Occasional Notes.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 94, 27 April 1876, Page 6

Occasional Notes.

I | By "Colonus."

I ♦— - j TBE COMMISSIONERS. j The arrival in Dunedin of the Vogelan Commissioners, and the attitude our Worthy Superintendent has assumed . jowards them, puts me in mind ot the iigger song :— fliere's no lise knocking at tlie door any more, md there's no use knocking at the door, {Tbu're not good-looking, so you can't come in. \ don't know, whether Messrs Gisborne, peed, and Knowles are good- looking or pot, but anyhow they have not got in. iThe man who was creeping through the bedge to steal the farmer's apples, when ksked by the proprietor where he was boing, replied, " back again .;" and so the Commissioners, as far as Otago is iconcerned, will have to return " back jagain," minus the apples. Leaving, iiowever, the facetiotis style, I think {there i 3 a considerable amount of force jin Mr Macandrevv's reply to the Commissioners. The financial difficulty of the General Government cannot be considered a good and valid reason for the destruction of Otago as a political entity, and the wresting violenly from the people of the Province, that form of local j government under which Otago has up jto the present period very favorably j progressed, and made far more advance j than most of the other provinces of New ! Zealand. Were the people of the Pro- | vince much discontented with the manj ncr in which the Provincial Governj ment has performed its functions, and {■- did they anticipate that the proposed change would be beneficial to the ProI vince, the case would be different. J Probably, however 1 , the fact is, as Mr | Macandrew observes, that if a plebiscite . ! were taken, a vast proportion of the i votes would be in favor of the Province | retaining its own revenues, distributing i them in its own behalf, and working j out its destiny in its own way. I be- ! lieve that in most parts of the Province j there is a strong provincial feeling, and j even as regards such of the Centralists ; as are not runholders or large capitalists, I expect they will rae the day when they surrendered themselves bound hand and foot to the tender mercies of the General Government. The manner in which this Colony has gone about to alter its constitution, seems to me to be most preposterous and absurd. As I have several times observed, before a great organic change of this sort was made, a large majority of the people of the Colony should have expressed themselves in favor of the change. It has never yet been ascertained beyond a doubt that even a small, much less a large majority of the people desire this change in the Constitution. It is true that last session a considerable majority of the representatives of the people in the House of Assembly was in favor of tlie change, but the fact is that the Assembly does not properly represent the people, and is no •certain exponent of the will of the people. How can it be considered to •express the popular will when the 600 people of Taranaki are represented in the House by as many members as the 25,000 people of Dunedin. Even supposing the immense power of altering the Constitution is to be relegated to Parliament alone, before such a change was made, a very large majority of the Assembly should be in favor of it. This should be the law. At present a single vote, say the casting vote of the Speaker, might change the Constitution ; and at that rate we might be changing the Constitution every two or three years. Is the Constitution of the country to be changed with as much facility as the imposition of an extra penny on the duty of tea, sugar, or tobacco ? If the General Assembly possesses the power of effecting this change under an Imperial Act, all that can be said is that the Assembly ought never to have had that power conferred on it, and that such an Act of the In,p.*rial Legislature was a mighty improper one. No alteration of the Constitution of a British Colony should be altered except on appeal to the British Parliament, and under an Imperial Act of Parliament consequent on such an appeal. There can be no doubt that Otago has a very strong case, and that this violently wresting of their rights from the people of the Province, is against all conscience and the dictates of justice. Abolition we know, whatever may be said to the contrary, involves the absorption of our land revenue by the Colony, the confiscation probably of educational and other endowments, probably a large extension of the power of runholders and large capitalists in the matter of land monopolisation, and bureautic government from Wellington, instead of local representative government. Even supposing — a supposition which may be far from the fact, .that the people of the rest of the Colony, were in favor of the proposed change of Constitution, even then local rights, once conferred by the Constitutioni jjlct, and exercised for a conBiderablfe^umber of years, ought to be respectecf, %nd should not be violently abrogated' lint only freely surrendered. The Abolition Act should have been of a permissive, rather than a compulsory character. The case would be very different if the people of Otago were seeking an alteration of the Constitution. They would then, like the Southern States of America were once, he revolutionists or rebels. As it is, the people of this Province are loyally desirous of adhering to the Constitution,

and it is the members of the General Government who are the revolutionists. There is good reason to anticipate that Otago will not consent to be annihilated or absorbed without a struggle. A strong representation to the Imperial Parliament of the circumstances of the case might be of some avail, or ought to be. This is just a case for Imperial interference. What is the use of being connected with Great Britain if the British Parliament will not take the trouble to exercise authority in a case of this sort, and enquire into the rights and claims of the contending parties ? If the British Parliament declines to accept the responsibility, it must be most unmindful of the duty, which as the central legislature of the Empire, it owes to the Colonies, even this distant Colony of New Zealand. It is disgraceful that the Constitution of the Colony should be destroyed, until the will of the nation has been umnistakeably expressed, merely to enable the Premier to handle the revenues and monetary resources of the Colony more easily, and with less inconvenience than he otherwise could do.