The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1879.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5732, 13 August 1879, Page 2

The New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1879.

We have studied the numerous electoral addresses which have been published in the local Press, and are lost in admiration at the ingenuity of the framers. Reading the manifestos by the light of recent events which have occurred under our very eyes in Wellington, it seems surprising that no one appears to have remembered that the late Ministry fell because the men composing it had alienated the confidence of at least half of their firmest supporters. The question now before the country is, who shall carry out the Liberal policy of the colony I —those who are prepared to rule according to constitutional law, and to submit to the authority of Parliament, or those who are determined to establish personal government, and to override and ignore the law and Parliamentary precedent whenever it suits them. Sir G. Grey excused his action, both in regard to his illegal attempt to burk the Land Act by withholding it from the late Governor in order that it might not receive the Royal assent, and also in regard to his illegal action in commencing the unauthorised Grahamstown railway, by asserting that “ he did it for the good of the people of ** New Zealand.” The Emperor of Russia, or the Sultan of Turkey, might be justified by such an excuse, but even our eloquent autocratic Premier could not induce Parliament to believe that he had a right to override the law whenever he chose to assume that what he wished was for the general good. Every one is a liberal now, and it practically remains to be seen what sort of Liberals the public desire. Mr. Macandbew is a Liberal; his Tapanui railway job, however, illegal though it was, was condoned by Parliament in the previous session ; but the orders which he gave for the falsification of a copy of a railway map asked for by I Mr. Richardson have branded him in

the eyes of all honest men as an unscrupulous politician. His promises re the Foxton line have been deliberately broken, and we shall be greatly surprised if the promised call for tenders for that line, (which he proposes to pay for out of tho proceeds of the sale of the reclaimed land), should be issued ere the new Parliament meets. Mr. Sheehan has, we believe, tried hard to cause his boasted removal of the Maori difficulty to come true. But the vacillation and the want of concerted action of Ministers has surrounded the native question on the West Coast with a perfect cloud of fresh complications. We look in vain in the electoral addresses already published for any indication of the leaning of the several aspirants to political honors for the city. Assuming that many, if not most, of the measures proposed in the Governor’s speech will meet with a great deal of general support from all parties in the House, wo think that the rival candidates might surely have told tho public upon which side of the House they would take their stand if returned. If they had no leaning either to the Greyites or to the Constitutional party, they could surely state whether they hoped to join the ranks of a new middle party, and, if so, under whose banner they would be content to serve. It is now more than two years since the House resolved to establish secular education, and recent elections have conclusively proved that the public have endorsed that decision; it is about the same period since the House passed a unanimous resolution brought forward by Mr. Woolcock, in favor of the introduction of an income and property tax, which resolution the Grey party failed to comply with. It is but a year since both Houses of Parliament passed the Electoral Bill in the form in which it was brought in by the Grey Government ; but Sir G. Grey abandoned the Bill to enfranchise the 70,000 imaginary downtrodden serfs in New Zealand about whom he raves, because the Upper House refused to allow the northern constituencies to be swamped by the Maori dual vote. The Chinese Exclusion, the Triennial Parliaments Bills, and a proposal for the Redistribution of Seats, were all brought before the House last year, but at the time there was no general election within ken, and the members of the Grey Ministry declined to lend any official assistance .to them, and allowed the very measures which they now attempt to claim as their exclusive property to fall through without making ad effort to pass them. We hear a great deal about these measures now-a-days in the electoral addresses ; tho question which we wish to have answered by the candidates Is—To whom would you wish to see the carrying out of these measures entrusted 1 There have been many leading members of the Opposition who have carefully abstained from taking a prominent part in tho no-confidenco debate ; there has been a large number of former Government supporters who have withdrawn their support; and there is also the victorious attacking party who succeeded in convincing an unusually large majority of the House that the present Ministry was corrupt and untrustworthy. Which of these sections command the confidence of the country? Every raw recruit who is anxious to enter Parliament, and has devoted any attention to politics, can surely name half a dozen members under whose leadership he would be prepared to serve, whose political principles he agrees with in the main, and whose reputation and characters as politicians command his respect and admiration. We would fain see a test question of this description put to the budding politicians; we are quite content to hear their political opinions, but we want to know whom they would choose to marshal the “awkward squad” and direct their untrained efforts. Judging by the electoral addresses before us, wo should suppose that many of the new members expect to play a “ lone hand,” or to show their skill by adopting Paddy’s instructions at Donnybrook Fair of—“ Wherever you “see a head, hit it.” If other parts of the colony return ns many free and independent Liberal members as Wellington is threatened with, the disillusionising of constituents, after Parliament has met and the whips have done their recruiting, will be as complete as it has been in the case of the new member for the Hutt. The electors returned a member, who professed to be thoroughly independent, but who turned out to be a staunch out-and-out Greyite, to the astonishment and disgust of a large number of the electors. There are not more than fifteen, or, at the most, twenty, members in the House who are morally or intellectually competent to undertake Ministerial duties with a chance of success, and a new member might surely declare under whom he would be willing to serve. The Government were defeated because the men had proved incompetent and untrustworthy. The next Ministry ought to be composed of men who will command the fullest confidence of a majority of the House. The candidates on the hustings ought boldly to indicate who are the men of their choice, so that there may be no more sailing.uuder false colors. We look for no promises of support for any one man or any particular half-dozen ; hut it is only reasonable to expect that candidates desiring votes should indicate the leaders to whom they would wish to entrust the important duty of carrying out the great reforms which they advocate, and which are now before the country. Sir George Grey recently declared that if there were a majority of anti-Grey members returned to the new Parliament he should at once resign. It will bo necessary, therefore, that every candidate should declare himself plainly either for or against Greyisra.