THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume X, Issue 210, 21 August 1875, Page 2

THE WEEK.

"It's the 'ammer, 'ammer, 'ammer on the 'ard 'igh . road as does it," Such were the words that Punch once put into the mouth of a livery stable keeper when accounting for the condition of the legs of a horse that came under his inspection. Now what about the newspaper hack at this particular time ? He has not, perhaps, the } ard 'igh road to contend against, but he has to do the 'ammer. 'ammer, 'ammer at one particular subject; ' until its very monotony is enough to make him display symptoms of weariness, and of disinclination, if not of positive inability, to perform his work. From Monday to Saturday he has to be 'atnmering away at the Abolition Bill aud the debate thereon. He himself is heartily sick of it, and he knows that those for whom he is working, namely, the public, are equally weary of the tiresome theme, but, day after day, there- come under his notice telegrams of speeches delivered upon it, or newspapers . bubbling over with comments on those speeches, and, tired though he maybe of the whole thing, he is sucked into the political Maelstrom— l am indebted to one of the late speakers, I forget jusfc now which, for my illustration — and, whether he will or not, is compelled to do his share towards fostering the general agitation that is now going on from one end of the colony to the other. I wonder which of the two will rejoice the more sincerely when this question is disposed of— the newspaper writer or the newspaper reader. And yet, tired as the public are of the whole aftair, they must be fed from day to day with telegraphic summaries of the words of wisdom that fall from the lips of their representatives in Parliament. Most i of them have made up their own minds upon the matter, and all are pretty well agreed that there is nothing new likely to be advanced on either side, but still, what a howl there would be against newspaper proprietors and editors if they did not each day have something to report or to say about what is going on in Wellington. Most sincerely do I, for one, hope that when I next sit down to write my weekly letter, I may be able to allude to the abolition debate as a thing of the past. And then will come the fight in Committee. The compact phalanx that is arrayed in hostility to provincialism will be split into fragments by an explosive agenteyen more powerful in its way than dynamite— self interest— and in whatever direction a member from one side of a river or range may desire to go he will find that he is treading on the toes of a brother representative who has been returned by a constituency on the other. Such a free fight as will very soon take place in the Parliament of New Zealand has never yet been seen within the walls of the Assembly. What will the Government measures that the Colonial Treasurer has put in at one end of the legislative machine look like when they come out at the other ? What terrible results this abolition policy is going to bring about! I really had no idea that in this peaceful colony we had such fire-eating fellows until I read some of the speeches. To begin with, there is Sir George Grey, .who is going to resist the Ministry to the very death. He does not say whose death, but ifc is enough for us to know that somebody is going to die over it. This :u itself is sufficiently dreadful, but then

we haye^even, &: .more, terrible threat, still jcpming from -Auckland, {where the people appear to I be; with Sir George's: iixtreme: ideas./" a meeting recently he|d ithere one individual, is reported to have;: 'said— and to fully appreciate his determination to do or die you must read his Avords with proper emphasis — "The people now appealed to the Government in a constitutional way, but' revolutions had taken place in British communities, and even kings had sometimes found that they hadgone a step too far; and the people of this colony migtit yet be compelled to take an extreme course agaiust the Government tyranny." This is really very dreadful, and ift. almost , makes me wish that the public of jSelson had not pronounced so decided an opinion in favor of abolition at their late meeting. Who. knows but what; we shall find that we have gone " a step too far?" What a terrible business it will be if, in consequence of the resolutions passed the other night, we are assailed by an array, from Auckland commanded by Sir George Grey. There is some comfort however in knowing that we have those two big guns afc the port, j and another in reserve in town. Volunteers, sharpen your swords and bayonets and go in for gun practice, for you know not how soon you may be called out for active service. .%am hr hopes, however,' that we may tide over the difficulty without resorting to arms, for, after all; we are a lawloving people in New Zealand. Look,/ for instance, what we did the other day in Nelson. We had a prisoner to try for appropriating certain moneys that didnot.Jbelpng to him. We did nofc deal with him in a summary way, but just see what forms we went through. We got a judge from Auckland, and placed him, clad in wig and gown, on the bench of justice ; we had two lawyers in wigs and gowns; a Registrar in a gown ; and a crier in a gown, who addressed all those present in a solemn manner, telling them what were the duties they had to perform on so momentous an occasion ; we mustered about twenty grand jurymen, and thirty or forty commonjurors from all parts of ! the town and suburbs ; and then we placed this prisoner, of whom we were so proud that we brought all these people together on his account, at the bar, when, on his pleading; guilty, we sent Mvi .to gaol lor sis months. I think, after this, that nobody \yill ever suspect New Zealand people of a tendency to act in defiance of the laws to which they appear to be so devoted, so, perhaps, we shall not want those guns after all to shoot our fellow countrymen with. . j\