NEW PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 17, 20 May 1871, Page 16

NEW PROVINCIAL EXECUTIVE

The Wellington correspondent of the Hawke’s Bay “ Telegraph” has, on May 3rd, stated that the ejection of the present Ministers from office is a condition precedent to Mr Fitzherbert’s doing any good as Superintendent!” It would scarcely be possible to insult our Superintendent and Executive more grossly. In the first place they are not political Micawbers waiting to see what vvill turn up ; and in the second place, their policy is one which requires immediate consideration, and which, if heartily responded to by the constituencies of the province, they will put before the present Ministry as an earnest of their desire to participate in the blessings of the colonising policy which they have conceived and initiated. So far from Mr Fitzherbert having to wait so remote a contingency as the ejection of the present Ministry (the strongest that has held the reins of Government for many years) before doing any good as Superintendent, we maintain he has already done great good. He has gathered around him an able and willing Executive, and he has, with their assistance, fearlessly and faithfully commenced his administration by enunciating a bold policy for the province in her present straits. He has never thought that the high duties he has assumed are to be honorably discharged by waiting passively the result of any contingency ; nor does he regard it as a proper course for the Provincial Government to defer, on any pretext whatever, the consideration of questions pressing for immediate solution. We have the best authority for stating that the Executive cordially support him in these views, and nothing is so wide of the truth as the assertion that they have ever considered the ejection of the present Ministry an antecedent condition to their being useful in the offices they severally fill. On the contrary, they are anxious to put the province into a sound condition first, and. having effected this to go with a good grace to the General Government and ask to have their fair share in the colonising ope-

rations now going on. The only condition antecedent to their “ doing any good” is an intelligent appreciation by the people of the province of the advantages direct and indirect of the bold and statesmanlike proposals submitted to their consideration. Their duty is not bound up with the fate of a ministry, but with the future of the province. Their attention has accordingly been already given to the practical duties before them ; and instead of idly gazing at the political horizon of the future, they have been studying the best course to adopt to secure the construction of roads and bridges, and the erection, maintenance, and inspection of public schools. Anxiously desirous of carrying into effect a policy which they have unitedly determined on, they have had the rare courage to circulate through all the country districts its naked outlines without aword of comment. Thoroughly convinced, after much anxious deliberation, that the province is only to be rescued by the course they foreshadow, they have placed their proposals with a generous confidence before the constituencies, believing that though unpopular at first they will soon commend themselves to their intelligent support. They have nobly done their duty —it is for the people now to do theirs. Let them judge these proposals calmly, earnestly, and candidly. What they cannot approve let them try to amend. What appears to them contradictory or obscure, let them seek to have explained. Let them remember that if they approve of the policy, the means of giving effect to it is in their own hands. The merits of that policy we shall take frequent occasion to explain; but meanwhile we implore the settlers of the province to realise their own responsibility with regard to it. The ability and devotion of the best Superintendent and Executive in the world will go for nothing if the policy they enunciate meets wilh no intelligent appreciation on the part of the public. It is for them to meet together and seriously to discuss it, for on their action with regard to it depends the future of themselves and their children. If, as we hope to show, these proposals are the best, the only remedies that can be applied in the present state of the body politic, and if they are passed, as we hope they will be, by overwhelming majorities in the Provincial Council, then will be the time to go to the General Government, but not till then. Pursuing such a course, Wellington as a province will command respect, and be accorded a hearing which it could not dare to hope by pursuing a course of political Micawberism, or by excusing its neglect of its plain duties and responsibilities by inconsistently intriguing for the “ ejection of the present Ministry,” whose policy it all but unanimously endorsed at the general election, and from which it has everything to hope. We reprint elsewhere an abstract of the principles upon which the Government intend to base their legislation on education and road boards, and we commend them again to the thoughtful consideration of the inhabitants of the province.