MR. VOGEL'S TRIP TO ENGLAND.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 291, 26 September 1874, Page 4

MR. VOGEL'S TRIP TO ENGLAND.

Mi. Vogel met his constituents in Auckland Oity East; on Tuesday, and at the conclusion of his speech proceeded on ■board tho , Macgregor, for Sydney and England. During his. address he explained the which'caused him to leave the colony. - These ; are threefold : first, to arrange for a cable between New Zealand and Australia ; second,' to place the relations between the Agent-General and the Government on a more satisfactory footing, by means of a personal interview ; third, to attend to financial matters, which could not well be dealt with by correspondence, His absence will be for' six, or seven months. Meanwhile, arrangements have been made by the' Government for preparing a Bill for the abolition of Provincial Government in the North Island , and the temporary control of the Government has been entrusted to the Colonial Secretary, the Hon. Dr. Pollen. Under the circumstances, no better choice could have been made. Dr. Pollen is perhaps the.ablest, as he is certainly the < most cautious administrator in the colony, and in his hands the - country may rest assured that there will be neither recHess expenditure, nor any want of prudent foresight in the management of details.

A great outcry is being made because Mr. Vogel leaves the .colony, on public business, at the present juncture-of affairs.' And certainly we should have preferred fiis remaining at the seat of' Government until the ministerial plans had been ".matured ; but we do not apprehend that'any'" of the calamities are likely to befall N,ew Zealand by reason of the absence of the' Premier which his opponents predict in such lugubrious tones.. On .the other hand, we think great injustice is being done to Mr. Vogel in this matter:' It may, bean imprudent act on his part to leave the olony even temporarily"; " but the most that can be said of it in fairness is that it is an error of judgment. To charge him with a deliberate'design of. deserting, the colony,' as has been done by more than one newspaper, is to do 'him great injustice.'' Such" a\ charge assumes an amount of moral cowardice on his part which no on£ who knows the' Premier can suppose him,,capable of exhibiting. It. further, assumes 'that the public works andimmigration policy is a huge failure, and that the Premier, having official knowledge of the fact, desires to evade responsibility by leaving the'colony on false oretciiccs. .Now, there is,, no foundation whatever for thinking that/the coloriising policy of the Government is a failure. On thircontrary, it-is -a signal success'.; whereforjv'we' say.it is damaging to the' colony as a "whole 'to insinuate that it is on the verge of public bankruptcy. Tt'is no justification,/, whatever .to 'plead that "these statements ,and -insinuations' are simply intended" to • dafrnnge. f *a ■ political opponent. Such a plea,- -although it-may be-strictly true M .car*not {jossibly, be admitted in extenuation of'the"'6lT o nce,against the" community ,at. large. As we have already said','Mr'. Vogel's visit to Europe may not be',a,polilic'stepoofn f his part; we do not say that it is, but we do unhesitatingly say that he has undertaken, fhe'joumeyin good faith, rtnd in the interests of New -Zealand.

•Having'said thus much on-the special point;, of, the" Premier's absence from the colony, we come to consider his speech in the' Choral -Hall,- Auckland, on Tuesday night'.'" The -'meeting' was. attended by about 2,000 persons, and judging"from the report'/of the' proceedings, his'reception was notfriendly. The cause is' not far to seek. ! llis motion for abolishing Provincial Government in the North Island,

with the Ministerial programme of conserving the land revenue of the Middle* Island, and accepting the seat-6f-Go-vernment questit n as finally settled, has been seized- upon by local ' agitators, - who have managed to achieve for themselves temporary notoriety. But such public demonstrations count for very little after

all. -.We haye£fseen Mr. Vogel refused a. hearing.by a public meeting in Dunedin, and after, the lapse of a very short period of tihie indeed, the self- same public united .as'one man to do him honor. Public 'feeling ebbs and flows, but men tire mainly influenced in the long run by reason. Mr. Vogel's reception at Auckland was not what it should, have been. He has been loyal to his constituents at all events; and his declaration that he did not intend to ask for a renewal of their confidence, was an cutspoken and necessary vindication _of his personal self-respect and political independence. But the pith of the speech lies in the exposition of his general policy; and we say, without fear of contradiction, that it should satisfy every man" in, the Middle Island, as well as every reasonable man in the North Island. Let every man of common sense consider the statistics which Mr. Vogel quoted at Auckland, and 'we challenge him to say that Provincial Government should be continued in the;N6rth. Is .it to the, interest of,the North Island? Most certainly not. There are' abundant .resources' at the command of the authorities, if properly administered, to provide all the machinery of local government with - out a; resort to direct taxation ; but the ultra-provincialists of the Middle Island are so crass as to fight for a system that must perpetuate inequalities-of taxation, arid chronic discontinuous drafts upon the Middle Island ; revenue. Is it not better to make the North Island self-supporting than to have. it in a dependent position, always threatening and always clamorous? We should say so. Mr. Vogel's policy is to place it in that position : Mr. Fitzherbert ind bis tail desire to keep open the running political sore. For their own purposes, our astute provincial leaders have fallen in with the. Wellington sage ; but if they immagine that.they can control or influence the Northern provincialists in any degree, they are wofully mistaken. " Any man who knows almost anything of colonial politics knows ;tbat when great questions come to a close.arid criti-cal-issue, our- Southern members are' nowhere. They may be loud and demonstrative in the House, but their influence aeldom extends beyond it. Talk does not' win a division, ncr does querulous faultfinding gain the confidence of the -House of Representatives, or give assurance of a statesman,'- In talk and fault-finding Otago outshines all the other provinces, but in political influence, apart from the Superintendent,—where is it? Now, we say advisedly, that it is the interest of Otago to support Mr. Vogel's policy. Its land revenue is secure. There is not the least doubt of that. Its political influence would be greater than it is were the North Island provinces abolished. But its Provincial government would be upon its good behaviour. It could not play fantastic tricks without being called to account, and for that reason, perhaps, our provincial leaders may be excused for' their opposition to a most salutary mea T sure of constitutional reform. However, Mr. Fish's meeting in Dunedin unequivocally shows the bent of the public ■ mind here, and we congratulate' him upon the soundness of his political views. .

' ■ One word in conclusion. We are in a position to speak, authoritatively' and we say that Mr. Vogel's version 1 of the caucus ' of Government supporters is the-correct' one., Mr. Reader Wood was either misreported, or:he failed to bring out with perfect accuracy what took' place' upon thaf'occasfon. 'The Government' caucus resolved, t upon three - things :. First, that' ,the provinces of the -North,lsland 'should. ibe abolished;; second, that the seat-of-Go--verhrrient'question should not be re-opened; third, that the" financial compact of 1856, 'should 'not.be disturbed. But it was , agreed that the two last subjects should not be imported into the Bill for amending the Constitution, a.resolution'which, was superfluous, inasmuch as'the Royal Instructions . forbid two or.- more distinct subjects being :dealt r with in : one Bill.— "' 'Guardian.'