The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, APRIL 26.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 2, Issue 185, 26 April 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, APRIL 26.

That we are on the eve of great developments in the political world, we think few who have watched the curreni of public affairs of late will be disposed to deny. New Zealand politics have hitherto been of a character which our American cousins would call " considerable mixed." The debates in the General Assembly have seldom risen much above the parish vestry order of business, by which we do not mean that there has been any lack of debating power, but that as a rule no broad questions of policy have presented themselves for discussion. Since Sir Julius Vogel introduced his Immigration and Public Works scheme, the opponents of which were so quickly converted by the pressure of public opinion in its favor, no question involving any matter of principle has arisen, except that of the abolition of provincialism. All discussin has been on matters of detail. But it will be said that there have been always two parties in the house, that there has always been an Opposition. That there has been an Opposition we admit, hut that there have been, properly speaking, two "parties" is, we think, contrary to fact. The successful attempt to unseat the late Ministry, and the unsuccessful one which followed to dispossess their successors, were both joined in by men of all shades of pulitical opinion, and did not hinge on any special political views, but on alleged unfitness for carrying on the Government by the occupants of the Ministerial Benches. We are far from asserting that this is not a valid ground for turning out-a Ministry, but it must be admitted that, when it is the one taken by those, whoever they are, who find themselves in opposition, i.e., out of office, a tone of personality and mutual recrimination is given to the debates, which is greatly to be deplored.

The causes of this state of things are not far to seek. Our unfortunate political and geographical isolation into small communities, each with its Little Peddlington parties, each with its periodical " storm in the tea-pot," or " ministerial crisis" has checked the growth of a national public opinion. For the same reason, a New Zealand •Press has been an impossibility. We have had Auckland papers, Canterbury papers Otago ,papers, &c, but a NewZealand Press has been conspicuous by its absence. Every circumstance, however, now points to a coming struggle, and the formation of two distinct and well-defined hostile .camps. • Sir George Grey, in his.late tour has raised a spirit throughout the length and breadth of the land, which neither he nor " any other man " can lay, even if he would. The two parties are as old as—

human nature, the struggle between them has been fought out over and over again, and, to the student of history, the issue cannot be doubtful.

Our contemporary- the Wellington Post thus refers to this subject :- —" It does not matter by what names those two parties may be designated ; but their aims and objects, as distinguished from' each other, are clear and; well defined. The names of the Conservative party and the Liberal party fit them well enough, but the one might also be described as the party representing large estates and wealth, and the other as the party of the people. Each has its organs in the Press, each is represented in Parliament, and each is now preparing to work its hardest at the ballot-boxes and polling-booths The composition and the political creed of this New Zealand Conservative party can readily be defined. It includes within its ranks the large landholders, who originally acquired estates at from 5s to 10s Jan acre, which now, through the progress of settlement and the construction of roads and railways, are worth from £2 to £10 an acre. It includes the capitalists, who lend money on the mortgage of real estate ; the runholders, who derive almost princely revenues from tracts of country held at a preposterously low rent; and also that portion of the mercantile community whose interests are bound up with the landowners and runholders, for whom they act as agents. A party such as we have described would prefer to maintain a state of things in which legislation has been for the benefit of the few and to the disadvantage of the many, and in which the working men and tradesmen have borne an undue share of taxation, while the wealthy were not called upon to contribute in proportion to their means. If such a party could have their way, all the evils of I older States would, in time to come, be i reproduced in this fair young land. There ! would be a territorial aristocracy, limited in numbers aud rolling in wealth, while there would be a large class of poor, toiling from day to day to live, and with but little hope for the future."

We have said that the issue of the struggle on which we are entering, cannot be considered doubtful. That liberal or democratic principles will triumph, is certain. The extent to which the victors will push the result of their conquest depends chiefly on the attitude assumed during the struggle by those whom we must consider as being now in possession of undue privileges. The fable of the Sybilline books has for them an intense significance. Timely concession would probably have averted the French Revolution. But for the infatuation of those in power, the United States might, nay, would still have been British colonies. And to come nearer home, both in time and place, in no country were more strenuous and unprincipled efforts made to crush the popular desire for change, and to maintain things " as they were," than in the neighboring colony of Victoria, and with what result ? With the result that nowhere has ultra democracy achieved greater triumphs, nowhere have the privileges of class, rank, or wealth been more ruthlessly trampled under foot.