WEEKLY BULLETIN.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5580, 15 February 1879, Page 2

WEEKLY BULLETIN.

From the New Zealand Mail.) Whatever may be the causes, immediate or remote, of the existing condition of aifairs “at Home,” whether, as some philosophers think, they are the necessary and natural result of solar influences operating in an unvarying cycle upon our Earth, the culminating point of which coincides with what is called the “sun- “ spot ” period—or whether, as plain people suppose, they can bo accounted for by a method more simple, if less scientific, —it is impossible to read without pain and sympathy the reports of commercial embarrassment, of financial difficulties, and of the widespread distress amongst the toilers of the nation, now existing in England, and of which a harrowing outline is given by the mail summary just received. Internecine strife between capital and labor, of which the spoils are starvation and waste, is complicated by two little wars at the extremes of the Empire, in Northern India and Southern Africa, whilst the great chasm of national danger which was found open in the Forum of Europe at Berlin remains still unclosed. We are not here beyond the reach of danger and disturbance ; if wo have not yet felt the full force of the shook it is not the less certain that we shall have to endure it, although we may be sure that it cannot fall upon us, skirmishers at the outposts, with the same distinctive force as upon the masses of the great army of labor in Great Britain. It is a hopeful sign that the people themselves are able to see in emigration the means of relief, and that their organised associations are finding the money necessary for relieving, to some extent at least, the pressure of population upon the wage fund and the food, supply in what has been called the workshop of the world. New Zealand can help in this crisis, and, with the charity which is said to be twice blessed, may do good to those who are in distress in England, and do good at the same "time to New Zealand which is suffering for want of the hands which are kept there in enforced idleness. The opportunity we may hope may not be lost. Judiciously applied the money which is being thrown into the mud at Grahamstown may be made to confer a great benefit upon this Colony, and bring relief to thousands of sorrowing hearts “at home.” If it be the duty of Ministers during the recess to receive deputations and to make promises, generally impossible of fulfilment, her Majesty’s Servants have not been wanting. The deputation is now becoming a recognized political instrument. After Mr. Smith, ex-King of the French, had set out, sans facon, upon his little cruise from Paris to Folkestone, the poets and philosophers, in white waistcoats and red scarfs, who constituted themselves the Saviours of Society, cultivated the deputation. It was called a “demonstration” then, and the indispensable condition of its reception at the Palace was that it should be accompanied by a drum and preceded by a “banner.” Only when thus accoutred could it certainly reach the presence of the men of the people, or hope for a successful result. With us now the invariable prelude to the deputation is the “banquet,” at which Ministers submit their heads to be “kind o’ “ muted” with butter; after that they are generally found to be flexible. At a banquet at Grahamstown the other day a wily orator, projecting himself iuto the future, assured the Native Minister that he one day would certainly be the elected Governor of this great Colony, and thus lubricated the youthful statesman so effectively that he very nearly swallowed

the “Big Pump.” All things considered, we are in accord, with our contemporary the “ Timaru 1 Herald,” that Ministers are safer in Wellington, and that habitual absence from the seat of Government is riot conducive to that good administration which is said to be better than good laws. Our morning contemporaries have been exchanging broadsides on the subject of “ homes for the people,” and the Electoral Bill, and the Premier’s educational instrument, the “special wire.” On an impartial review of the direct evidence on one side, and of the blatant assertions on the other, we think that unbiassed persons, with ourselves, will admit that Sir Ghorge Grey’s speeches are very fine, that'his aspirations for the future of the human race are positively beautiful, but that somehow or other his administrative actions take, involuntarily of course, an inverse direction to his oratory. Thus the Crown Lands Sales Act, 1877, by doubling the price of the waste land, makes it doubly difficult for the “ poor man” to become a freeholder and to obtain a home. Thus at Dunedin and at Oamaru, in the beginning of last year, he was rhetorically oppressed with the wrongs of one hundred and ten thousand adult men, citizens of. New Zealand, who were deprived of all voice in the management of their own affairs, and all hope of getting into Parliament; and yet, when the “ great charter” of the rights of all these sufferers was passed by both Houses of the Legislature in the exact form in which it was first proposed, and in which Ministers said they desired that it should pass, the “great charter” got chucked into the waste basket, because the Legislative Council prevented the Maoris from obtaining greater electoral privileges and a more extended franchise than the Europeans enjoyed, privileges which the Government expressly declared that the Maoris ought not to have, and yet desired to give. The educational properties of the “special wire” are being developed rapidly, and the want on the part of the present Ministers which it was required to supply is becoming scandalously evident. The people are paying three thousand a year for the blessing of this great institution, and yet Captain Holt arid the Press Agency survive, and appear indeed to have got a new lease of existence. His Excellency the Governor, it is understood, will leave Wellington on the 17th. We are glad to find that he will carry away with him the strongest assurances of the loyal and continued attachment of the people of New Zealand to their Queen and to the Empire, and that gratifying evidence that he himself has secured the esteem and respect of the colonists will not be wanting on his departure from our shores.