New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1871. THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 27, 29 July 1871, Page 11

New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. SATURDAY, JULY 29, 1871. THE WEEK.

We conceive that the assigned reasons for the recent resignations in the Provincial Executive were not the true ones, and that the real cause was more grave than it has been represented. It is very unfortunate that they should have taken place just on the eve of the meeting of the General Assembly, as it is most desirable that the Provincial Government should exhibit no signs of weakness and indicision in the House; but we cannot see how these resignations, under the circumstances, could have been avoided. had less reference to this particular appointment than to other causes which have been barely referred to. The character of the holder of a paltry clerkship was a matter of comparative indifference ; intellectually it was superior to that of maiiy bolding higher positions, and morally it would bear comparison with others who have not had their private feelings paraded before the public. Because this appointment did not happen to prove personally agreeable to Mr Ilalcombe, that afforded no good grounds for his resignation ; and we consider that the Superintendent was justified in viewing the matter in this light. It was not the fulfilment of a promise made by the Provincial Secretary, but the object for making it which was blameworthy. The late members of the Provincial

Executive were justified in arriving at the conclusion that they did not hold their seats in the Executive Council by the unbought votes of a majority of the members of the Provincial Council, and having come to this conclusion their resignations were inevitable. “A faint suspicion,” says Macaulay, “ that a Minister had secured votes by promising billets would be enough to ruin him.” If the same standard of morality obtained here, the same results would be witnessed. We find that the General Government grant to road boards, has been apportioned in Hawkes’ Bay to the several road districts iu a most munificent manner. To the amount each road district contributed in the shape of rates, three equivalents were added out of the grant in question. What principle the late Deputy Superintendent and Provincial Secretary adopted here, in apportioning the grant of £SOOO to the several road districts in the province, we have never been able to discover. It has been stated that the grant was apportioned to each district according to the amount of rates it paid during the past year. But this we happen to know was not the case. Road districts which paid no rates during the past year or during any preceding year had large sums apportioned to them, while other districts which would have levied rates during the past year, if their payment could have been legally enforced, have been left out in the cold. Whether the Government is justified in making large grants out of a revenue derived chiefly from customs duties to improve private property by making roads for people who won’t make roads for themselves, may be open to question ; but there can be no question that all such grants ought to be expended on roads which will open up the country, or on works which will aid in developing its resources, and not on making bye-roads, or in making repairs. It is a curious, and at the same time an instructive fact, which is pregnant with meaning, that there was not a road district in the whole of the runholding province of Hawkes’ Bay at the time the £50,000 grants to road boards -was made by the General Assembly. After the grant had been voted the province was divided into road districts, bub even then the largest sum contributed by any of these districts only reached £25; whereas there are several road districts in this province in which the annual rates collected exceed £4OO.

It will be seen from an advertisement elsewhere that a meeting of the shareholders in the proposed Wairarapa Meat Preserving Company will be held at Greytown on Monday next. We understand that it is in contemplation to establish a similar company in the province of Hawkes’ Bay, a bonus of £SOO having been voted during the last session of the Provincial Council towards this object. We are assured that when these establishments are in full operation that breeding will be carried on much more extensively than has lately been the case on the East Coast. It is believed that they will prevent any further decline in the price of stock, and have the effect of vastly augmenting the incomes of both large and small graziers ? If this will be the case how is it that Meat Preserving Works have not long ago been established ? With an augmented population will there be sufficient surplus stock to keep such works in full operation ? Already, as we understand, the two boiling down establishments in the Wairarapa are idle. A general report on insanity has been recently presented to the Legislature of Victoria by Mr Paley, the Inspector of Asylums, who is said to have Lad much experience amongst the insane in England as well as at the antipodes. The report contains many instructive facts. On the subject of habitual drunkenness Mr Paley has a special paragraph worth particular attentiou just now. He is decidedly opposed to placing such persons in lunatic asylums. He says such patients usually become perfectly sane and sober in a few days, when they strongly resent their continued confinement amidst the insane as harsh and cruel —more cruel than a short term of imprisonment with enforced labor. Efforts to bring about reformatory results were utterly nulified by the depressing influences of the place. He says that in America, where the system was tried two years earlier, it has been equally a failure, and that the county judges have ceased to put the law in operation. If a compulsory law has failed on trial in eases such as these, it can scarcely be argued that a more comprehensive compulsory measure, short of the total banishment of intoxicants from the community, would be a success He considers that cases of delerium tremens can be better treated in the hospital than in a lunatic asylum. The increase of insanity he ascribes to the increased development and over exertion of the brain. There has been a crisis in Queensland. The people of Brisbane, more alive to their true interests than those of Wellington, are bent upon opening the country by means of railways. The Ministry, backed by the squatters, are opposed to this policy. On a division the Ministry carried their obstructive measures by sixteen to fifteen votes. Upon this a public banquet was given to the leaders of the opposition at the town hall, which was crowded to excess, nearly 900 being present. It wa an*

nounced that the policy of the opposition comprised these three great principles (1) lbat the public works of the colony, especially railways, should be at once resumed. (2) Ihat immigration should be encouraged in every possible way. (3) That the public lands should be used for both. Such a policy would set up Brisbane and be the making ox the colony; but squatters don’t need railroads, and require too much elbow room to render immigration, in their case, desirable. One ot the speakers said that the Government knew that behind the railway question was the question of the public lands, and that in the event of the railways being paid for by local taxation, the justice of which he maintained in common with the other members of the opposition, the Government knew that the Darling Downs squatters would require to be taxed. Not only in Brisbane, but throughout the colony, says our authority, there is a desire to support the railway party, and to recommence public works on a basis of local taxation.