THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1876.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 381, 30 June 1876, Page 2

THE Mount Ida Chronicle FRIDAY, JUNE 30, 1876.

It i* pleasant to observe tbat our neighbors, and we are glad to add. supporters, of Clyde, are of one mind with ourselves as to the proposed abolition of Provinces. At a meeting of the Dunstan Political-. League-," held at Clyde on Wednesday. June 21, ihe following resolution was arrived at: — " That the Dunstan District Political " League having watched• (vitli interest ':" the correspondence that has .taken :" place between Sir Julius Vogel, the

" Premier of New Zealand, and bis " Honor tbe Superintendent of'Utago, " believes no good will accrue to the " people of Otago through abolition." Also—" That a copy of' the foregoing " resolution be forwarded to our re" " preseutative, Vincent Pvke, Esq--' Our contemporary at Clyde : has played a sorry schoolmaster. It surely were j better that there had been n,o" soul- j strengthening League than in its first lispings it sliouid play so sorry a part. My country 4 thy country I where wilf it be, if the first'Distriet League has proved rebellious to its creator ? What now will Cromwell say ? Will Croin": well League pass a resolution—"That; •'the Cromwell District League having " watched the correspondence, &c. >. : .. believes that abolition cannot " fail to be beneficial to the Colony of " New Zealand in general, and to the "district of Cromwell in particular " ? We do not a. moment that the Cromwellitea will so stultify them selves. Then, whatwill Alexandra and Blacks say ? Supposing that two District Leagues say .Abolition, and two others say So Abolition, what will the Watchman in Wellington do ? We have no doubt Mr. Pyke will act with the Provincialists, ashe is bound to do in the interests of Otagp. It was his nature to mystify his eons I ituents, and lend the reins, to . their imagination that he would be swayed by them, or by sections of them. He only played with them. He is by far too good a representative to do any such thing-.

It is hardly credible lliat.the Government intend another loan. . Xet it would appear so. It is generally admitted that, at the present rate of pro-gress,-it will be impossible to keep up the raeewithout more borrowed money. Even the Otago Provincialists, in their own circle, published the doctrine that labor was to be artificially kept up by the Government, even although to do so it should be necessary to sacrifice the Crown lands. The same absurd fallacy is being preached for the Colony, 1 as if there never were to be a time of reckoning. The longer that time is delayed the greater must be the shock to an artificial labor-market when it does come. Kot that the Government care directly about a contingency in the future. What is before them is that. the. Member for A wants a branch railway, that the Member for B wants a harbor made, that another weakly Member even sighs for a prison to be built. In this way a majority may be found to vote for a new loan. A new. loan necessitates a unification of land revenue. The interest on our borrowed money cannot be paid out of itself. It must, then, come . fro;s land revenue, or direct taxation of property. The latter named contingency cannot be counted on for a moment. The Members supporting the Government cannot agree to direct taxation. If they would, or could, the Upper House would not consent. Waiving the point as to whether the ; time is not now arrived, at •vhich it is impossible to save our land revenue, certainly it must fall from us if any fresh burthens are-to be placed upon our Colonial securities. •