The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 25.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 315, 25 July 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, JULY 25.

Thk beginning of the end has come. The great attack on the Government has been made, and the forces of the Opposition have been marshalled in force in order to render it a success. The Opposition journals are jubilant, bnt we fancy rather prematurely so. Say they have counted noses, and are sure of a majority in the impending division, the question next arises—what then ? An attack by means of a direct vote of want of confidence, assailing a Government by accusations of malpractice and incompetency, carefully avoiding any expression of opinion on questions of policy, is one of the easiest possible to conduct to a successful issue. Men of all shades of opinion can band together for this purpose. They have one object in common —to dislodge the Government in power. Their reasons for desiring this consummation may be wide as the poles asunder, but for this purpose they can for a time serve under the same leader, and walk dutifully into one lobby. But the very facility with which such a campaign can be conducted renders a victory obtained under these circumstances often more embarrassing than a defeat. The division once over, all discipline ceases, and it becomes impossible for any chief to retain the allegiance of such a heterogeneous and widely divergent mass of individuals. A policy has to be framed —a widely different matter from pulling an administration to pieces, and it becomes impossible, however elastic the principles of the leaders, to frame one which shall command the support of of such opposite and conflicting creeds.

If these remarks have a general signi- ! ficatipn, they are also specially pertinent to the present political situation. The Governor's speech, as we have already pointed out, contained, what is nnusual in such documents, a very full and definite enumeration of policy. That Sir Wihiam Fox and the leading men of his party cordially detest every cardinal point in that policy is evident from their past political history. And yet not one of them has ventured to arraign a single item in the list. Why ? The answer is obvious. They know that a majority of the House has been returned, pledged to support such a policy, and that a still larger majority of electors wait without, who. are determiued to see it carried out. To attack it openly would' therefore be to court defeat. It is true that "in his wrath," Sir W. Fox let slip an expres sion which should furnish a key to the "present movement of hostility to the" Government. He said the Government had only contrived to impose " a wretched Land Tax." Three years ago the House of Representatives affirmed by resolution the principle that property should bear its share of the public burden. The •• wretched Land Tax " is the first instalment of the measures necessary to give effect to that resolution. Hinc illce lachrymal. It is for pursuing this policy that Sir George Gray and his colleagues are to be hunted from office. All the talk about admini*-. trative extravagance, &c, is mere bunkum to draw attention from the real issue. We are not concerned to show that the Government have not committed faults. It is quite possible that better men might be found to fill their places. But the people of New Zealand should ponder well the quarter whence these complaints come. They should think twice, and more than twice, before they consent to see re-instated in power the reactionaries aud monopolists, who in tbe past have done their best to prevent the progress and true development of this great country by causing enormous slices of the public estate to pass into the hands of a few, by steadily refusing to allow this estate or any other accumulated wealth to contribute one iota to the necessities of the State, and generally by acting in a manner calculated to bring about in this new country all the evils whose existence in older ones is so much deplored.

Let constituencies scan diligently the forthcoming division list. Let them remember the " wretched Land Tax" of the leader of the Opposition, and despite any pretexts to the contrary, let them rest assured that those who follow Sir W. Fox into the lobby either mean steadily to resist all progressive legislation, or else are so weak-minded as not to know what they do mean. If these men secure a majority at the forthcoming division, it will be the fault of the electors of New Zealand if they are given the opportunity of obstructing progress by their votes any more. If electors are not marvellously blind to their true interests, the Liberal party need have no fear for the result.