The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 236, 22 October 1878, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22.

The Session of the General Assembly is drawing to a close. Honorable members are yawning on their well-stuffed benches, and dozing off to dream of the delights of home and full allowance- gf sleep once more. The whips have all their work to do .o keep a sufficient number of their men at hand in case they are required. Members with " little bills " are looked upon as unmitigated nuisances, and men with grievances as insufferable bores. At such a time, when there is no hope of any further work of importance being it is not inappropriata to review what has been done, and what left undone. When the present Session opened, there might with propriety have been inscribed on the title page of its proceedings—" Great Expectations." A Government was in power who had taken office just at the end of the previous. Session. They had promised seve.al important measures of reform. They had had the whole of the recess to mature their plans. The Premier had made what the irreverent call a " stumping " tour of the country, and on that tour had given utterance to sentiments characterized by his friends and foes respectively as " truly liberal" and " revolutionary." Even the Speech from the Throne, abandoning the meaningless platitudes usually indulged in on such occasions, promised the introduction of most important measures, including reforms in the Administration of Native Lands, and measures " to place the taxation of the country on a more equitable basis, apportioning the public burdens according to the capacity to bear them." Bills were also promised, dealing with electoral reform, simplification of procedure in the Supreme Court, extending the jurisdiction of inferior courts, and other important matters.

All circumstances seemed to promise that at last some valuable work would be done, and that the Session of 1878 would be one to be looked back upon as a" memorable epoch. The Government was'strong. The " stuuyping " tour of Sir; George Grey had enlisted public opinion in his favor. Some, ten or twelve seats had been filled during" 1 the recess, and in each case had an out and out supporter of the Government been returned. We have every desire to give Sir George Grey and his colleagues credit for being thoroughly in earnest. We believe that they fully intended to do all that they had promised. Yet the fact remains that with all the favoring circumstances under which they commenced, in spite of their majority, only a small portion of the large reforms promised have been initiated. The Electoral Bill has been passed, but it does not confer what the Premier was certainly understood to promise, viz., manhood suffrage pure and simple, or as he himself expressed it, that every taxpayer should have,, one vote, and no one more than one. The Land Tax Bill gives only iin instalment of that system of direct'^taxation which was promised,

while on portions of their financial policy the Government were virtually defeated. The Local Judicature Bill, which was to effect great and much-needed reforms in our judicial system, was dropped ; in fact", all that the Government have achieved of any consequence has been to confer the franchise by.'means 6f the "residential qualification, ",and toampose a land tax. ;We are .farrfrom that j these arc uniinp'prfcant* measures, but ! tliey x are,,a ; ftei.*.._ll, 'only al §rhall;portion of what was promised. H. occasion we shall endeavor to point out the causes which, in our opinion, have led to this comparative failure.