THE STAFFORD MINISTRY

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 8, Issue 402, 13 August 1866, Page 1

THE STAFFORD MINISTRY

(rromtne Hawse s Day iimesr-saro juiy.j

Coalition Ministries are remarkable only for their obstructiveness. We do not remember any instance where such a Ministry have been known to initiate or develop any measure of great public benefit or importance ; but being composed of antagonistic elements, are and can be only held together by mutual concession, and consequent stagnation. They have been tried in the mother-country, and have not been successful there ; nor is it in the nature of things that they can be. The only use they can by any means subserve is the conservation of things as they are. To look for advancement or improvement for a country under such a Ministry is to look for, to say the least, what is in the highest degree improbable. The Ministry headed by Mr Stafford is of such a character, and it bids fair to carry out all we know of such Ministries. A great portion of the session has already passed, and we have as yet no statement of policy whatever beyond the meagre outline given in His Excellency’s address. All parties are, as might be expected, disappointed at such a course of action. The session was almost universally looked forward to as one of almost unexampled im]>ortance in the history of the Colony—as one that should see important changes . effected in the great political and financial systems of the Colony; but all these expectations are destroyed, and we find that, owing to the conflicting views on great public questions held by the discordant elements of a quasi Colonial Ministry, these important matters will not be awarded a consideration, but the Colony x-emain, so far as the efforts of the Ministry are concerned, in statu quo. As the head of the Ministry has not thought proper to inform the House and the country in the usual way as to what are the principal features of his policy,—as he has quietly allowed to fall through that one point—of direct taxation—which he publicly declared was to constitute the question of the session, and reproduces only the policy of his predecessors—a Stamp Duty aud noninterference with the rebellious natives, — we are at liberty to conclude, or rather we are forced to do so, that he and his compeers have no other policy, unless we are to call that paltry saving from the commission on the sale of postage stamps, and that from the discontinuance of communicating with the public through the advertising columns of the press—a policy of cheeseparing economy. Of course, all the old politicians of the House are a good deal staggered at the unexampled course the Ministry are following, and endeavor to arrive at some notion of the course proposed. Anxious, however, as the Ministry may he to shelve all the important questions of the day, it is abundantly evident that it will be out of their power to do, it, and their own passive inaction augurs extremely ill to the Colony as to what its fate may be at the hands of so vacillating or undecided, not to say conflicting, a body. The question Of Separation, for instance, must come on for discussion, and this discussion has even already commenced, having been mooted by Mr Whitaker, the Superintendent of Auckland. It is one of the important questions on which the Ministry agree to differ, there being at least one of its Auckland advocates in that body, and we are not to be told what action he will take until the question comes to the vote, yet we have reason

to suppose that he will be ready to oppose his colleagues iu the Ministry then. We believe that such a state of affairs was never before known in New Zealand —scarcely in any other place—as that a Ministry should fail to he of one mind upon what , may be considered as the most vital question of the day. Will the Stafford Ministry stand? This is a question of great interest, but we think one easily answered. For a Ministry to be stable, it is essential that it be united and decided. We fear that it is neither the one nor the other, and may venture to predict its early overthrow.