The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1867.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume II, Issue 8, 10 January 1867, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1867.

We are indebted to the Colonist for the knowledge that his Honor the Superintendent intends to hold a series of farewell meetings, before he leaves the province. The first of these evenings at home, has taken place at Motueka, and we presume the circle will be gradually contracted till Nelson also shall be favored with a farewell utterance from the chief of its executive. The parting words of public men are always listened to with a great deal of interest, because they are supposed to be prompted by deeper feelings ihan usual, to be given in sincerity and from disinterested motives. Being unable to reproduce the address in our columns, Ave shall

content ourselves Avith commenting on its most salient points. The first portion is occupied with exposing the attempts of a class of men to govern the country irrespective of the interests of the majority of the people. That this has been the curse of government in all the colonies is a fact too well known to all persons acquainted with their history. Ia the early days of colonisation in this hemisphere, the men capable of taking part in public affairs were few, and these encountered little ob-. struction in the carrying out their favorite policy. Government by cliques became the order of the day, and none were allowed to enter them who could not satisfactorily pronounce the party Avatchword. As the country increased in population and the people were entrusted by the constitution with the elective franchise, various causes combined to allow power to remain in the hands of the interested few, whilst the acts of the legislature were influenced only in a slight degree by public opinion. So careless have the constituencies been in some places of the sacred privileges confided to their keeping, that men have been known to enter the House of Assembly as the representatives of half a dozen electors. Not long ago it was a standing joke in Otago, that a member re_ presented one constituent, and thus the privilege of voting accorded by the constitution, amounting almost to universal suffrage, and to obtain the like of which the millions of England are now supplicating with earnest voice and outstretched arms, has been degraded to a solemn farce, and public affairs have been left to the management of a select party.

Another part of the address is taken up with combatting the idea that the country would gain anything by the substitution of centralisation, for the Provincial Government under which it has grown to maturity. What may be safe at some future time, when the country has become populous and wealthy, when intercommunication is easy and rapid, and public opinion can be brought to bear on government, may be fatal to the public liberties now, that the government of the country appears to be handed over to a set of schemers, who have recanted the opinions of their former lives and buried the resentments they for-

merly entertained toward each other, in order to clutch the reins of power and enjoy the influence and emoluments ofi office. It is a false stating of the argument to say that the cost of Provincial Governments is to be regarded as additional to that of the General Government. The question is what Avould it cost the! latter to do the work now done by the! former, and would they do it more easily, j economically and efficiently. If the peoplej tamely surrender the advantages they have secured under the provincial system, for some problematical and prospective good foretold by the devotees of the centralising system, they will awake some day to the consciousness of the fact that they have sold themselves and posterity to a combination of time servers, aud place hunters whose morning and evening devotions are consecrated to the aggrandisement of a ruling clique, who have determined to enjoy power though it be by trampling on the rights and liberties of the prostrate country. It is well that men like the Superintendent should sound the toscin of alarm. He has been behind the scenes and witnessed the dirty appliances by which the state machinery is set in motion. If the electors with this exposure before them and this AA^arning voice ringing in their ears, consent to be bamboozled out of their liberties, they deserve the fate of slaves, aud the punishment reserved for traitors to the cause of freedom.

We have no space to notice that portion of the Superintendent's address, in which he urges all Christian men to discharge the duties of citizens. That any considerable number of such men should require stimulating in this respect, seems most difficult to believe, and yet the speaker would hardly have raised the objection for the mere purpose of answering it. That a system so eminently rational and calculated to^promote mens best interests should be regarded as unfavorable to the dis-' charge of their duties by men as citizens, s a delusion based on complete ignorance of its principles and teachings. To make the best of both worlds should surely be the aim of every Christian man. It is not necessary that he should be transformed into the brawling politician, shouting at every corner of the streets, and offensively obtruding his political peculiarities at every step. But heing entrusted with the franchise, his very religion will teach him to exercise it with jealous care, and he cannot, without laying himself open to the charge of a serious dereliction of duty, refrain from scrutinising the character of public men, and discriminating between the unprincipled adventurer and the honest patriot. It is to be desired that the mantle of the Superintendent Avill fall on a successor whose views of freedom are equally clear and comprehensive, and who lias the same moral courage to denounce shams and expose corruption wherever they exist. We should be glad to see the Superintendent required to do less, and the people doing more. The Superintendent ought not to exist merely to save the electors the trouble of thinking and speaking, but to represent their feelings and convictions on all fitting occasions. If the electoral body do not rise in their might and use the powers with which they are endowed, the political future of the colony will be gloomy in the extreme.