MR.FOX'S ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS OF RANGITIKEI. Adelaide, South Australia, 16th May,1865.

Evening Post, Issue 109, 15 June 1865, Page 2

MR.FOX'S ADDRESS TO THE ELECTORS OF RANGITIKEI. Adelaide, South Australia, 16th May,1865.

Gentlemen — After much deliberation t " have sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives my resignation of the seat I have hud the honour to hold in that House as your Representative. When I left New Zealand on a tour to the Australian colonies it was my full intention to have returned to attend the ensuing session of the Assembly which it was then understood would be held in Junte. The information which I have been able to gather in reference to the position of the leading questions affecting the colony, does not induce me to believe that I could exercise any beneficial influence in the Assembly. The settlement of the Seat of Government question, arrived at last session, has I trust long before this commended itaelf in practice to the good sense of even those parts of the aolony which might at one time have objected to it. It will I hope also be found to have put an end to that agitation for Separation which found its only reasonable argument in the inconvenience of the remoteness of the metropolis. If I had believed that there was any prospect of a reversal of the decision of the colony on the first or of a successful agitation on the latter of these questions, I should have considered it my duty to attend the cession. As regards the great trouble of New Zealand, the native difficulty, I do not believe that so long as Governor Grey remains in the colony there is the remotest prospect of any satisfactory solution of the problem, which four years and a-half since, was entrusted to him to solve. Still less do I believe that while he is in the colony, the Assembly can exercise any appreciable influence upon this question. The possibility of its doing so is greatly lessened by the terms of Mr. Weld's resolution on Responsible Government in native affairs of last session, which practically gives the Governor unlimited power in them, so long as a single British regiment remains in the colonj 7 . It is melancholy to read the report of the jaunty debate in the English Parliament on the 17th {"of March upon New Zealand affairs, and to witness the members rubbing their hands with mutual con* gratulation at the prospect oi being able to recal some of the troops serving in the colony. They appear to have believed that Governor Grey's unconditional peace proclamation, and change of Ministry, had settled the native rebellion, and that the Maoris were ready to acquiesce in the supremacy of British authority. Two or three days alter that debate, the mail would announce in England the renewal of hostilities in Cook's Straits ; and every succeeding mail will have conveyed news of some horrible disaster, such as the murder of poor Hewett and Volkner, or the narrow escape of the Queen's troops from overwhelming defeat, on more than one occasion. Then Parliament will be prorogued, and the Colonial Minister will, during the recess, go on receiving for truth Governor Grey's versions of what passes in the colony while the colony and all its interests are plunged deeper and deeper into financial aud other difficulties from which it will take years to recover. When I see the home government and home public so deluded, and so willing ta be deluded, and the colony so utterly helpless in the matter, I lose all hope that anything the colonists can do will have any beneficial effect. At all events I do not see how any humble efforts of mine could avail, and I have therefore only to thank you, my constituents, for the confidence and support you have always given me, and for the present to say good-bye, in the hope that we may meet again at some future time, under happier auspices. I have the honor to be, Gentlemen, Tour most obedient servant, William Fox.