The Globe. THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1876.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 656, 27 July 1876, Page 2

The Globe. THURSDAY, JULY 27, 1876.

Parliament has-now been in session for about six weeks. The financial statement has been made, and the Government measures laid before the House; the Minister for Public Works has also made his annual public works statement; but there is an evident disinclination on the part of the members of the House to set to work. In the meantime the real business of the country is being carried on outside the House altogether. The time which should bo devoted to the real work of legislation is given up to plotting in secret. Conferences and caucuses are the order of the day. Committees representing one district of the colony meet those representing another, to discuss what form of Government they shall grant Hew Zealand for the future. Unable as yet to agree amongst themselves, they refuse to discuss the Government measures. One excuse after another is urged for delay, in the hope that a common platform may yet be found. It never seems to strike those gentlemen that the people of the colony have any interest whatever in their proposals. We have already pointed out that the question of Separation is of the most vital importance to New Zealand, and that results of the very greatest moment may depend upon its adoption or rejection, Tet our representatives are apparently quite prepared to settle it at once without consulting their constituencies in any way. Nay, worse than that, Eor the last month, they have been holding meeting after meeting amongst themselves, they have been discussing one plan after another, but they have never suffered the details of those propositions to come before the public. All the collective wisdom of New Zealand is surely not centred in Wellington at the present moment P There are others in the colony besides our representatives, whose opinion upon this important question would be of some value. Were the proposed measures made public now, the voiea of the country would be pronounced upon them before the House came to a decision. For our own part we do not think this would be enough. Separation is far too important a question to be decided without a direct reference to the constituencies. Abolition was a minor question compared to this; yet those who were loudest in their cry for the reference of the Abolition Bill to the people, are just those who are deepest in the secret cabals which now in Wellington. How long are the electors going to stand by, and allow their rights and liberties to be quietly ignored ? If we are to have Separation, let it be adopted with the full consent of the majority of the people of the colony. Por our own part we do not think, that in the vain attempt to escape from financial difficulties which cannot last, the people of this country are prepared to sacrifice the great future which, as a united colony, wo have before us, for the miserable policy proposed by the Opposition.

The mail steamer City of New York, which, should have left Lyttelton this morning with the outward San Francisco mail, is still bar bound at Port Chalmers, and in all pro bability will not be able to leave before tomorrow, if she succeeds in getting over the bar even then. Unless, therefore, other arrangements arc made to carry the mail to Kaudavau, the colony will be put to serious loss and inconvenience. And it is to gratify the petty vanity, and put a few paltry pounds in the pockets of our Dunedin friends, that such a state of things is permitted to exist. After this, not even the most bigoted advocate of the claims of Port Chalmers can have a word to say in favour of the continuance of the coastal service by the mail steamers.