FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2968, 23 August 1872, Page 2

FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1872.

Mr Stafford, if he wrest the reins of government from the hands of the present Ministry, will owe his success to the somewhat clumsy stylo of defence adopted by their supporters. Whether it be owing to the mode in which the summaries of the debate are telegraphed to ns, which there is good reason to suspect, or whether it is really the case that the Ministerial supporters think themselves driven to an apologetic tone in justification of their proceedings, we think they have not taken that high ground they were fairly entitled to adopt. The debate is of deep interest to the country, not only on account of the policy involved in it, but of the danger there is of Public Works and Immigration being entrusted to incompetent hands. It is singular that those who are most clamorous against the Government are men who have tried their hands in the particular departments they declaim most upon ; and have failed. As Mr Stafford failed in his style of peacemaking, Mr Held, who went in heavy on the same side, failed in his efforts at railway construction. Luckily for Otago, it was undertaken in a different style and by different men 3 and what Mr Reid labored in vain for years to effect was done much better in a few weeks. Next we are treated with a burlesque exhibition of some disappointed Maori, who has found out that the Ministry, whose brightest crown is their policy of peace, are not favorable to Maori interests. Politicians, like travellers, meet with strange companions occasionally. Mr {Stafford must feel a sort of grim satisfaction with this quondam supporter. One would almost imagine this Wi Pakata had a secret longing for the good old times when Mr Stafford’s scattered troops were under self-controlled generals, who attacked or were attacked in detail as they led a life of guerilla independence, occasionally retiring before the Maoris, or sometimes following them to the edge of a bush, and sitting down for a smoke to look at their nimble opponents threadtheir way into its mazes out of reach of shot. One wonders how this Maori lion lias become reconciled to that enemy of his race, who had initiated a war that must have ended in its extermination. What has estranged him from the Ministry who have already done so much for the Natives? Is it that his sugar and blanket have been withheld ? Is he one of a thousand claimants to a block of land that has been sold too cheap, and wants an extra price for it or a larger slice for his own private potato garden ? Or is it that Mr Stafford lias presented him with the velvet livery the Dully Times considers an interesting piece of political intelligence, and thus onubletl him to strut in his Maori vanity through the streets of Wellington with the idea of attracting the admiration of the pakeha ladies? Perhaps we may be wrong in all these surmises, and that the simple reward of his unnatural secession from those who have proved the true friends of his race, is the promise of a Maori generalship, should the return of Mr Stafford to power render such an appointment advisable. It was quite a relief to find on reading speech after speech, that at length some one was found of sufficiently independent spirit to place the matter in a clear light. Mr Bathgate did this, and exposed the hollowness of the pretensions on which it was proposed to eject the present Ministry. We think 1

Mr Stafford has allowed himself to be hurried into a course of proceeding that, if successful, he will be one of the first to regret. If the policy of the Government had a tendency to the disasters which many of his followers predict, at any rate they are not so imminent as to force themselves upon the mind of the Colony at large. So far from that, the general belief is that there can be no retrogression. Sir David Monro, Mr Cutten, and others who profess hostility to the personnel of the Ministry, acknowledge this. Admitting that much lias been done by the Ministry that might have been better done, their great work has been the establishment of sound principles of national progress. It is all very well for the Stafford party to take the Treasurer’s ba-lance-sheet and to point out the heavy item of interest on loans : to tell men that the payment of it is based upon a ruinous principle, and that such a practice as has been followed must lead to insolvency. But who contracted those loans ? Let Mr Stafford and his followers answer. They were the inevitable consequences of an erroneous system, which the present Executive corrected ; and the only way by which the injury done can be repaired, is by so adding to the means of productive labor and to the number of productive laborers, that the incidence of taxation to pay the interest on five millions spent in war, will be unfelt by the country.