The Evening Star. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1870.

Auckland Star, Volume I, Issue 289, 13 December 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star. TUESDA Y, DECEMBER 13, 1870.

The rumo,ars current to-day as to impending difficulties to be thrown in the way of the; Provincial Executive, Ayhich has just taken office, are not calculated to very much exalt our ideas of the character of Provincialism. The advantages derivable from that system of government are sufficiently open to question ; but when the Ministerial crisis on which the policy, mayhap the .fate of nations, depends, ia burlesqued on our liitie stage, the humbug istpp patent; and any remnant of feelings in favor of this form of local-self government is rudely shaken. The late administration

deemed it right, to make a ministerial question of what might have been arranged in detail. Defeat was selfelected; and the dignity with which a Cabinet stakes existence on a principle was aped respecting Estimates, every item of which in any case must pass under the discusßion of the Council in detail. If the present Executive, which owes its position to the folly of its predecessor, perpetrates a repetition of that folly in seeking to discover a principle in the Estimates on which it can stake its existence, and die with dignity, it will show that it was wholly unfitted for the position in which it has been placed. If the members of the late Opposition, or any of them, are disposed to make fools of themselves, that is no reason why the province should be befooled ; and befooled the public will undoubtedly be if the present Executive wantonly throws up the reins. Tfc is intolerable that because certain persons who joined in the late opposition, with the expectation of being raised to power, now find themselves left out in the cold, they should call on gods and men to witness their efforts in ousting their more fortunate fellows, as efforts made in behalf of their country. To-night's debate will show who have been tl c disappointed men ; and after the whole of the late Opposition having united in selecting an Executive, the province should take a note of the " rats." The present Executive has, doubtless, to many eyes perpetrated an unpardonable offence in cutting down Executive salaries; and all aspirants to office, however remote, may feel an interest in preventing the evil. But we believe that in Hie estimation of all honest men in this office-ridden country the new ExHoutive has deserved universal gratitude for the manly attempt to exalt the claims of the public service over i-hp claims nfoffiee. The Provincial Serretarymayhaveerreditioverestimatingthe revenue, but a proportionate reduction throughout the estimate? is a simpleremedy, and easily applied to the Council. While the delays and embarassment in the public service caused at this season of the year by another Ministerial crisis will be a sorry recompense to the province for the gratification of the hungry waiters on Providence.