THE SEPARATION DEBATE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 390, 1 September 1876, Page 3

THE SEPARATION DEBATE.

The Separation debata is now over, and, as we think—well over. The Government obtained a majority of fifteen, which is larger than was generally anticipated. Thirty-six members voted against the Government. Last year only seventeen members could be found to oppose the Government. An advance of nineteen members in one session, determine! to oppose tho Government in their centralizing policy, is not at all an unsatisfactory result. Bad tho members voted with the Opposition who have denounced tho Government measures and their rccklcs-s finance since the session commenced, the Government would now be out of office. Other circumstances influenced these men, and perhaps it is as well so. If the Opposition had uucceeded to power on such ephemeral support, as apparently they might have obtained if they had bade high enough for it, the very men who put them in would bo the first to turn round to a higher bid, and throw them out. The result of that would have been that Sir Julius and his claquers would be reinstalled for another five years or so of practical extravagance, which they would be forced into to keej. their seats and their pledges ; not that they would care to keep their pledges—any more than heretofore—' except in so far as it tended to help them td keep their scats, Another great inconvenience which would have arisen if the! Opposition had succeeded would have been that the whole disastrous consequences of overstrained credit, which we must expect, would be attributed to the succeeding Ministry. Populations would not stop to make nice enquiries as to causes of what they suffered fiom, but would at once make comparisons with the fat things they had enjoyed in the days of Sir Julius Vogel. Next session the feeling of the country will have sufficiently strengthened the hands of the Opposition to enable them to take office with ciean hands and pure intentions The division list showed that Otago members, with three exceptions, voted against the Government The three exceptions were the Honorable George M'Lean, who preferred office and silence to consistency ; ilr. Vincent Pykc—who, we pointed out before the session commenced, paved the way at Clyde and < 'romwell for his good intentions, already at that time matured ; Mr. Wanders, who will be the first to see that be has made ft mis-

take, as he did when, in the Provincial Council last session, he contributed to a email majority to turn out the country party, and was brought up at the eleventh hour to vote for the Mosgiol-Outram railway, at the expense of the funds available for his own district of Wakatip Of fourteen Canterbury members twelve were pledged on the hustings to obtain from the Government a renewal of leases to the pastoral tenants of Canterbury, and three came up to the House unpledged on this great Colonial cjuestion. Curiously the twelve to a man voted for the Government, and the three voted for the Opposition. This occurred in the face of a promise made by the Premier in the House to introduce and support a bill carrying out the wishes of the Canterbury runholders. In Westland the state of things is worse. Grants of money are promised without stint to the West Coast, although why harbors should be made out of public money in Westland than at Moeraki and Riverton we cannot understand. We do know that Westland to a man supports the Government, and will do so till these rotes are passed or rejected. On the whole we congratulate the Opposition on not being so unfortunate as to be saddled with office at so critical and corrupt a period as we have arrived at in our public history.