason to believe that the time has come yet. Probably not, even for the West Coast line, certainly not for that by the East Coast, where there are neither the people nor the traffic to warrant it. On this point Mr Rolleston was most tenaciously badgered by numerous hostile questioners, and, in reply, most persistently shuffled out of the difficulty by urging that the exact line to Cook’s Mrait had not yet been found, and might after all go round by the West Coast. In fact, a listener might fancy that Mr Rolleston was the original Roll-his-stone Sisyphus immortalised in the classics, for no sooner did he roll his stone, the East Coast line, towards heaven than it was mischievously pushed down again by his querists, who certainly had the best of the argument. Altogether the speech of the Minister of Lands was a passably clever and very respectable defenCfe of the Ministerial policy, but it was not quite as straightforward as it should be, and his audience seemed to know it. •