Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1871.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1163, 4 November 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1871.

Pur recent remarks relative to the .opposition sustained by the Govern ment from the Provincialists in the General Assembly are fully borne out by subsequent events. The Government cannot make up its mind to biing that party into an attitude of .decided hostility, but prefers to abandon all the centralizing measures it has brought forward. The most recent instance of this is to be found in the allowing the lapse of the "Transfer of Powers Bill," —perhaps better known by the title of " The Indigent Pro yinces Bill," —and this is the last of all the policy measures proposed to be passed during the present session. It \% simply an abuse of term? to speak of the present Ministry as a strong Government. It is true that they have ghown their ability to command a large majority in such divisions as they have {submitted to, and this majority has amounted as a rule to about two to one pn the other side; but this has only been doDe by temporising and succumbing to the views of the opposite party in e\ery case in which they saw reason to apprehend danger. .Not only (lid they take up the measures of a party professing antagonistic principles to those they had always professed, but they al&o shqwecl themselves equally ready to abandon their new professions as soon as required. The Vogel Minis sry ? in fact, afforcj a striking example pf the Yicar of Bray polipy, and the pniy principle; they have to which a claim of stability is due is, whatever may happen, to remain in pqwer, Tilt* i*!>tinc|qnrneiit of a pomprehgn

sive scheme of education for the Colony was a great blow to the expectations ot the people, but we cannot say that it would have been better for the measure of Ministers to have passed. It could not have succeeded in the form proposed in supplying the necessities of the Colony, and it is to be hoped that by nexl session a measure may be matured (hat shall do so. So much as this cannot be said in favor of the Transfer of Power? Bill. There are provinces which show their utter inability to maintain themselves without a resort to heavy local taxation upon a population already overburdened by that of the General Government, or avoiding that course for the present by the still more objectionable system of raising heavy loans, the consequences of which will fall in a still more crushing manner on the people in a few years to come The Government has retained its position for a time by temporizing to its opponents, but it has by the same means di-gusted its friends, so that the language of one of its but lately warm supporters, which we proceed to give, may be said to express the now generally entertained opinion. The Wanganui Herald says—" We see that the fair promises of the Treasurer have been one after another broken, and the hopes of those who had come to believe in a better state of things dissipated." And again—" The original features of the policy of last session and the hopes inspired are disappearing like dissolving views, while dissatisfaction is growing into determined opposition, 1 ' These remarks express the truth of the case. The Government lias consistently avoided a direct collision with its professed opponents, but in doing so it has so wavered and abandoned its principles as to convert its best wishere into determined foes.