THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1876.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 359, 21 January 1876, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 1876.

The Otago elections may now be said to be over. In nearly every instance the result has been adverse to Ministers. Mr. George M'Lean, the member Waikouaiti, is the only candidate returned in Otago who stood by the Government proposals in their integrity, or rather in their want of it. Fortunately Mr. M'Lean is of no weight in the House, as he himself candidly admitted to his confiding constituents. Mr. M'Lean's strength, and Waikouaiti's confidence, are together bound up in Ministerial .boudoirs. Mr. M'Lean is the highest development of the politician who is content to measure his success by what he can get in the way of sugar plums for his district. Mr. Bastings, who is returned for Waikaia, is credited with being in favor of Abolition. We believe Mr. Bastings' Abolition principles go no further than a desire to assist to demolish a form of Government which has afforded him little pleasure, satisfaction, or profit, other than is to be found in hard work. Mr. Bastings is far too local a man to be led into opposition to a united phalanx of Otago men. It is to be regretted that Mr. Ireland was put up against him, as the fact of Mr. Bastings being returned as against a Provincial candidate will necessarily render it more difficult for him to support the party of the future his real sympathies will be with. Mr. Manders, who is returned for Queenstown, is not by any means a Government man, although he is strongly in favor of a County system being extended to the Wakatip. There is no reason why, if Wakatip liked, it could not have taken advantage of the Counties Ordinance, which has been in force for years. Whether or no, that consideration alone will not drive Mr. Manders into the Ministerial ranks. Mr. Maunders 1 ideas on taxationare' diametri- I cally opposed to the Ministerial programme. We' have one member left who is expected to support the ment —the Hon. W. H. Reynolds, now member for Port Chalmers. Mr. Beynolds haß learnt a lesson from adversity, and has already become restored to his right mind. The most pronounced Provincialists must be satisfied with the hustings utterances at the Port. Mr. Reynolds showed himself a stauncher Provincialist than Mr. Green : Therefore, he beat Mr. Green. Mr. Heynolds can hardly be expected to vote against the Government so long as he holds a seat in it. We nevertheless confidently expect, before many months, to find Saul also among the prophets.

Provided Mr. Thomson is returned for the Clutha, as appears certain, Otago will send up 18 Members to generally support the Opposition of last session. Eighteen Members out of twenty-one are pledged to obtain absolute local control for each island over its own affairs. Sometime ago we ventured to predict that "it is not likely " that above three men in Otago will " be returned who are unflinching sup- '* porters of the present Government—- " Reynolds (if nominated), Steward " and Cuthbertson." "We were too sanguine. Mr. Reynolds, indeed, succeeded at last, but it was at the cost of sacrificing all his Centralism, and electing to worship instead the Provincial goddess of Port Chalmers. Port Chalmers in the future, if Mr. Reynolds' own statements are to be believed, is to take the place in his tender care hitherto occupied by the Colony. The ' New Zealand • Times ' apparently thinks Mr. Reynolds was purposely deceiving Port Chalmers, and puts it this way : —" One is puz- " /led to know where Mr. Reynolds's " Provincialism ends and his Centra- " lism. begins, but that he gets comfort- " ably over the fence is undoubted. " As a Minister of the Crown, how- '' ever, we think he went a little too " far when feombatting the Provincial- " ists with their own weapons. Wo " suspect that,his speech will harden " opposition in many quarters where a " different tone might have made allies. " but we must not judge Mr. Reynolds " too strictly, as he was placed in very " peculiar and trying circumstances." Probably the ' New Zealand Times ' is too severe on Mr. Reynolds.

Wb had much pleasure lately in publishing Mr. Mackenzie's letter in our open column. It was not that we agreed with' the' arguments aimed at ourselves, or that we admitted' that the assumptions we were changed with making were really so made, butthat.an original opinion has a charm of Tresh verdancy which is always most pleasant., Our article which was criticised had, we" think, a worse £ ault than any.our critic pointed out. It was written'ainilessly. It began flith giving a fact—tbe ignorance of Ministers; and, not content with resting.there, the writer

was led to tag on one or two crude unconnected paragraphs, dealing with opinions in a summary and unpardonably careless way, that have often been more legitimately followed out to their conclusion in our leading columns. For instance, the loose use of the terms "capital" and "labor" as intended for New Zealand capitalist and New Zealand laborer, deserved castigation. The gist of, our article we at present elect to stand Ijy.. Mr. Mackenzie missed the hinging.poiqyfc we started upon—the disfranchisement, under the proposed County system of the mine?:. It needs no quoted authpritv to- prove that a representative body.yilx consu|t alone the interests of Jhose it, is to. If the .miqgrs have no Ypice" in.the -expenditure of rnef.r own taxation they .would not benefit by it, . - With .regard, to miners not. benefitting by roads and bridges, our position is—that when main road communications reach a certain fair state of development no further improvement short of tram or rail communication will cheapen articles of consumption in the interior that have to be hauled from Dunedin. Any amount of money can be ex* pended on the roads,, but the persons to benefit will be the ultimate freeholder. However desirable it may be that the miner should be that ultimate freeholder, we know that so long as taxation is kept up upon him he cannot make money at mining. Without motley he hardly can become a freeholder. At the best the miner, as a type of a class, does not readily settle in the district in which he has mined, or indeed does he readily incline to settle at all.

The conditions of administration in New Zealand are so totally distinct from similar conditions in older countries that it would be every whit as sensible to .quote the Be v. Mr. Mackonnachie as an authority onritualto the Church Session of Eoaeneath or to the Presbytery of Inverness as to quote Professor Fawcett in Otago when dealing with capital and labor. When Crown lands do not remain in the hands of Government to be gambled for by those /vho have command of money, then a sound political economic, maxim will be as true in Otago as in England, but not till then.