The Globe. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1517, 27 December 1878, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27, 1878.

The Ministry is in a bad way. After the lamentable termination of tbo session, when every measure of so-called reform wbicli they bad introduced crumbled to dust from sheer weakness, it began to dawn upon tbo Government that all tbo glamour their ante-sessional deliverances had cast over the public mind was fast melting away. Public opinion was on tbo turn, and with fast increasing strides it bid fair to assume a more than neutral tone in reference to the way in which the Cabinet had carried out their promises so unctuously given in mouths gone by. Since the prorogation, little has been heard of Ministerial doings, further than that members of the Government took flight as soon as the Parliamentary work was over, and each in his own way has tried to button-hole public bodies, and generally make himself popular wherever the slightest chance offered. At last the Premier, after a period of silence rather unaccountable in one so loquacious, has made himself heard, and through the channel of the Thames constituency, whom ho represents, ho has cast to the four winds of the colonial heavens a handful of political seeds which, it is but natural to suppose, ho intends shall fructify in duo course and assist in propping up the tottering cditico of his popularity and that of his colleagues. Surely no one, not even the warmest and most uncompromising friend of the Ministry, will be found prepared to countenance the extraordinary articles of political faith which Sir George Grey brought forward on the occasion. Opposed as wo have invariably been to the ephemeral party whom ho represents, yet we cannot help feeling pity for the man who could have fallen so rapidly ju his own estiniation as to permit his lips to yiter words wluct ho must have hocn fully awuxo

tlio time, did not represent wliat in the minds of his Government or himself wore absolute facts. True it is that silence at times is gold while speech is silver. But the Premier had no other alternative, and the time and place being there ho was compelled to speak, or at least to string words and ideas together for the use, not of his constituency alone, but for that of the colonial taxpayers who, ho well knew, wore awaiting with unusual anxiety some explanation at the hands of their political loader as to what led to the terrible blunders of last session. Among the initiated, whether they bo journalistic organs in the pay of the Government or full flavored partisans ready to follow those on whom they had found it best to pin their faith, a serious fooling of distrust almost akin to disloyalty had arisen long ago. Weeks before the prorogation took place, and we may say up to the very day on which Sir George Grey’s utterances at the Thames became known, newspapers retained on the Ministerial side failed utterly in their endeavours to find something to say which would redound to the credit of their friends. Every topic was a dangerous one, and the craftiest literary henchman of the Grey party found himself nonplussed, and obliged to think silent discretion the wisest course to pursue under the circumstances. This remarkable address delivered at the Thames, however, seems to have had the effect ' which a final drop of water has upon a cup already full. Our contemporary, the tyttelton Times, we find, has itself been carried away by the torrent. Of course, with most journals there is a limit—let it be ever so far remote—at which they must stop when making themselves subservient to superior powers; and public feeling has at least to be consulted, otherwise the venture, from a commercial point of view, must ultimately suffer to a serious degree. To swallow the extraordinary political tenets enunciated last week by the Premier required too sharp a curve for our friend even to take, and it determined to cross the Rubicon conic, quo couie. The people of Canterbuiy ai’o now informed that when referring to the Crown lauds at the Thames Sir George Grey told his audience that they were “ their own lands,” adding that ho resolved in his own mind that the lauds which properly belonged to them, now that the power rested with himself, should be secured to them. Well might the Lyttelton Times, and indeed every man in the provincial district so lately despoiled of a largo portion of its laud fund, exclaim : —“ Why, this is the very essence of land localisation! All we wanted in this island was that the proceeds of the sale of ‘our own lands’ should be locally appropriated.” The people of Canterbury will not easily forget the monstrous attempt of the Government, of which the Premier is the head, to filch from them a sum of no less than £324,000, monies long due on account of land fund and past appropriations, and Sir George Grey’s marvellous appeal to the working men of Christchurch, whom all the time he was indirectly trying to despoil. And on that wretched question of the attempt of last session to reform the Electoral laws, our contemporary is also compelled to twist about uneasily. It freely admits that the Premier’s explanation of the abandonment of the Electoral Bill is not at all satisfactory. Some of his statements at the Thames, it adds, “must have been made -without consideration, or under misapprehension.” It is an old saying, and one which is found daily applicable, both in social and political life, that rats desert sinking ships. In Parliamentary parlance this operation of the mischievous rodent, reduced to its simplest expression, is called “ ratting,” Our friend of Cathedral Square has of late shown unmistakeable symptoms that its allegiance to the dispensers of the loaves and fishes was considerably shaky. We firmly believe it is about to “rat,” and indeed it is next to impossible—all things considered—to imagine how it could do otherwise. Sympathy from some people, pity from others, will certainly fall to its lot, while we trust the avenging Nemesis of public opinion may not be too fiercely disturbed in its repose, as we really do not bear malice.