The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 165, 20 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star. WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1870.

It cannot bo denied that the Colonial Treasurer has effected a veritable coup d'etat, and that he has made himself master of the situation. The rumblings that preceded the meeting of. Parliament foreboded a coming storm; and whatever may finally result, there cannot be a doubt that, for the time at least, the clouds have been dissipated. The colonisation scheme was boldly conceived, and the best testimony to the wisdom of the new policy is the way in which ib has forced itself on the convictions alike of the friends and enemies of the Ministry. The first sensation at hearing the gigantic .proposal was one of consternation, in which alinosb every mind was involved. Those members iv the House of Eepresentatives who suddenly expressed themselves as standing " aghast" and "amazed," and " dumbfoundered," and who described the scheme as " wild" and " reckless," and " impracticable," need not exhibit such sensitive delicacy in beating a retreat under shelter of " necessity of modifications," and so on; for they but abruptly expressed the sentiment that was uppermost in every mind, and will gain nothing by endeavouring to prove their " consistency" which is well described as the " wisdom of fools." There was something so novel in the future career sketched out for New Zealand as might well take everyone by surprise ; but there is that in it so progressive and statesmanlike that cannot but command the approval of those who wish to see the country assume the position so evidently intended by nature. Nearly every other dependency of England largely owes its progress to the opening up of the country by the fearless initiation of public works; and it is to the absence of this spirit of enterprise attributable—as much as to the taint of felony in their systems— that the convict colonies of "Western Australia and Van Dieman's Land have continued to be the spittoons of the earth. It is in the highest degree j hopeful for the future of New Zealand to observe how generally party spirit has been sunk in the consideration of 1 this ministerial scheme ; and however keenly political parties and journals may censure and condemn the general political principles of the Ministry, there has been a candid and generous concession of the wisdom of the colonization scheme. Many and dark are the stains on the politics of New Zealand, but the reception which the new policy has received, shows that even in this land of jobbery and corruption there are higher instincts which are commanded by " measures, not men."

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