THE DUTIES OF THE LEGISLATURE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume I, Issue 48, 29 May 1862, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE DUTIES OF THE LEGISLATURE.

The session approaches, but yet not an indication shows itself of the turn affairs are likely li> take. If flie Fox Ministry'are to retain their present elevation, it must be by some agency not iiaplying much love from any side. A general disposition is shown to toss them in a blanket. The celebrated “ I’ll do! I’ll do! I’ll do ! of the Witch in Macbeth, which Mr. Fox plagiarized last session, he has to some extent realized, and seems likely to carry the imitation so far as to bo very “ like a rat without a tail.” He has resembled the parched pea in a frying-pan as he promised to do, and seems, moreover’, to have got into the lire. He has been running the “race of concession” with a desperate speed, which seems the more deserving of admiration as he has the field to himself, and is quite without competitors. Mr. Sewell, with more than his usual vigour, has been striving to emulate the renowned eighty Acts of 1858, which constructed in his absence,‘he has always felt to be a reproach to him ; but owing to his amiable candour in producing his work too early, Wellington this time will have the whethergage. And Mr. Ward has circulated, with the velocity of the electric fluid, from settlement to settlement, ami colony to colony, but like his colleagues, his speed has been such as to leave Ins business behind him. Yet, though the colony is as much irritated and roused at their proceedings as a man ever was at the industry of ingenious and active little auimals that love to range over him, the destruction of the Fox Ministry is by no means certain. They may yet go on for a very little distance as the resultant of forces extremely opposed, and endured as an existing fact by many who simplv cannot see their way. Those persons, and they are to be mot with daily, "who satisfy themselves of their own superiority by scorn of small things who leap in diversion over the foundations of the greatness that is to bo, may’ surely find some feeling more noble than’ amusement, at the position of the men who have to act for the colony in its present dilemma. They may have but one word to say, only yes or no, but the whole future of a rising nation may han ,r on it. The power of the Legislature for good at this moment is not great, but the mischief they may do is incalculable. If the question were merely of turning out Mr. Fox and his coadjutors it would be simple. Twenty as capable could be found to supply that gentleman’s place. But on the manner of treating the financial and native questions, hang our relations w ithin and without, to the mother country and to one another. Arrogance, dissappoiutment, dispair, cold indifference and ignorance all stand ready to act on a false move. England expresses herself in graceful generalities, and proposes intolerable burdens with the air of one conferring a favor ; the Governor sent out by England, reverses the policy approved by the colony with a silence quite Imperial, and which men doubt whether they have to do with preternatural wisdom or with the “supreme quack,” few trusting Ids course, none feeling himself in position or power to oppose ; the South is drunk with its new prosperity, the North bitter, over its warning preponderance. The vote of a single member may bring all these powers into a career of active mischief to the colony, and the men of most ability in the colony point opposite ways. We have the Press of Canterbury urging complete colonial responsibility, Mr. Richmond in Ids two letters to his late constituents, treating the idea as a mischievous dream. A Pitt or a Peel would not earn much credit out of the junetui’e, with so little power, so much at stake, and so absolute a necessity to decide. Yet more than their practical wisdom would not be too much. To multiply the populations and powers concerned by a thousand would not complicate but simplify the problem. 1 n the dearth of leaders and difficulty to definite conclusions, wo are thrown back on simple principles for refuge. It will be breach of trust in any section of the Legislature to accept responsibility in Native Government without corresponding power. And, whatever our preconceptions as to the mode of governing these islands, it will be as unjust and ruinous to neglect the claims of Otago which can enforce them, as it will be mean to neglect those of Taranaki which cannot. A Ministry to retain or gain power must deal in a plain-sailing business way with these matters which touch thesolvency, the unity, and the honour of the colony.— Kelson Examiner, May 10.