The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1879.

Kumara Times, Issue 859, 2 July 1879, Page 2

The Kumara Times. Published Every Evening. WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 1879.

The present dissension in the Ministry at a time pregnant with danger to the whole colony through the Native difficulty is for from calculated to give that feeling of reliance in a Government which, in a crisis of this nature requires an administration of a firm but impassionato, character. Cmnmeating on tins question, one of the h'adi g A ustralian journals remarks “ I f ’ t,1(; tlrey Ministry in Now Zealand is amenable to the mo.it common consuls ai ions of prudenc.-, it cannot tail °i I'k S'-'i-iens intent on to the formidable Native difficulty on its hands while it is engaged in the work of framing a programme for the session.

A time when the fortunes of the colony | hang, so to speak, by a hair, and when hostilities which would involve it in the 1 most serious difficulties, and give a fatal blow to its financial credit, may at any moment be precipitated by the act of a drunken or fanatical savage, is hardly a period which a sane man would select for introducing a bitter warfare of class and party among the colonists. The Native difficulty ought to inculcate moderation iu the most

impressive manner, and, at any rate, ought to induce the eccentric Premier to postpone the revolutionary schemes with which his fertile brain teems, at least tor a season. As the case stands the position of the colony is one of the greatest jeopardy it is possible to conceive. At one and the same time we have those in the confidence of the Ministry announcing a political programe calculated, and apparently deHgned, to set the whole community by the ears ; we have apparently inspired intimations of the intention of the Go- ' eminent to go to England to ask for an additional loan, loosely stated at from seven to ten millions, and this for a colony that already owes about £SO per head of its population ; lastly, we have formidable movement of restlessness and menace among the Native race which has hitherto resisted all attempts at pacification. We have only to add that the destinies of the colony at this period of crisis depend on the one side largely on the whims and fancies of Te \v hiti, the Maori prophet, and on the other on the equally incalculable whims and fancies of Sir George Grey. Surely if over a community was seriously called to the exercise of the qualities of prudence, caution, and moderation, it is New r Zealand at the present critical moment in her history.”