ABOLITION OF NORTH ISLAND PROVINCES.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 65, 15 August 1874, Page 3

ABOLITION OF NORTH ISLAND PROVINCES.

The New Zealand Herald of the 7th writes: —Again the Parliamentary scenes arc shifted. The Premier has made a statement which reached us by telegraph early this morning. The Opposition of the Middle Island to the resumption of the colonial laud fund has had its weight, and the Premier retires before the storm he evoked. Of course there are a thousand reasons for the retirement, but the recantation is so complete that he disclaims the least idea of intermeddling in the monopoly of the land revenue, a subject which will yet force itself into prominence, without regard to the particular way in which a Ministry may be affected by it. ' The abolition of the Northern provinces, and their subjection to the rule of the General Government and of the Assembly (which latter means the majority from the Middle Island) was, it now appears, to have been accompanied by a solemn confirmation of the unjust compact of 1856, to use the absurdly inappropriate phrase adopted in speaking of the particular Act of the Legislature known as the Land Revenues Appropriation Act, 1858. We do not believe that Mr Vogcl will have strengthened his position by this surrender at the first pressure. Mr Vogel has proved adroit and ekilful beyond expectation in raising loans and a master in the art of securing Parliamentary majorities with the power at his command. But it is clear that constitutional reforms are not the subjects with which he is likely to successfully to grapple. The man who does so must be possessed of strong convictions and be prepared to sacrifice himself and his position if necessary in the struggle. This is not the wood—to use another French saying —of which the Premier appears to be made. But questions of this kind, once raised, are not readily allowed to sleep, and we fervently hope, in the interests of this province especially, which is so severe a sufferer by the existing arrangements, that events will prove stronger than the Premier's will, and force him while at the head of a Government of unprecedented strength to bring this question to an early issue before the people of the colony.