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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5095, 23 July 1877, Page 2

The Opposition profess to look to the speech which his Excellency the Governor is pleased to make to Parliament at its opening for an indication of the policy of the Government. With equal reason we may claim to look to the debate on the Address in Reply, to gain a glimpse as to what is to be the policy of the Opposition during the session. Often the Address in Reply is made the occasion of a trial of strength; but much more frequently of an exposition of the broad principle upon which each party intend to act. On Friday, however, the proceedings were very tame, and had it not been for Sir George Grey’s appeal for special accommodation for the Opposition at one aide of the building, there was not a word said to point to the existence of such a body. To be sure those self-assertive politicians, Messrs. De Lautour and Thomson, indulged in a little incisive criticism, principally consisting of enquiries why Sir Donald McLean and Captain Campbell-Walker should have been mentioned in the speech; and Dr. Wallis broke ground by a few remarks, very proper from his own point of view, and withal exceedingly mild and temperate. But we apprehend neither of these gentlemen, in any sense, represents a party ; the conclusion is forced upon us that the Opposition has no policy—in point of fact, that it has been impossible for Sir George Grey and Mr. Macandrew to devise a platform upon which they can unite their forces to work out the high destiny of the human race. We confess to a feeling of regret that such should be the case. We have supported the present Ministry, because in our opinion they are the best set of men the House of Representatives can furnish the country with. They are honest, earnest, capable administrators ; their financial policy is marked by a prudence and cautiousness which is calculated to sustain the credit of the colony and at the same time to avoid fresh taxation ; their mode of conducting Immigration and Public Works is in keeping with the altered conditions of the colony and its labor market; and their land policy, we have reason to believe, is not conceived in the interests of speculating capitalists on the one hand, nor of penniless adventurers who become converted into “ dummies” on the other ; but will hold out every inducement to the industrious man of small means, who, while he must pay the full value of the land he acquires, yet will be offered all reasonable facilities for becoming a freeholder. But while we feel bound to support the policy of the Government, that does not prevent us seeing the advantage of the existence of an Opposition. Parliamentary government without an Opposition would be the veriest sham, and would speedily degenerate into a most aggravated form of bureaucracy. Lord Macaulay described the two great parties of Great Britain as being—one the moving power and the other the steadying power of the State ; but we know that in the colonies there is no such thing as party, as the term is used in the mother country. There men are educated for their party, and the party is a permanent institution, and the members of it merely its instruments for the time being ; in the colonies party is but a thing of the hour, and consists of a knot of men who for the time being are bound together by reason of their interests and objects being temporarily identical. This community of interests and objects generally consists of a common desire to get intopower; and as but a very smallproportion of the persons forming a combination can secure this much coveted luxury, the expiry of a few sessions generally sees the erstwhile party totally split up again. However, this constant turmoil in colonial political life has just as active an influence for good as has the existence of the two great parties at Home, each with its distinctive peculiarities. The corrective principle is always at work, and the rivalries and straggles between the “ outs” and the “ins” proceeds—

Till jarring interests of themselves create The according music of a well-mixed State. But if a party, whether it be of the “outs” or of the “ins,” desires to be successful, it is a condition precedent that it must secure not only the respect and confidence of the House, but of the country—it must cease to be a thing of “ shreds and patches,” and must present to the public gaze a united phalanx agreed upon certain broad principles of polity, and sufficiently well organised to conduct the government of the country should occasion arise. Now that is precisely what we have not in the House of Representatives. Two years ago Sir George Grey came down and informed the House that an Opposition had been formed, of which he had the honor to be leader. Sir George might say, with Hans Breitman, “ where is that party now ]” The incorrect statements he uttered when making the very announcement lost him a vote or two, and since then, owing more particularly to his conduct last session, his following has grown smaller by degrees and beautifully less, till a very few gentlemen of neither ability, influence, nor experience are the sole representatives of what Sir George termed a strong party. A factious, bitter, personal course of conduct disgusted moderate opponents of the Government and consolidated the Ministerial party, and the shameful waste of time irritated the country; so that at the end of the session Sir George Grey and his fellow patriots stank in the nostrils of the people, to use an expressive phrase. We do not think the proceedings of the present session will partake of the turbulent character of thelast. Possibly there may be a season of apathy, for we have ere this seen in New Zealand that “in the body politic, as in the natural body, morbid languor generally succeeds morbid excitement ;” but it is to be hoped such will not be the case. A calm, firm, reasonable, industrious Opposition can do the State as good service as a Ministry can, and there are plenty of men in the

Assembly capable of fulfilling that tole honorably; but they will not be led by one, to whom however great and useful he has been in the past, “ a chain of association,” as one of our great essayists says, “is what a chain of reasoning is to other men,” and whose opinions are in fact merely his tastes.