New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4799, 9 August 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 9.

The position of that strange party in tho Assembly which a member the other night grandiloquently _ termed “ Her Majesty’s Opposition ” is becoming painfully ludicrous. A series of resolutions —the importance of which can scarcely bo exaggerated—have been laid upon the table of tho House by the nominal leader of tho Opposition, and the Ministry and their supporters are coolly asked what they have to say against them. No attempt whatsoever lias been made to explain what is intended by these resolutions, or what their purport really is. On tho contrary, they have been used as a masked battery from whence to shower

virulent abuse of the Government, and indiscriminate vituperation of all and sundry who are deterred from bowing down before the brazen idol of Auckland by a sense of honesty and a feeling of manliness. The real question before the House is whether the country will best be governed by. one government or by three governments ; but to this question not a single member of the factious minority which represents the Opposition has yet addressed' himself. Never, indeed, has it been our misfortune to listen to a debate wherein the speakers have so aimlessly drifted, seemingly without chart or compass, upon an interminable ocean of small talk. And to render the confusion worse, the political quacks who have prescribed a new constitution for the colony have the amazing audacity to ask what objection can be urged against the adoption of their crude and unpalatable nostrums. This would be the extromest flight of impudence were it not the product of the extremest ignorance. It is for the advocates of separation to show the advantages to be derived therefrom before they call upon its opponents to state their objections. But this the former have not done, and apparently do not intend to do, probably for the simple reason that they are unable to do so. Upon this point we challenge them to an issue. If they are unable to demonstrate the problem which they have themselves propounded, they stand self-con-victed to the colony of having paraded a senseless sham before the Legislature and before the people. And herein, it would seem, is to be discovered the true motive of their proceedings. The separation resolutions are the veriest shams that ever Legislature was insulted with. Knowing, as they do know, that a naked vote of want of confidence neither would nor could be carried, they have endeavored to entrap the unwary, and to beguile the wavering units of the Assembly by the shallow pretence of seeking the financial separation of the two islands. But surely “in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.” Sir George Grey and his confederates have no real desire to establish two local governments. Their real object is by a side-wind to restore that baneful system of provincialism from which the colony has been so happily delivered by the Abolition Act of last session. And if by any possible combination of parties they can, bring about such a result, and at the same time drive Ministers from their seats, their true object will have been achieved. We venture to predict that “ confusion on their banner waits.” The people’s representatives—albeit many of them are new to the political arena—are not so simple as to be deluded by such a palpable sham, as has been offered to them. The disguise is too transparent, and the only possible outcome of the dreary debate now going on is the utter defeat of the Grey faction, and therewithal a monstrous loss of time. - .

Somewhat we must exempt the member for Waikato from these strictures. To Mr. Whitaker must be accorded the merit of having addressed himself to the question, and there is reason to think that his frank and outspoken exposition of policy was less than acceptable to his newly-found friends. Like Cobiolanus in Corioli, he has abandoned his own allies to take service with his quondam foes, and possibly with the like result. The service he has rendered to the Opposition will obtain for him no thanks, nor any support, and in days to come he will bitterly repent his vacillation in the hour of trial, and vainly regret that he has forfeited the respect of one party without having gained the confidence of any other.