The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3698, 22 May 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. TUESDAY, MAY 22, 1883.

We are now within four "weeks of the assembling of Parliament, but up to the in'csont time the Government have given no indication of the business that will then be brought forward. A Bill to amend the Bankruptcy Act has certainly been circulated during the recess, and a Commission has been appointed to report on the Middle Island West Coast railway ; but important as these two matters may be, it will be expected of Ministers that they bring-some-thing down besides the Bill and the report for the consideration of the General Assembly. Since the prorogation the members of the Cabinet have been busily engaged in travelling through the colony, and, considering that they have been following each other, and, presumably, comparing their individual impressions of what they have seen and heard, they should now be fairly well acquainted with the wants of the several centres of population. If, however, each Minister lias practised the art of letting information come in at one car to escape at the other, at which Mr Dick so successfully showed himself a master, the time and money expended in the Ministerial holiday tours are not likely to lead to many beneficial results. We in Napier have had the honor of not only Mr Dick's presence for two or three days, but we have also been visited by Mr Eolleston and by Mr Wliitaker. The two latter arrived in the evening and were off the following morning, and, coming , as they did unannounced and at different times, they offered no opportunity for interviews. It appealed chat to MiDick was allotted the task of "doing" Napier ; and no one can deny that he did it remarkably well. After patiently listening to all that had to bo said ; laying himself out, as it were, to make himself conversant with our wants and necessities, he retired to Wellington, forgot all that was told him, and then found that he had lost his memoranda. We respectfully venture to think that nothing in his whole public career has so stamped the Hon. Mr Dick as a diplomatist as his visit to Napier. If other places have_ been treated with the same amount of considera.tion as this borough has been, the colony is not likely to benefit much by the constant gadding about of Ministers. The railway system of the Middle Island lias much to answer for in the matter of the growing tendency of Ministers to regard themselves as ornamental appendages to the government rather than as the actual executive of the administration. When coastal and inland travelling was both uncomfortable, and not unattended with a certain amount of risk, Ministers attended closely to the business of the coun.try. Railways and the Union Shipping Com,pany's vessels have now offered facilities for going from place to place that arc increasing in comfort and speed almost every month, and Ministers are not proof against the temptations of their exalted positions. Mr Bryce has naturally had to cat the plain puddiiig after his colleagues had picked out the plums. To him has fallen the rou»h paths, but undoubtedly his absences from Wellington havo been in the prosecution of the work of his department, and in t'ae best interests of the colony. Wo take leave to doubt whether the same thing can be said of the carpet-bag trip of Major Atkinson, during which he promulgated his crude ideas concerning pauperism and its prevention. In devising a scheme for relieving the wealthy from the responsibility of assisting the poor, the Colonial Treasurer may also have evolved a plan by which the land monopolist may be the better enabled to add field to field. It is not to be alto"•ether forgotten that one of the cardinal points in the policy of the present Government has been to abandon the rights of the Crown over the bad bargains for native lands made during the bad administration of their predecessors. But in doing this they have also abandoned .pre-emptive rights over large areas of land that have been greedily snapped up since by speculators. • The profits that those speculators have already made or may hereafter make on their purchases represent just so much loss to the colonial revenue. The settlement of the land has all but passed away as oiie of the functions of Government, and tins duty has naturally devolved upon land companies, to the detriment of the colony at large. It is absurd to State that what one

of these speculating companies has done foi' the settlement of land claims on the Eatt Coast could not have been equally as well accomplished bj' the Government. But, as wehavebefore said, Ministers have gradually developed into ornamental adjuncts of administration, and the real work of the colony is left to be done by irresponsible undersecretaries and limited liability companies. From this state of things trouble is certain to arise sooner or later, and the quicker it comes upon us the sooner willl the eyes of Parliament be opened to the necessity of making work go side by side with pay.