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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 535, 30 August 1881, Page 2

Ouu readers will remember a statement made by the Premier in the House of Representatives, to the effect that the Government had received a letter from Sir Julius Vogel which was of so insolent a nature that they had returned it unanswered to the writer. A copy of the letter has now reached the Colony, and it has of course been published. Sir Julius certainly hits the Government hard but unless frank expression of opinions differing from theirs is to be considered insolence, we fail to see where the latter comes in, In any case the Government by their action have -irawn more attention to the letter and given it a greater importance than it would have possessed if it had. simply come forward in the ordinary course as a Parliamentary paper. The Premier had censured Sir Julius for paying out of his own pocket to certain officers of his department the amount which they would lose for six months by the 10 per cent reduction Sir Julius says in reply :—

" I am not disposed to suffer censure without defending myself, and you must therefore excuse a very frank reply on my part. In both cases you shelter the Government behind Parliament and make it appear that I have committed an offence against the latter. I cannot, however, admit this view. The Government; is responsible lor the legislation to which it submits, aud should not remain in office if Parliament force on it measures to which it knows it cannot give effect, or of which it disapproves. It is in the very essence of the constitution of Parliament that the Government which leads it, and which has means of information at its command not open to individual members, should interfere to prevent wrongful legislation.

The writer here evidently scores a point. A Government has certainly no right to shelter itself behind Parliament, If ifc does not agree with a resolution arrived at by a majority of the House, the alternative is obvious—resignation. But to imply that a given action of which they disapprove has been forced on them by the House is cowardly. After dealing at length with the 10 per cent reduction. Sir Julius goes on to say: — For the rest, the Government seemed to anxiously instil a want of confidence into the minds of the people, with no other apparent object than to stop the policy of Public Works and emigration, and to deprive the civil servants of the incomes they were entitled to.

He pooh poohs the idea of the monetary difficulties, being other than temporary and trifling, and says that the worst that had happened was that the sales of land were postponed, the land still remaining. But the following paragraph ts the keynote of the whole letter and would alone accoiint for its attempted suppression by the Government :— But the fact, and there is to denying it, was that what the Government wanted was to persuade the people they must give up their colonising policy. I do not tor a moment suppose the Government were not sincere in believing that it was for the best that this shouid be done. They looked at it from the view of the large land owners, who, having obtained the railways they wanted, were fearful of possible future direct taxation. To a certain extent these views secured their own falu'tinent, for tlio credit of 'the Colony was depressed to an ex tout that threatened n breach of all. confidence in it. Fortunately, sensible men in this country saw through it, and refused to believe in the bogie of repudiation which, if not actually paraded, was hinted at in the bnck ground. Had the alarm of the Government been fully echoed, it is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the disaster that might have benn occasioned. If the financial institutions of the Colony are, on emergency,liable to the heaviest strain of taxation, a run might take place on them, the end oi which, to persons of property in the Colony, could not have been ioresccn, The letter concludes as folio we :— I have spoken to the Colony rather than to the Government, for I fear the

latter will not profit by my remarks, but I trust they will not be denied publicity. My health and circumstances forbid my returnihg to reside in New Zealand to take such part in public affairs as my fellow-colonists might wish to honor me with, but I should be insensible to and ungrateful for the many marks of confidence the people of "New Zealand have reposed in mo,*didgl hesitate to express opinions which may be of some humble service to them. I cannot fail to remember that for seven years, witbjthe exception only of a few weeks, L was continually in ,<the Government, and I did not retire" joeeause of the wish of the people or Parliament.