The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5356, 28 May 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1878.

It becomes more and more difficult, as attempts are being made at official explanation, to understand what the policy of the Government really is upon questions which have the character and importance of being Ministerial, or to determine whether Mr. Ballance, the Colonial Treasurer, or Sir George Grey, the Premier, is to be regarded as the true exponent of the views of the Cabinet. The difference between the publicly expressed opinions of these honorable gentlemen on the single point of the elective franchise is wide and startling; it may be explained on the ground that, owing to the habitual absence of Ministers from their offices and from the seat of Government, the question of the franchise has not really been considered at all, or that each one is airing his individual notions independently of the other, the whole question being regarded as what is called, in parliamentary phrase, an open question. For a Ministry standinf in a relation to the House of Representatives so singular as this one does, and constituted as it has been, either supposition may be accepted ns explanatory, but neither can be regarded from a constitutional point of view as being credit- 1 able to the Government. Before now the habitual absence of Ministers from the seat of Government has been made a ground of the withdrawal of confidence on the part of individual representatives ; but in no Government has this fault been so conspicuous or so inexcusable as in the present Government. Since the prorogation of the

Parliament there have been rarely more than one or two Ministers in Wellington, and, in consequence, the business of the colony has been left to be transacted practically by the undor-secro-tarios. It is simply an impossibility for one or for two Ministers, however able and industrious, to manage all the departmental work of a Government as it ought to be managed, or to do for departments—other than those under their immediate control—more than the m erely formal act of occasionally signing a letter or noting a paper as having been “seen.” Arrears of work must under such circumstances accumulate inordinately, and thus are accounted for the complaints which a perusal of the various journals in the colony show to be everywhere rife, about delays in the prosecution of public works, delays in the payment of public moneys, and delays in the answering of important letters upon the public business of the colony. The expenses incurred in order that all this mischief may be effected, are very great : the charges for the Hinemoa, the cost of special trains, and of State progresses with their numerous staff of attendants, which have been going on continuously, will be found to amount to a very large sum. Many thousands of pounds must have been thus taken out of the pocket of the taxpayers in the colony. If we are asked to show any result from this expenditure, it would not be considered satisfactory to say that it has brought to light an absolute difference of opinion between the Prime Minister and his colleagues upon a vital point of public policy, and that that was the only result at present apparent. If there were a secret understanding that the question of the suffrage should be an open one, that there should be in the 'Cabinet, regarding it, _ as regarding other questions, two policies, a Liberal policy and a Conservative policy, and if now the Conservative policy is to be adopted by the Cabinet with the acquiescence of the Premier—it may bo said that those credulous persons who ; believed that the, policy which the Prime Minister declared to be his would be embodied in the law to be presented to the As- - sombly, have been fooled to the very top of their bout. The point upon which Sir George Grey insisted everywhere as being, in his opinion, the foundation of [ all freedom and good government in the future, was that every adult man should have a vote, and that no man should have more than one vote. This is what his colleagues now say for him:—“Sir 1 “ Georol Gret may have held the opin-

“ ion that no man should have more than “ one vote in the ; colony, but if ho does, “he probably feels that in the face “ of the great question of the broad and “comprehensive extension of the fran“ohise it is really of little practical; “ moment at present.” Sir George Grey has had many political opponents in the course of his long official life, and many hard things have been said of him as a public man, even by his friends; but probably nothing more damaging to his reputation has 'ever been said than is stated or implied in these few lines. Ministers say that their chief may have held opinions which he has stumped the colony rouad to prove to be his fixed convictions; but if he, does hold such opinions his state of mind now is like that of Mr. Toots, and “it is not the “ least consequence, thank’ee. ” We are not advocating Sir George Grey’s scheme as being better than Mr. Ballance’s; of this latter we have nothing at present but his own advertisement. The details of it may be such as we can cordially approve. What we desire to mark are the pretences of advanced liberalism which have caught the applause of excited crowds in all the centres of population in the colony, and the hollowness of those pretences. And we desire to note also that the declared policy of the head of a responsible Ministry has been publicly disavowed by his colleagues with a cynical expression of doubt as to the sincerity ot their chief in regard to the great principles which he has been so eloquently advocating. This is an exhibition of government by party of a kind now for the first time seen in this colony, and is, we lieve, without precedent in any _ other colony enjoying Constitutional privileges.