The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2646, 10 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, AUGUST 10, 1871.

To-DAY the representatives of Constituencies in Otago take their departure

for the North, to attend the meeting of Parliament. What questions will come under their consideration none can tell. They will find themselves in a different position from that which they held as members of the Provincial Council. Questions affecting the welfare of the Colony will have to be dealt with, and considered in reference to interests adverse to our own. If they are capable of doing so they will have to divest themselves of those narrow views which have given such an appearance of pettiness to much of their conduct in the Provincial Council, and to identify themselves with the people of the other Provinces. Unfortunately the fierce party strifes to which we in Otago have been subjected during the last three years, have weakened the influence the Province, ought to exert in the Legislature. The richest and most prosperous Province of New Zealand has really destroyed its political weight in the House by sending men whose opinions on most question are diametrically opposed to each other. Taking into consideration the part that they have taken in politics during the last session of the Council, we have a right to assert that there will be but few who Avill exert much weight in the deliberations of the House. The surprise is that constituencies are so blind as not to discover the shallowness of the men they elect, especially as some of them have had opportunity of shewing how little they are capable of doing, when placed in competition with the really able men sent to Parliament by other Provinces. However, we must abide by the choice we have made, and console ourselves with the thought that the clap-trap which imposed on the electors and passed for political acumen, will fall powerless upon the ears of better-informed men ; and that the bores, whose speeches figured at such length in our Provincial Council reports, will very soon learn that if they to ill endeavor to force their platitudes upon the House of Representatives, they will'have the privilege of spouting to empty benches. It has generally been the lot of Otago to neutralise itself by sending members who hold no political ideas in common. We have seldom seen this in other Provinces. Canterbury most commonly has had united purpose amongst its members on leading questions ; Auck land’s members usually vote as one man ; and as for the minor Provinces, they find it necessary to make tip their minds to some definite purpose, so that by their unity they may secure the sympathy of the other Provinces. But our Otago men go to fight Provincial battles over again. What Mr Reid said in the Council he will repeat in the House of Representatives, and what Mr Shepherd said in reply will be said again, perhaps with a little increase of solemn self-importance. We shall have each party trying to pull at the public purse, for special classes. Mr Reid will want to to obtain a loan for drainage of land, and failing in that—which he will, and knows it—he will say it is his duty to oppose the Government on all other grounds. He and his following go with the same hostility to the Colonial Treasurer rankling in their minds, that they have always entertained. It is not a question of reason with them, but of feeling. Even his successful administration, the energy he has displayed and the benefits that Otago has derived from the action of the General Government have only thus far secured for the Ministry a sort of sulky acquiescence on the part of the Reid party, instead of cheerful co-operation. We should be glad if there were any well-grounded hope that these petty jealousies could be sunk, and an intelligent line of combined action taken on the questions that have to be considered. A great change has taken place in the circumstances of the Colony during the last two years. The native question which occupied such a prominent position is rapidly losing its importance, and when the Government lay papers on the table detailing the measures adopted for the pacification of the North Island, it will be found that the old-fashioned jokes about sugar and blankets and the rash statements made in our Provincial Council about expense, are, for the most part, nonsense. Since the Fox- Yog el Ministry came into office, chief attention has been paid to internal improvement —to domestic questions : and these are precisely the class of which the majority of our representatives are least able to judge. The experience of the upcountry members and their education are alike limited, and their notions of political economy are gathered from reflections at the tail of the plough or while rocking the miner’s cradle. Those who know, and those who know nothing, are pretty equally divided ; so that so far as Otago’s voice is concerned, on most questions, we fear it will be neutralised. We shall be glad to find our forebodings falsified by the result; but we fear that they will prove too true, and that the spirit of faction which seems inseparable

from some natures, and has done so much harm, will only be transferred from Otago to Wellington.