The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5441, 4 September 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1878.

A week before the session commenced we took occasion to reprint fromthe Ministers’ newspaper a modest account of themselves arid of their approaching performances, which was quite in character with the “locals ” which usually herald the appearance of a •“ Star ” company of thoam-' cal artists in a provincial city. “ Minis- “ ters, said the enthusiastic agent, will' “ meet Parliament with a definite policy “to present to it, embodying carefully “ thought-out proposals, the principles of “ which a largo majority of the House, “ and of the country at large, fully ap- “ prove. Liberal reforms in the electoral “ laws, in the incidence Of taxation, and “ in other important matters are confi-

“ dently anticipated ns the result of the “ coming session ; and from end to end “ of the colony the feeling is one of hope- “ ful confidence in .the Government and “ its policy,—of full satisfaction at what- “ has been done, and of pleasant anticipation of what is coming. Truly the “ contrast is a great one ’twist then and “ now.” The writer of this characteristic puff will himself probably be of opinion that the contrast between promise and peformanoo, “ ’twixfc then and now ” is indeed a groat one. Tho Financial Statement was delivered a month ago; flip Public Works Statement, which is really and properly part andparcel of tho Budget, was delayed for throe weeks after it; and the Public Works estimates are not oven yet before the House—a week after the delivery and publication of the Statement to which they belong. The “definite policy” of the Government is embodied, we presume, in the fonr Bills —the Electoral Bill, tho Land Tax Bill, the Beer Duty Bill, and tho Companies Incomes Duty Bill; the approval of those measures by the large majority of the House is exhibited in a condemnation of one and all, more or less complete, by every Government supporter who has spoken about them either in the House or out of it. If this be a strong Government, wa should like to know what a weak one is like; if it command the confidence of a large majority of tho House, honorable members have assumed or acquired such a playful mode of expressing that confidence that an executive Pecksniff would need to bo constantly reminded of his duty of forgiveness and charity in their regard. This Ministry, excellent men, are clearly misunderstood. There is apparently a complete collapse of Party Government; as every Minister, excepting perhaps tho Honorable Postmaster-General, appears to have his own policy, so every supporter of the Government does and says, with regard to the Ministerial measures, exactly that which seems right in his own eyes. Every Member of the House, with two exceptions, voted for the second reading of the Electoral Bill; but everyone outside the Cabinet who spoke about it expressed his dissatisfaction with it, and his determination to amend it in committee. The Triennial Parliament Bill is being supported, it is said, with the view of getting a dissolution without a readjustment of the representation, and thus making an appeal to the country upon an extended suffrage which would greatly exaggerate the unfairness of the present distribution of representation in the electoral divisions of the colony. On Monday night Mr. Wakefield, who was last year an ardent supporter of the Government, made a brilliant, but merciless aud crushing assault upon the fiscal policy of the Colonial Treasurer ; Mr. Geokce McLean advised Ministers to withdraw these financial measures, and offered tho help of himself and his friends in amending the Electoral Bill, and getting tho Estimates passed and the session brought to a close, so that they might at last have time to give a little consideration to the real wants of the country. Last night Major Atkinson clearly and forcibly demonstrated the untruthfulness of the wild allegations made by Sir George last year with respect to the financial administration of the late Government, and showed that by the adoption of his (Major Atkinson’s) figures and forms of account, without any change, the present Colonial Treasurer had admitted the correctness of all that which the Premier, when Treasurer, had so recklessly denied. Last year Sir George Grey declared that he would effect a savingof £IOO,OOO in the departmental estimates. Major Atkinson showed that, omitting the departments of Railways, Education, and Surveys, there had been last year in nine other departments not a saving, but an excess of expenditure, amounting to £7OOO, and that the estimates for these departments for the current year were £15,000 in excess of the sums asked for the same services by the late Government. In his condemnation of tho indignity to which Sir Julius Vogel had been subjected by Ministers the House heartly joined,as tho whole country will certainly join when all is disclosed. After showing that the House last year had directed, by resolution, that the Government proposals for a change in the incidence of taxation "should be based upon a property and income tax, Major Atkinson said it was the almost unanimous wish of the House that the sham measures of theGovernmentshouldnowbe withdrawn and tho orders of the House obeyed. After commenting on the finance of the Public Works Statement, and showing that more than two millions of land revenue would bo required annually for five years it that policy were to be carried out, Major Atkinson concluded by giving an explanation of the meaning of the words “ political rest, ” and of tho sense in which they were used in his Financial Statement. We have given a report of yesterday’s proceedings as full as the space at our disposal permits, and we commend the exposition of the late Colonial Treasurer to the careful attention of our readers.