The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1876.

Evening Star, Issue 4052, 21 February 1876, Page 2

The Evening Star MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1876.

5 noti ? e the effect the speech of Sit JULIUS Voobl has had upon the ‘ Daily its labor thrown away! its la r bor « m P lo ye d in looking over ° f P*?; »ta labor in publißhingunwarrantable conclusions from themxts.labor m weaving forms of Government for the future; its labor in trying to prove that lik ® fri Bhte8 hten ed schoolboys, S» k, Z tl ‘ e3r . WOUld l reoei ' r « * when the master returned, One could Uttagme our Contemporary dressed inanSob Oftp, Cotton gown, with sleeves tucked up SSL wSTI.* SS iw left a* .’SJ/JSs* « her riffhf tenanCe ’ right foot *J™»ced, Tt ' We f m „ a threateningposilhriJ* A a S* ng her . fist at the Ministry, shrieking, “Never mind, my hovs von’ll catch it When Julius 7 Poor old scold, how crest-fallen she was in her muttenngs on Saturday morning. Julius has come home, but instead of taking his cane °„ *“ e W or ear-wigging them, he pats them on the back and says, “Goodlads, you have done your work well While I haveheen away. ” So the last hopes of the Provincialists have S. T™ 9 volenß thfe y ®wut set themselves to help m reconstruction. Sir Julius did not say much at Wellington. It is not very easy for a man situated as he w * td «ay .exactly Tvhat is necessary and no more. or eighteen months m the life-time of a growing Colony makes Wonderful changes, with most of which he must be unacquainted. He has evidently been Well posted up in the leading features Of the last session, and to a few of its results he alluded in a spirit intended to throw oil upon the troubled political waves. His defonoeofSir Donald M‘Lean was manly and dignified. To no one does the Colony owe' more than to Sir Donald M'Lean, At the very root of New Zealand’s prosperity lay the necessity for internal peace, and we do not believe any one in the Colony could have secured it on terms so satisfactory to both Natives and Colonists as he has succeeded in arranging. Opinions may be divided on other matters, but on that, at lo&st, ought to have been unity. Sir Julius Vogel’s industrial scheme could hot have been carried into successful execution had there been a continuance of Maori troubles. Capitalists at Home would not have advanced money for the Construction of railways that might have been torn up and reduced to wreck by some sudden Maori raid, or to serve some strategic purpose in war. Much, therefore, as the country owes to the efforts of the Fox Ministry, its success in administration was largely due to Sir Donald M'Lean being one of its members. His help had been sought by their predecessors, whoai policy was “to conquer a peace;” •which, divested of its bombast, was equivalent to entering upon a -war of extermination of the Maoris. Bad this course been adopted, Now Zealand, instead of going rapidly towards taking the load among British Colonies, would have retrograded—at least as K'W as the North Island is concerned -and Height possibly bave been abandoned w t tend Cjadet a ®urse, in which the

people were given over to rapine and .laughter. So sensitive are capitalists at tlome, that the very mention of gunpowder in connection with even a populous country, causes an immediate buttoning up o! pockets; but much more was that likely to be the casewhere the only security for the invest ment of money was unreclaimed swamp md forest, on which no man could work without risking being riddled with bullets or having his throat cut. Our three million loan is an instance in point. It Was a gigantic andshark scheme, by which it was proposed to kill the Maories, seize their lands, and sell them so as to recoup the cost of clearing the country of its aborigines. But it did not pay. It is very true we colonists got the and, but there was one part of the scheme that had never entered the head of the projectors ; they calculated the cost of acquiring the estate, but never thought of the expense of keeping it. They estimated it at a few bullets per acre, and found it required double as many to secure possession of what nobody would use: It was to have been protected by a host of industrious military settlers who were to become a class of borderers, standing between the Maoris and the humdrums who preferred a quiet smoke at home to volunteer service in War. But fifty acres with a risk of being shot proved no inducement for enterprising men. The whole thing failed—as any right-thinking men might have foretold and Sir Donald M‘Lban, refusing to continue such a system, has had entrusted to him the task of defending the whites and conciliating and civilising the blacks. He has succeeded, through having devoted himself earnestly to the task, and that success is the basement upon which our rapid progress has been built. It is as much to the honor of Sir Julius Vooel to remember this, and to remind the Colony of it, as it was disgraceful on the part of the Opposition in the last Parliament to forget it. The covert and open personal attacks made upon Sir Donald, with a view to weaken the Ministry of which he is a member, should have been resented by the country at large. That it has not is mainly owing to the work that he has done, and the difficulties he has overcome, being of a class requiring time and patience to develop. They come “not with observation ” but are not the less real and lasting, because, like vegetation, they are only seen in their results.