THE GENERAL GOVERNEMENT AND A PLEBISCITUM.

Evening Star, Volume 4246, Issue 4246, 5 October 1876, Page 2

THE GENERAL GOVERNEMENT AND A PLEBISCITUM.

The following is the Superintendent's repl> to the memorandum of Ministers we published yesterday Dtmedis, October 4. His Excellency tbo Governor. My Lord, —I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt, late yrsterdawof yonr telegram in reply to mine of previous day, I now ventuno to express my deep negret that your Excellency’s Government seems to be so completely under a cloud, both as to the practical effect upon Otago of Abolition, and as to the feelines of the people thereupon, I admit that, there is a very mrali minority in favor of Abolition, inasmuch as tbo interestfl of mnny of them are likely to be served thereby, aithou -,h at the expense of the rest of the community. I observe that your Government attributes the strong feeling which exists against A!>olition to misrepresent ition and agitation, for which they hold mo in a great measure responsible. This is a grave charge against myself and others, which is utterly without foundation in faot: it is, moreover, a poor compliment to the intelligence of tho people, who, I would beg to assure your Excellency, are perfectly competent to understand and judge for themselves in this matter, and who cannot but see in Abolition the destruction of their Provincial entity, nndtheolmost entire abstraction of their local revenues for Colonial purposes outside the Province. This they regard as a grievous wrong, whiah they are determined to use evety constitutional means to avert. As it is, it appears evident that no redress need, be looked for at the bands of your Excellency’s Government, and it only remains now to api eal to the Imperial authorities in the hope that what 1* understood to he the law of the Empire will he maintained—namely, that eonstita* tional privileges once granted to a people are never taken away without their consent. Your Government deeply regrets that a Superintendent should venture ti tell your Excellency that the action of yonr advisers must, if persisted in. result iu tho. dismenbenuent of the Colony. Snowing, how. vc r, as I do, the strong determination which animates thousands of those who are the stamina of Otago not to submit to a policy which is detrimental to their interests, and being forced upon them by what they believe to be a minority of the people of the Colony. I should be much to blame did I not tell yonr Excellency what I know 1 and believe to he the truth. Indeed, I might have gone further, and said that but for tho fact that the people of Otago are a law-abiding pc-ople, entertaining the utmost loyalty for Her Majesty and the Imperial Parliament, this determination would ere now hove evinced itself in more decided action. Thanking yonr Excellency for your permission to publish,- which, I presame, applies to this communication (tlso, —I have, &0., J. MacaSdrxw, Superintendent of Otago.