TUESDAY, MAS 14, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2881, 14 May 1872, Page 2

TUESDAY, MAS 14, 1872.

From the addresses issued by the committee who seek to secure Sir David Monro’s return, for Waikouaiti, we have a clue to the sort of opposition the Fox Ministry will have to encounter on the assembling of Parliament. The two questions that will absorb chief attention are education and public works. We do not see, however, in the published opinions of Sir David Monro any new light upon either subject. On education he holds the views advocated by the best informed men of all shades of political opinion on other subjects ; and on the Public Works question he puts forth, as new truisms, words put into his mouth by the present Government. It requires no ex-speaker of the House of Ilepi'esentatives to proclaim the necessity for prudent expenditure in the construction of public works; the only point to be decided is what we are to understand by the phrase. Sir David Monro was quite as convinced that prudent use of the loan for war purposes, amounting to three millions of money, was necessary, as he is now of husbanding the money for investing in public works; yet he sanctioned by his votes and his approval the waste of that money in bloodshed and gunpowder. He upheld every Government in taxing the South for the benefit of the North; and would have been quite prepared to give the electors of Waikouaiti the most plausible reasons for so doing. How much gratitude the people of that electoral district owe him for these evidences of desire to serve them must be for them to judge. To us the best test of a man’s ability for legislation is the soundness of his doctrines, and the success of his measures. Judged by this standard, Sir David cannot be said to shine as a politician. He advocated measures founded on injustice and carried out in extravagance. He helped to make that a general charge which, had it been made local, would have been the means of saving tens of thousands of pounds to the people of Waikouaiti. No greater injustice was ever perpetrated than saddling the people of the Middle Island with the cost of Northern defence. It encouraged the Governments of which Sir David Monro was a supporter to carry on the Maori war irrespective altogether of justice to the Native race. And if we cast our thoughts back to the desultory and illconceived arrangements by which it was prosecuted, the evidence is irresistible that prudence had no voice—at least in Mr Stafford’s Administration. The absence of prudence was evinced by allowing a number of officers to enter upon and prosecute war, it may be truly said on their own account. It was shewn in the disorganisation of the Constabulary, and in the insufficient guard over the Maori prisoners. The great want was organisation. The system of government was loose, expensive, and inefficient. The last men in the world to preach the necessity for prudence in expenditure are the members of the Stafford Administration and their supporters. Yet prudence is their battle-cry ! Supposing, however, that, to be a new-born principle within them, it has to be trained and strengthened by experience. Men who seek to reform themselves after long indulgence in vice, are liable to frequent relapses whenever temptations present themselves. We do not like to trust to the conversions of-adversity—

Once when the devil was sick, The devil a saint would be ; But when the devil got well, The devil a saint was he. It is quite within the cards that Mr Stafford sincerely regrets the “ wretched past,” and would turn over a new leaf. He has had a good example of prudence set him by the present Administration. They have preserved peace, laid a foundation for advancing prosperity in the North Island, relieved the Middle Island of heavy taxation for warlike purposes, are now investing money in reproductive undertakings, and are introducing population to provide the best and Ifcadiest market for the productions of the Waikouaiti and in fact every other district. If Sir David Monro’s committee cannot discern the workings of prudence in these measures and successes, the electors have a

right to question their ability to judge who is prudent and who is not. They wish to send Sir David Monro to oppose these things, and it follows, of necessity, that he is sent to thwart that which has been proved beneficial to even the remotest corner of the Colony. It is idle to parade the notion that Waikouaiti will not benefit by that which enriches other districts. If Waikouaiti does not reap immediate advantage in the construction of public works, the more rapidly other places advance, the sooner will its turn come. The only effect of putting a drag upon development will be to delay it for some years. The Government last year and year before laid down the rule Sir David and his Committee put out as new, That railways should only be made where they will pay for working. Which men are the likeliest to carry this prudent policy out successfully 1 Those whose prudence is a habit, or those converts, who, like Mr Stafford and Sir David, have to learn to practice it 1 Whatever the Committee may think, we have faith in the common sense of the electors that they will choose an able man from the district, and reject one who comes in “ such a questionable shape ” as Sir David Monro.