The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3094, 28 May 1881, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph SATURDAY, MAY 28, 1881.

The Premier's speech to his constituents was disappointing. There was a good deal in it that might well have heen left unsaid, and there was much that was expected to be said upon which Mr Hall was silent. In his adddress the Premier seemed to drop his Ministerial position, and, appearing before the electors as an ordinary partisan, devoted most of his time to an attack on Sir George Grey. Mr Hall might have left it to some of his belligerent supporters to do the nagging work, for he should know by this time that Sir George Grey cares nothing for abuse or censure. The Preraiei, besides, should have been above the littleness that can condescend to decry a political opponent. On more than one occasion Mr Hall has stated it as his desire that tbe Ministry of which he is the head should be judged by their works. That being the case, there is no occasion to judge them by a comparison with a former Government. Mr Hall, however, appeared to be more anxious to lay down the Opposition platform than to state what his own is. As far as we can make out the Opposition have not a pltnk to stand upon, and the Ministry's foothold is almost equally baseless. Nevertheless the Premier said it was needless for him to reiterate the policy of his Government; a statement incurious contrast with tbe fact that whatever of a policy Mr Hall may posses was forced upon hira alike by friends and foes in the House. The Ministry now tke immense credit for carrying out economical reforms in the administration of public affairs, but no Government could have survived a week that refused to do so. It was as much a political as a financial necessity. But every one must remember the manner in which tbe Ministry received the Civil Service Commissioners' celebrated report. Referring to this point only a short time back, the Christchurch Press said that " tbe report which those gentlemen submitted brought out in a strong light the urgent need of reform, and made the work of retrenchment, comparatively speaking, easy. Yet it cannot be denied that the Commission might have done even more than they did towards making economy practicable. The first effect of the publication of the report was evidently a feeling of bewildered alarm. The Government appeared very much as if they had regretted the appointment of the Commission at all, and Mr Saunders was left for a time to fight his own battle alone. Nor did he shirk the responsibility. He did not at all hesitate to enter upon something like a triangular duel with the Government and the Railway Commissioners—Messrs Conyers and Lawson,—and he came out of the contest with flying colors." It was partially in accordance with that report that the Government entered upon an economical career, but it is gravely doubted in many well-informed quarters whether much of the economy effected has beeu either just or judicious. The probability is that much more sweeping retrenchments could have been carried out if the whole work had not been so thoroughly distasteful to the Government. It is monstrous that the administration of public affairs should cost so much as it does, and now that the eyes of the country are opened to the folly and inutility of maintaining a costly Civil Service, and extravgant systems of doing everything, it will go bard with any Ministry that does not continue in an economical course. Setting down, therefore, the administrative reforms that have been effected for what they are worth, we do not know tbat Ministers have done much else for which they can expect general applause. On taking office they found local government in a muddle ; they have put it in a still more confused condition by the discontinuance of the subsidies, and Mr Hall has said nothing to indicate an intention on the part of the Government to put things on a more satisfactory footing The abandonment of the purchase of native lands may certainly be said to be a policy, but it is a policy of a very doubtful character. Granted that native land purchases by Government agents had been carried on in a loose and extravagant manner, it does not follow that it is wise to relinquish the principle of the Crown's preemptive right over the speculations of land jobbers. It is held by many capable of forming a true opinion that it was a serious blunder ever to have admitted the right of private individuals to buy from the natives, and if such be the case it must be a mistake for the Crown to abandon the field altogether. While, this, however, is an open question, Mr Hall may justify himself in taking credit for being in a position to wind up the last of the native land purchases within the next six months.