SIR JULIUS VOGEL.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4821, 4 September 1876, Page 2

SIR JULIUS VOGEL.

TO THE EDITOR OB' THE SEW ZEALAND TIKES. Sib, —The recent coarse" and personal attack by the Evening Post upon Sir Julius Vogel, osi the occasion of his retirement from the Premiership, is deeply to be regretted by all generous minds, and is deserving the, profound l contempt of every honest man. The letter in your Saturday’s issue;-,written by Mr. John Plimmer, one of the oldest and most independent of our colonists, places this subject in its true light, and Mr; Plimmer deserves the thanks of his 'fellow-colonists generally for the outspoken sentiments and 1 true English ring of his letter. New Zealanders would indeed be poltroons, which they are not, were they while sharing the blessings of a great public policy to attempt to shirk on to any other shoulders than their own its responsibilities and its burdens. Sir Julius Vogel, as we all know, and as his detractors in their envy of his success have often pointed out, was not the parent of the Public Works policy of this colony, but simply one of the attending accoucheurs at its birth. The ten millions which that policy has added to the colonial debt would have been borrowed andexpended—but in all probability neither so favorably borrowed nor so well expended—even although the late Premier had never held a Ministerial portfolio. William Fox, Stafford, Moorhouse, Macandrew, and all the colony’s leading men foreshadowed, years before out public works began, the necessity of opening up New Zealand by railways, and the wisdom of adding as many millions to the public debt as we could obtain for this great object. The provincial authorities, with their own disjointed and limited ways and means, had already added some wasted millions to the public debt, under authority of the Assembly, in earnest but abortive attempts to initiate a system of railway construction, and with what result we found in those grass-grown ruins of a railway at Auckland, those sad and beautiful lithographs of the long-talked of Dunedin and Clutha line, and in other railway ruins, and a rapidly decaying wooden tramway at Invercargill.

Such were the results of provincial administration of the first railway loans, and thus it was that the General Assembly, in the exercise of its supreme functions, determined upon the initiation of a general scheme of railways and immigration for the benefit of the colony as a whole, and at the colony’s risk and responsibility. This action of the Assembly was endorsed again and again by the great bulk of the colonists of New Zealand, and by two succeeding Parliaments; and the policy still possesses to this day the general confidence and faith of the people.

It is manifest, therefore, that we ourselves have all the credit of ’originating and carrying forward the Public Works policy ; that we and our children after us will reap the reward; and further, that we are well able, and as a people quite prepared, to accept all its responsibilities past and prospective. Much has been done, and we have reason to thank that farseeing and bold statesmanship which has guided the General Assembly of New Zealand for the last seven years in removing those great physical and political obstacles which have hitherto prevented our realisation of a united and prosperous colony. What the Public Works policy has done and is doing against the physical obstruction alluded to, so will the abolition of provinces do in the political world, and to each of these great measures every true New Zealander must say “ God speed.” And now as to Sir Julius Voget There is no denying the fact that in losing him we are brought forcibly to realise the value of his services as a statesman and administrator. Even his enemies in and outside the Assembly, although incessant in theirabuse, aud malicious, it almost appeared, in goading him on to political despair and resignation, now, when he has at last succumbed under failing health and the pressure of other circumstances, feel the great void which his absence will create for a time in the public administration; and now, instead of taunting him as they were wont with clinging to the sweets of office and power, they upbraid him with cowardice fordeserting his post. Such a line of conduct is simply despicable ; but while displaying the impotent churlishness of his enemies, it affords conclusive proof of the inestimable value in their eyes of the public services of the late Premier. These services most people recognise and appreciate. At the same time it is felt that he had his faults. The gigantic character of the Public Works policy and the command of power aud expenditure of vast suras involved therein, afford some plea for that tendency to lavish magnificence which distintingnished much of Sir Julius Vogel's administration, and would render him unfitted for that era of care and economy in dealing with the colonial finances which is now before us. His retirement, therefore, at this time is, it would appear, most opportune, and already the rumor is current that the new Cabinet, with Whitaker, Hall, and Ormond, are preparing wholesale reductions in the numbers of the overgrown Civil Service, and also in all salaries over £l5O. This, if true, will be welcome intelligence indeed to the House. The San Erancisco mail subsidy should also be abolished, and the Agent-General's staff reduced to a more reasonable amount than it stands at. The Armed Constabulary might also be largely reduced without danger to the country. Let the new Ministry show their policy in this direction, and let all legislation stand over unless what is rendered absolutely necessary by the abolition of the provincial legislatures at the end o£ the session, and it may safely be predicted that neither the absence of Sir Julius Vogel nor the quaint political truisms of dear old Sir George, will hinder the Assembly from speedily arranging the remaining business of the session.—l am, &Ct f An Aucklander.