The Globe. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1876.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 753, 17 November 1876, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1876.

The publication of Lord Carnarvon's despatches immediately after the termination of the Otago Convention must, to a certain extent, damp the energies of those who contemplated getting up a subscription to send home Sir G. Grey, Captain Eraser, and Mr Macandrew to represent the cause of the Otago separationists. If not before, all sensible men must now be convinced, that the proposal is utterly hopeless. Lord Carnarvon would receive the deputation with all the necessary formality, and in due course an answer would be received that the prayer of the petition cannot be complied with. Unless therefore the gentlemen appointed to represent the interests of Otago can convince their friends that a trip to the old country, at the public expense, would be mutually advantageous, nothing will come of the proposal. It might be worth the consideration of the friends of peace and order, whether the interests of the colony would not be served by the absence of Sir Gh Grey and Mr Macandrew from it for a time. Their action during the late session cost the country a large sum of money, and if it is in their power, they are evidently prepared to continue their obstruction during the recess.' But the question arises, will the members of the deputation all agree to go, even if the money is found. What will the people of Auckland say to Sir G. Grey, their chosen champion, going home to urge on the Imperial authorities the perpetuations of the wrongs of the North Island. Judging from some remarks in the Southern Cross on the subject, the project will meet with but little favor in that province. " It is farcical" says our contemporary "to say that Otago has been deprived of local self-government, and dispoiled of her revenue by unconstitutional means, as the petition to the Queen is reported to declare. Her revenue! Good heavens! was there ever such insolent presumption ? Our revenue rather; the revenue of the colony ; the land that ' belongs to all of us,' the land that was bought with our money, our land on which the South has fattened and lived luxuriously for four lustres, while from the North, who had no Land Fund, has gradually been taken that which she had. Yet, deep as this presumption is, there is a lower depth still, and that is the insolence of proposing that Sir George Grey, the ex-Superinten-dent of the province, and of the people who have suffered a score of years' spoliation at the hands of the South, should be asked by this sham Convention to proceed to England, and tiere, in conjunction with the Arch-Otago Land Fundist, present to the Queen a petition seeking, not a remedy for the past ! wrongs of the North, bit that these should be perpetuated, Sir George Grey, the representative of Auckland, is coolly asked to pray that her Gracious Majesty shall decide that the public lands of the colony still remaining unsold in Otago, together with the rich endowments, and tie large rents of millions of acres of pastoral lands in that province should still be absorbed by its greedy maw, while other parts of the colony possessing a just right in these lands Bhall have no share in thia common property. Notwithstanding the glamour which tfie keen-witted

Macandrew contrived to throw over the eyes of some Northern representatives only too willing to be deceived, the veil is graduelly being removed. The North has been made a utensil of too long by the South, and this last attempt to make Sir George Grey a party to forward Southern ends, and to perpetuate the deprivation of Auckland and of colonial rights, under the pretext of Otago's pure love and affection for Auckland, is a little too transparent, and too much of the old soldier. The fowler is setting his snare in the presence of the Northern bird, who is a little too aged to be limed so easily." No unprejudiced man can read the above remarks without admitting the force of the arguments used. "We have on more than one occasion lately pointed out that the only true solution of our financial difficulties is to make the land fund colonial revenue. The arguments we then used we need not again repeat here. But it is plain that we cannot continue to go on in the manner we have been doing of late. It was not right or respectable that a large and important province such as Auckland should be subsisting on eleemosynary aid doled out by the Colonial Government; and the present plan of issuing treasury bills to make up the deficiency is very little better. It is at the best a makeshift which cannot last. The sooner we in the South make up our minds to making the land fund colonial revenue, the sooner will there be a termination to those endless disputes between North and South which only result in financial disaster to the colony and loss to ourselves in the long run.