THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 194, 14 September 1878, Page 2

THE WEEK.

The Parliamentary spree being over, it is only fair to ask what lias been the result of the great southern trip. The two great cities of this island have been united by rail, and there can be no doubt that such an event was well worthy of notice, and justified some ceremony of a more than ordinary character in its celebration, but whether it formed a sufficient ground fof the adjournment of the Parliament for nearly a week is quite another question. However, Parliament did adjourn, and there were eating and drinking and speechifying ad nauseam— with reference to the two first named items in the programme this expression may have a special application — but beyond that the memorable holiday seems to me to have produced little result beyohd giving rise to a miserable petty feeling of jealousy in connection with the question as to who could lay claim to the paternity of the railway system in the colony. The New Zealander which set the ball rolling in this direction was the first, so far as I have been able to gather, to start the subject. Speaking, as it h supposed to do, the mind of Sir George Grey, it engaged a correspondent in reporting the Chnstchurch banquet to write as follows:—" The event of the day was the banquet given to the members of the Assembly by the Mayor and City Council. The diuner passed off as sudh demonstrations generally do, platitudes were uttered,- and commonplace speeches were made. The only pungent feature of the evening was the speech made by his Excellency the Governor. In the stereotyped " railway opening " allocation, the Governor managed to introduce allusions to what Sir Julius Vogel had done for the country. He said, ih a somewhat grandiloquent manner, that we New Zealaflders owed all our present prosperity to Sir Julius Vogel— whose proposals in 1870 must be admitted by those who were here at the time, to have been allwiseones. lurefereuce to the exports of the present year, Sir Julius Vogel himself would be sceptical if he heard of them. The Mayor of Christchurch, who occupied the chair, and who is a well-known and bitter opponent of the Ministry, then read the contents of a congratulatory telegram, which he said the Mayor of Dunedin had suggested should be sent to the AgentGeneral, in commemoration of the opening of the through line to Dunedin." The Ministerial organs having thus shown that there existed in the Ministerial mind considerable jealousy of Sir Julius Vogel, there were not wanting other journals to follow suit, and upon this subject a bitter discuss'on grew up, which afterwards extended itself to the relative merits of Mr Carruthers and Mr Blair the Government engineers. So, at least, I gather from a telegram from Dunedin reporting the "banquet " there, .wherein it is stated:—" Higginson made some sharp observations in acknowledging Proudfoot's complimentary reference to Carruthers, saying that while Blair had been belauded, no one seemed to remember that Carruthers had borne the burden and heat of the day." Surely all this squabbling is but a very poor result of the Parliamentary adjournment. A friend of mine who is a close observer of current events writes to me sayiug that what Sir George Grey meant when he talked of great reform measures is gradually beginning to dawn upon him, so far, at least, as Nelson and Marlborough are concerned. He (the Premier, not my correspondent) promised reform, and this is how he means to carry it out. He is going thoroughly to re-form the two districts spoken of. They have not been going ahead at the same pace as their neighbors, but they have been steadily, though slowly, progressing, until a population of between thirty and forty thousand have made their homes thereon, and dotted the wild country of which they consisted a quarter of a century ago with comfortable homesteads. Sir George Grey aud his colleagues propose holding out large inducements to the colonists who have settled here to desert their homes, formed after years of patient industry, by placing additional taxes upon them with "a view to spending the money thus obtained on lands in other parts, which will thus become more valuable in proportion r s those originally taken up and cultivated are deteriorated in value by the denial to tbem of all means of communication. This is one step in the direction of re-form. Re-forming the garden into the wilderness. Another reform. Nelson and Marlborough were originally settled by men who had to undergo verv great hardships, and at times, what with the collapse of the New Zealand Company and other misadventures, they were so disheartened and discontented that it was a serious question with many of them whether they would not leave the colony altogether. They struggled on however and made themselves homes, and have latterly been a happy and contented population. Here is to be' more re-forming. These settlers are to be converted into a discontented people, smarting under a sense of wrong, and feeling that, do what they may, slave as they will, all their labor is thrown away, for a grasping, greedy, all-powerful Government is standing by, ready and able to seize a share of their little earnings, and carry it away to make railways in that district in which the Minister for Public Works is specially interested, while to them are to be denied the means of making even roads and bridges, on which to carry their produce to market. Inhabitants of Nelson and Marlborough, unite with me, I pray you, iu throwing up your hats and cheering loudly aud enthusiastically for Sir George Grey, Mr Macandrew, and Re-form.

A more gratifying result than that which attended tbe recent election of City Councillors it is difficult to conceive. I see by the report in last night's paper of the proceedings at the declaration of the poll that every candidate was equally deeply grateful to the ratepayers for the positiou they had assigned them on the poll. Mr Little was grateful because his being at tbe top of the poll showed how highly appreciated by the electors were his previous efforts to please them; Mr Trask, because he now had the chance of showing what an excellent Councillor he would make; Mr Cross, because the long looked-for opportunity of grubbing up those rushes in flusseji-street Ijad at last ar-

rifed j Mr Hoopfer, because he had got rid of what had beefi d fietif t<_. him f6r the last eleven years; and Mr S_H__ge_*. btt.at.se he was at the bottom of the poll. 1 Heter i« my life met with such an easily satisfied lot of fellows before. It was quite refrt Shing" to me £m leaving the, Council Chamber on' Thursday night to hear ohe grumbler, wh'a thus gave vent to his grievance i—-" Welly we've done it now and no mistake. We used to have a Council that worked pretty harmoniously together, but if we haven't introduced a discordant element into their deliberations to-day my name's not Jack Robinson."—" Ob, shut up," interjected a supporter of one or the successful candidates, " what are you growling at now?" — "Growling at?" was the reply, "enough to make a fellow growl. There they were getting aloug as nicely aud smoothly as possible when you go and shove in among thehl a Cross Little Trask. Some pretty rows there'll he now!" ■Touching this same election— indeed 1 think I may say, touching many such elections — I met a man shortly after the declaration of the poll who was grieving over the result. "Well," said he, "I am sorry Hooper's out and no mistake, for I believe he was about the best of the lot, and the worst of it is I could have Dut in him myself." "How's that?" I asked. "Why," said he, " I have four votes, all of which I should most certainly have given to him it I had voted at all, but I thought he was perfectly safe." t How many candidates in Nelson for Parliamentary, Road Board, and Municipal honors, from the days of the Oliver-Saunders election downwards have lost their elections solely and entirely because their friends thought they were " perfectly safe." " p.