The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2581, 26 May 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, MAY 26, 1871.

Whether wo are to regard the election of Mr J. L. Gillies to the Speakership iu the room of Mr Reynolds as a manifestation of strength or revenge, wc cannot say, nor do we care too curiously to enquire. On the part of the opponents of the late Speaker, there was littleness and bitterness enough shown in the reasons adduced, to stamp the act as partaking more of the latter than the former, and amongst his advocates were some who usually voted with Mr Reid. However, the House had a perfect right to elect whom they chose, and although it would have been more graceful to have re-elected Mr Reynolds, it is not a bad sign that measures, not men, will be advocated, when a party closes the lips of one of its most able* debaters. Mr Gillies received a most excellent lesson as to the course of conduct expected of him. According to Mr Reid, he is not to know a party either on one side of politics or another. His room is to be like the cell of an anchorite—a sacred place, into which no member or number of members shall obtrude, on pain of excluding him from the Speakership of the next Council. According to Mr Barton, he is to be passionless and politicless, a mere embodiment of May—weighing and deliberating upon each particular precedent ; barring the petticoats, a personification of justice in the chair, blind to everything except the scales he holds in his hand. Nor is he to presume to assert the honor of the House, if some demagogue, with a regiment of loafers at his back, without authority takes possession of the gallery, for the purpose of over-awing the members. But Mr Bathgate, severe in virtue and wonderful in wisdom, opposed Mr. Reynolds, because when out of office and acting merely as a citizen, he worked and voted on behalf of certain candidates and against others 1 Perhaps it would be too much to expect consistency in a man who could adclqco such a reason for his opposition, otherwise it possibly might have struck him that the gentleman he voted for had more transgressions of an electioneering character to account for than Mr Reynolds. According to Mr Duncan, he is disqualified for the Speakership if he asserts the right to have a voice in the expenses of his own department. However, the sum and substance of the hints, inuendoes, warnings, and plain speaking are, that the speaker elect is to be a dummy excepting when he has to coerce his school into compliance with the standing orders, or to moderate their eloquence by ordering “ Thus much mays’t thou “ say, but no more.” For our part, we have full faith that Mr. Gillies sets a right value on what has been said and done, and equal confidence that he will strictly and honorably fulfil the duties of his office. As to the reception which the measures of the Executive will receive from the House, no opinion cun bo formed. The speech of His Honor the Superintendent is more than usually indefinite as to what will be proposed, but enough is stated to show that economy in the cost of our establishments, the extension of public works, the development of our gold fields, and increased facilities for agricultural settlement, are included in the subjects that will be brought before the Council. In furthering these measures, sve are inlined to think the majority of the Council will assist. As an earnest of what may be expected, the Government have intimated their intention of introducing a series of resolutions for the extension of the agricultural lease system. This is a step in the right direction. It is a system that tends to economise capital and to enable men to obtain land on easy terms, who would otherwise not have been able to purchase a sufficient area on which to sustain themselves and families. The difficulty in our minds is limiting the area to 320 acres. If farming nowadays is to be profitable, it must be through the application of machinery to agricultural operations ; and it seems doubtful whether 320 acres is sufficient to justify the outlay that would be required. In endeavoring, therefore, to guard against monopoly, we must be careful not to exclude investment of capital; and as a person is to be at liberty to take as much less than the specified quantity as he chooses, it might be advantageous to extend the privilege to 500 acres,

which at Home would be by no means considered a large farm. This is a matter, however, which will have to be subjected to the sifting of the Council. It is a matter of detail, and does not affect the principle of the proposals. No doubt there are many advocates of the cottier system, but we do not wish to see the people of Otago reduced to such a condition of semipauperism as that to which it tends. We trust, from the class of men, now members of the Council, that all the measures proposed will be considered in refex-ence to their merits, and not to the men or party by whom they are proposed.