FAULT FINDING.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 41, 4 November 1871, Page 2

FAULT FINDING.

[lndependent, November I.] The present Government is the best abused Government the colony has ever had. Nothing it does can the Opposition journals think worthy of any praise. What of good they have done is generally ignored. An exception to this rule lately occurred in the case of the Canterbury “Press,” which contained an article highly laudatory of the Government insurance and annuities scheme. We were so pleased and surprised that we reproduced it in our columns. No other instance occurs to us ; it is the exception which proves the rule. It would be a dark day for New Zealand if the policy and administration of the Government of the day were not keenly criticised. We would not complain even if the language were unnecessarily severe. Nay, we would make allowances for those who, having made prophecies which have been ialsified by events, feel a natural and temporary irritation But to persist day after day in finding fault with a Government for nothing but simply carrying out the wishes of the legislature, as expressed in resolutions and acts passed by overwhelming majorities, is, to say the least of it, preposterously absurd. To find fault merely for the put pose of finding fault is neither useful nor decorous. With reference to questions recently discussed in our columns, it would be an amusing speculation to conjecture what such journals would have said had the Government acted otherwise. Suppose, for instance, that Mr Vogel, flying in the face of the late Parliament, and utterly ignoring ihe San Francisco postal resolutions, passed after a long debate by 36 to 16 in committee, and subsequently adopted after another long debate by the House, had made a contract constituting Wellington the sole port of call in New Zealand, what a hubbub there would have been throughout the colony ! Supposing Mr Vogel had made overtures to the Australian Governments, and with a view to secure the common interest of all the Australasian colonies, had treated with contempt the idea of a coasting run to Port Chalmers, how 1 these journals would have printed, in italics, if not in glowing capitals, from ] the journals of the House the following ' resolutions:—“Seeing that neither of | the Australian colonies has become a i party to the San Francisco steam contract, and that New Zealand has been left single-handed to initiate this line, the committee is of opinion that in the future conduct of this service this colony should look to its own interests exclusively. With which view it is expedient that the steamers arriving at Auckland from Honolulu should proceed to Port Chalmers instead of to Sydney, calling again at Auckland on the return voyage to Honolulu.” Only imagine what a howl of indignation there would have been raised, and justly too, had he acted according to the letter and spirit of the lost amendment, and arranged “ that such service should, if possible, be carried out in concert with the governments ot the Australian colonies.” What can be more ridiculous then than to find fault with him for not defying the legislature? The Brogden contract is another illustration of this wretched and absurd fault-finding. We have so lately shown that it was within the limits of the powers conferred by several acts passed last session almost unanimously, that it is scarcely necessary again to refer to it. We may point out, however, that the railways mentioned in the first schedule of the Railways Act, according to the cost per mile there laid down, would cost more than £500,000, the sum contracted for, and that it was Mr Stafford who moved an amendment adding five hundred pounds a mile to the cost of the railway from Blenheim to Picton. The amount of the contract is therefore not in excess of the sum agreed on by Parliament, increased as that sum was on the motion of the leader of the Opposition. Then, as to the mode of payment, the third section expressly enacted that “ The Governor may under the provisions of the said act, contract or enter into arrangements with any person for the construction of any or all of the railways mentioned in the first schedule hereto by guaranteeing to such person or company for and during a period not exceeding thirty-five years, a minimum rate of interest not exceeding five pounds

i and ten shillings by the year for every I hundred pounds of the construction at | a rate per mile not exceeding that set down in the first schedule, &c.” The marginal reference to the next clause speaks for itself —“ conditions to be set forth in contracts for guarantee.” Anyoue therefore who compares the Brogden contract with the acts passed last session must admit that Mr Vogel in making it carried out the wishes of the Legislature. To find fault with him for doing so in this instance also is supremely absurd. Suppose again he had acted otherwise. Suppose the Government had acted like the Piovincial Government of Otago with the Clutha line, or suppose they had acted like the .Nelson Government with the Nelson and Cobden line, who have been endeavoring to make terms with the Messrs Brogden and Son for about four years, without advancing a step nearer to the end. Parliament would have met in no better a position than last year to carry out the railway policy then agreed on. What vials of indignation would then have been poured out on the devoted heads of Ministers! How they would have been accused of incapacity and neglect, of disappointing the wishes of the country, and disloyally disregarding the acts to which Parliament with an unprecedented unanimity had given its solemn sanction! Then, as did Mr Mervyn in the House last year, and Mr Reid out of it this year, these journals would have stigmatised the policy of the Government, as an electioneering dodge, a scheme that was never intended to be carried out into practice, a trick played on the country to secure the elections of ministers and their supporters.

We have only space to mention one more instance of this absurd faultfinding. “Of all the jobs that have been jobbed since the days of Walpole to the present time,” the greatest we are gravely told is the proposed Board of Works. So says one journal. Another writes of it, “ The country is indebted to the writers in these pages ( Examiner) for the Board of Works/’ while a third a few weeks ago claimed that the credit of this “job of jobs” should be ascribed to the Opposition ! “ There shall be a Board and Sub-Boards ‘ yes, and in those words lies the secret of Ministerial success.’ ” Such is the solemn dictum of one of these veracious journals. Let us again suppose the Government had acted otherwise. Suppose they had made no proposition for a board. What jobbery, corruption, and perfidy would have been laid to their charge ! How these journals would have quoted in righteous indignation and withering scorn the following provision of the Act of last year, giving it the emphasis of double capitals thus : —“ There shall be a Minister for Public Works, to be appointed from time to time by the Governor, ‘and such Minister or the Minister for the time being, then acting for him, shall have charge of administering this act, and he shall, from AND AFTER THE END OF THE NEXT SESSION of the General Assembly, be assisted IN THE administration of this act byany

PERSONS AS A BOARD, WHO SHALL ACT AS a Board of Advice and not of Control.” The Government are therefore found fault with again for obeying the law, and it is important to remember that the creation of this very Board was loudly demanded last year by all sections" of the House, the Opposition especially declaring that without it they would withold their support from all the Government measures. The Board was to check the expenditure, was going to make a “ Gambling Policy” truly safe—was, in fact, to be the very salvation of the country. We never could see the advantage of these “ railway buffers.” A board implies the possibility of divided counsels and divided responsibilities; but the Legislature decided to have it. Why O audacious Gisborne ! didst thou propound this and monstrous proposition ?” simply because the law of last session required it ? Why didst not thou virtuously aud valorously defy the Legislature ? Why didst thou not “ strike out these clauses,” and prove that “ political honesty” is a delusion, and, the men we trusted aud looked up to (Richmond and Stafford to wit) a pack of impostors !’* “ It is an atrocious world” we must admit, when ministers are con*

deraned for doing what they could not choose but do, when obedience to the law is considered a “ fantastic trick,” and when the carrying into effect the decisions of Parliament, as recorded in its Journals, is stigmatised as “ a studied disregard of public opinion.”