The Evening Star. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1970.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 174, 30 July 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star. SATURDAY, JULY 30, 1970.

It will bo interesting to the friends of progn S3 to note that we are not the only colony buckling on the armour of Protection, and setting firmly to the work of colonisation. -Simtillaneously with tho submitting of a protective tariff to our House of ..cpresenlativcs, we find, from Australian files lo hand, that a Ministerial crisis has occurred in Queensland, and that the victorious popular party have raised the -standard of protection to local industries. It is a singular coincidence, too, that the same party of the people lave res.lived on the necessity of public works and railway extern ion, so that the very same questions are on the eve of being submitted to the arbitrament -of the ballot-box in a general elec.ion in. Queensland and Now Zealand. There is this difference, however, for the time, that in New Zeaand the cause of intelligent progress has friends in the powers that be, while, in Queensland, the retrogressionisfc party is in power, but has just suffered a crushing defeat. In tho legislature of that colony the leader of the opposition, Mr. Macalisttr, has carried the following amendments by a large majority.—l. " That no ministry will receive the confidence and support of this House thai is not prepared to introduce a financial policy that in its fiscal arrangements will afford for a time aid and encouragement to the development of colonial industries." 2. " That no ministry will receive the confidence or support of this House that is not prepared to initiate and carry out a general railway policy, which will include the immediate, completion of existing lines, and the effectual opening up of the interior."

There are some features in the impending struggle of parties in the sister colony that are not so re-assur-ing as in our own islands. Hereparties have been formed mainly by the Native question, and all appear equally desirous for the opening up of the country and the fullest development of its resources ; and the conduct of Mr. Stafford, in his generous and chivalrous acceptance of a right policy at the hands of his opponents, has thrown a light over the lurid darkness usually pervading colonial politics. In the sister colony, on the other hand, the distinctions of Conservative and Liberal are more clearly drawn than in any other of tho Australias. There are those to whom lengthened leases or perpetual tenure of their enormous runs is tho summum bonum of political economy; to whom the sound of tho axe is the signal of dispossession, and the sight of farmsteads and cotton-fields an eye-sore. It is only human nature to suppose that to the conservative squatting party, public works and immigration and manufactures represent but means for the introduction of an army of invasion, and that the struggle impending between the people who wish to fill and occupy the land and the pastoral tenant, to whose eye sheep and bullocks are better colonists than men and w.cmeu, will be a very bitter one. That colony has had its clay of extensive public works and extensive immigration ; but the curse of pastoial tenancy was then on its politics and blighted these means of colonization ; and it is not to be wondered at that

the revival of public woik**- and immigration and the terrible phantom of protection, all proposed in deference to intelligent public sentiment and with the express intention ofsetl iingpopulation, should be viewed by tin- squatters as invasion of their rights. "We are fortunate in having no such large and power fit! interests in New Zealand that will be injured by the settlement of an industrious population ; but while immigration, railways, and" a protective tariff will in -<cw Zealand be endorsed cheerfully as the policy of the people, it will be interesting for us to watch the popular party in the sister color.}', fighting against faction, wealth, power, and vested interests, for the attainment of the same objects, as the only acknowledged means, of thorough colonization.