THE WELD MINISTRY.

Evening Post, Issue 67, 27 April 1865, Page 2

THE WELD MINISTRY.

(from the nelson examiner.) . The New Zealand Herald would seem to have adopted coarse abuse of the Weld Ministry as a labour of love. Day after day the same unmeasured language is used, the same slurs and innendoes, the same direct charges of voluntary acts that could scarcely, we should hope, be perpetrated by the meanest a*nong us. On the 18th April its article commences : — " The object of the Weld Ministry is to humble the proud province of Auckland ; " and it continues thus: — "Every settler murdered within the confines of this province, every farm thrown out of cultivation, every friendly native converted into a rebel and a Pai Marire, is a positive gain to the men of whom the five gentlemen who compose the New Zealand Ministry are the creatures and subservient tools." Again it says, "The Weld Ministry would seem in native politics to copy the doctrines of the Pai Marire superstition, They seek to crush Auckland by a slow but irritant system of insecurity. An atrocious murder is committed in one place one day, the settlers of a whole district are to fly for their lives upon another occasion, and again, the European inhabitants, as at Coromandel, are to be left to the mercy of a wandering band of fanatics." . . Temptation to the Pai Marire fanatics to mbrue their hands in European blood is systematically held out to them. . . • At the present time wa write, the whole of the province is in a condition of the utmost danger — a danger brought about knowingly and wilfully by the present Colonial Government. . . . The seed is being sown, and the Ministry sit by with folded arms waiting for the harvest — that harvest the blood of their fellow-countrymen and women, and the ruin of the Northern and richest portion of the province of Auckland. These are the fruits of the curse of divided responsibility. The Governor has the Ministry for his scapegoat. Minister's have the strong party-feeling and rivalry of Southern constituencies against Auckland as their rock on which to lean. No matter though their hands morally be stained with the blood of their fellowsettlers, though their administration be daikened with the ruin of an entire province—that blood is only the blood of Auckland men and women — that province destroyed was only a rival to those to whom they look for commendation and support — to those in fact to whose creatures they are." At the conclusion of this tir.ide of abuse it says, "We are drawing no exaggerated picture. We are placing the state of affairs in. New Zealand as they are at the present moment in their true unvarnished light. The destruction of Auckland at any cost, at any sacrifice, by any means, is the real policy of the south. All other measures are made subservient to this." Will our readers believe that all this abusive trash has been written because the Ministry of the Colony have been compelled, by sheer want of funds, to announce to the Auckland province that they find it impossible longer to feed or to find employment for the Waikato immigrants ? Because they have suggested that Auckland should find works and funds for the employment of the labour imported to that province at the colony's expense. As we said on the 18th April — "Auckland profits directly in the revenue, in the trade, and the power and security which their presence brings;" aud should surely support the large population placed ready to her hands. t n the 17th April, the Ileiald says, under the head, " The Immigration Swindle :" — " A reply Avas received on Saturday, by the Superintendent and Provincial Exe- ! cutive, to the letter despatched by them

to the Colonial Government, in which, they decline any longer to continue the farther charge of the management of the ' Waikato migration scheme,' in consequence of the refusal of the Government to fulfil the conditions on which they had undertaken it. Its contents have not, of course, yet been made public, nor will they be laid before the Provincial Council for its consideration. The letter is from Mr. Weld and is a very verbose and craftily -framed document, abounding in sophisms, perfectly transparent to us in Auckland, who are well acquainted with the real facts, but so holdly put as to impose upon less wellinformed persons an entire belief in their soundness. It does hot even hesitate at direct misstatement, where such can serve the purpose of the writer, and the whole epistle has manifestly been carefully concocted, with a view to frightening the Government and people of the province of Auckland into the assumption of a burden properly belonging to the colony, but which the stop-gap Ministry feels itself utterly incapable of dealing with." It ijhen admits that the letter contains the following: — That the time in which free rations are to be issued has been extended from the 30th of April to the 31st May; that the Auckland Provincial Government had itself caused great delay; that the Ministry maintains they have not been guilty of any breach of faith with the immigrants ; that the Ministry will do its best to arrange a change of management if the Provincial Executive persists in resigning it, but announces its determination, it the Province does not come forward to provide employment, &c, to offer to the immigrants five passages to other provinces which will be quite willing to accept the charge, but still guaranteeing to the immigrants their grants in the conquered Waikato district. And this letter concludes fey stating that the Colonial Government is absolutely without tunds to meet the necessary current expenditure, that the banks refu«e advances on such security as it has to offer, anil therefore that it cannot be expected to bear the onus of a charge that properly belongs to the province of Auckland, and which other provinces will only be too ready to undertake. At the conclusion of a long list of abuses, such as. " the mo<t gross breach of the most solemn engagement," insidious attempt to saddle the Provincial Legislature with their governmental responsibilities," the Herald lets out the prime cause of all invective by coolty saying: — "Were the plea of the Ministry that they haze no money to carry out this immigration scheme, to which the colony is pledged, a genuine one — they would resort to the obvious means of enabling them to do so ; namely the sale of confiscated lands— or would at once hand over to the wealthy and solvent province of Auckland the charge and management of settling and providing for these immigrants, and with this charge, that also of the disposal of the confiscated territory within the province. This done there would be an end to all difficult}'." Abuse such as that detailed above o'ershoots its mark, and causes actual grievances to be regarded as emanating from the same cuckoo cry of Auckland ,for '¦ more money."