The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5347, 17 May 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1878.

Wb reprint from tho '“ Wanganui Chronicle” of May 4 a report of the speech delivered by the Hon. Mr. Fox to his constituents at the Odd Fellows’ Hall on the day preceding.' ; Mr. Fox’s reception appears to have been .of, the warmest and most enthusiastic kind, the vote of confidence and; 1 thanks which the proceedings having been carried amidst loud and prolonged cheers, and without one dissentient voice. : : Tho factioua-struggle of the session; the failure .of the Middle Party to build up

after they had pulled down ; the ruse by which the Premier obtained bis place, and the Parliamentary trickery which enabled the ihinority to rule in the House and to keep; its representatives in office, are of course touched graphically by the orator. Mr. Fox fails not also to 'note the signs which are discernible of ; the purpose of Ministers to revert to that form of, provincialism which consists in separation of the islands, with provincial capitals at Auckland and Christchurch respectively. An individual Minister now and. then gives ns a formal assurance that the present Government have hot any such purpose, and no doubt an individual Minister may be sincere and truthful in thinking and saying so. But the policy of any responsible Government is the avowed policy of the head of the Government, and the Premier has never left room to doubt what he means to do in this way, if he be able to do it. When the old cavaliers at their social meetings passed their glasses over the water-jug, and when the Jacobites of a later day drank “to the squeezing of “ the rotten orange,” there was no room for doubt as to the significance of the respective processes, or of the real purposes of the several performers. When Mr. Maoandrew after a banquet, as Mr. Fox reminded his constituents, publicly expressed his hope that ‘ ‘ we should see provincial institutions “ restored, not perhaps in their original “ form ” —was there, we ask, no meaning in the words 1 When we see, in addition, important administrative acts performed which certainly prepare the way for the desired change, are we to suppose that no change is intended 1 Under these circumstances, when a member of the Cabinet says, what he, no doubt believes, that there is no such policy, the explanation is that he has not been - let into the secret, as yet. It would hardly be fair, we are willing to admit, to hold every member of the Cabinet as amenable for the eccentricity or undisclosed purposes of his chief. The ‘'Lyttelton Times,” too, in the article which we reprinted in our issue of yesterday, has poetical and sentimental visions of the possible return of,the “immaterial spirit of local self-go- “ vernment, ” which formerly had shape as Superintendents and Provincial Councils. “ Fortunately,” says our contemporary, “in political law the raising of spirits is “ not impracticable. Our duty is to call “ this lost spirit from the vasty deep ; “ and if he will only come when we call, “ he will bo heartily welcome, in what-' “ ever bodily guise he may be induced “to reappear.” The eye as well as‘ the ear must be used in forming a judgment. Weighing what is said by Mr. Macandrew and Sir George Grey, and seeing what is done administratively by the Government in the way of.separating the North Island from the South, it is difficult to believe that there is no meaning in their words, and no significance in their actions. To the : attention of the many new settlers who can have no acquaintance with the early history of this colony, or with what Mr. Fox calls the “death struggle” for even a little liberty, which was carried on in the early time with Governor Grey, by such men as the late Dr. Feathbrston, the present Sir William Fitzhbrbert, and other leading men, including-Mr. Fox himself, we commend that portion of Mr. Fox’s speech which touches upon the political antecedents of the Premier, and which contrasts them with his recent political expressions when on the stump. : The result of Mr. Pox’s meeting is another -of those indications, becoming numerous of late, that the attempt to set class against 1: class in this colony is a failure, and that, where there is no real grievance, the’ seed of discontent which the agitator^delights to sow finds no congenial soil.