The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.) WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1874.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 225, 25 November 1874, Page 2

The Standard AND PEOPLE'S ADVOCATE. (PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.)

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1874.

“ We shall sell to no man justice or right.: We shall deny to no man justice or right: We shall defer to no man justice or right.”

If anything were wanting to support the Premier in his resolve-to effect the abolition of the Provinces, not only in the North Island, but in the whole of New Zealand ; if any argument were necessary to condemn the action Sir George Grey has considered it necessary to take in support of the continuance of Provincial Institutions it is to be found in the conduct of the Auckland Provincial Government —conduct which we cannot characterize but as audacious—in conceivingandendeavoring surreptitiously to carry out the design of sending the Superintendent and his political Secretary home to England on a wild goose Immigration mission. The mail to hand per Pretty Jane from Auckland, being the first we have received for many days, gives us but very imperfect information as to the history of this political intrigue, for we ean find no other name for it, even though it be clothed with the quasi support Mr. Vogel’s alleged knowledge of, and acquiescence in, the project, would seem to give it. Under the circumstances of the helpless, isolated position of the Settlers along this coast, where they are debarred from taking part in the current topics of the day, it is a matter of great congratulation that the General Government have stepped in to prevent the perpetration of this huge scandal, this barefaced attempt at a piece of political jugglery that has no parallel in the history of Provincialism. But it is a mere accident after all that does prevent it; it is a matter of regret that the Ministers of the Crown do not hold sufficient power to say that they will not allow Superintendents and Provincial Governments to cut such capers with the policy of the Colony, and the funds of the Provinces over which they rule. As we gather from fragmentary statements in the Auckland papers, it appears that these two selfaecredited representatives of a province bordering on bankruptcy, had determined on going home on the ostensible plea of establishing agencies for the purpose of sending out some 5000 immigrants, principally from Ireland, for special settlement in this province ; and so completely had they arranged matters that they were reported to “ have been off ” by the first steamer bound for Australia. But, let us be thankful an unexpected difficulty cropped up ; the Governor refused to sub-delegate powers belonging to His Excellency under certain Acts, to a Deputy Superintendent, and, as the Star mildly puts it, “ it is “ needless to say that the trip cannot “ he undertaken.”

Putting the Quixotic effect of this playing at Provincial Government on one side, we rejoice to find that the Superintendent has been promptly checkmated. Ultra-Provincialism contains within itself the elements of its own destruction ; and nothing could more effectually have levelled a death-blow —a perfect coup de grace — to the lingering life of this province than that act which was about to be perpetrated in the dark by its two chief Executive Officers. Now that it is settled that they cannot take this pleasant journey, it is somewhat useless adding our mite in condemnation of their project; but we cannot help reflecting on the consequences and absurdity of it had it been permitted them to carry it into effect. It must necessarily have clashed with the General Government scheme of Immigration, in which the Colony is sufficiently implicated already, unless, as

has been stated, Mr. VoGfct was willing to have another political friend to help him burn the candle at both ends. But we protest against this attempt to uselessly squander public money. It is becoming the fashion now for the kitchen to follow the example of the drawing room. In political, as in social life, inferior grades of servitors are but too easily infected with the grosser vices which are almost inseparable from the position of those above them. The temptation to be bountiful with the goods of others, and to argue nice points of political immorality down to such a condition of impalpable distinction, that they become, in the minds of some, a kind of negative virtue, is but a part and parcel of a loose interpretation of the Constitution under which we live. The pleasant alternative of a “ trip to Eng- “ land ” on every conceivable pretext of public necessity, is becoming too expensive a luxury to be borne much longer with patience ; and this last insidious attempt at a back-door flight, gives ample scope for the Colony to enter up a protest. That which is fast becoming a habit is reducing Governmental machinery to an absurdity. New Zealand Administrators will soon be held in contempt by financiers and political economists both at home and abroad ; and the very case with which we are able to get into debt in the English money markets, will soon beget a suspicion that—in sending Premiers home to negotiate for the borrowing of millions; Superintendents and Provincial Secretaries to arrange for lhe deportation of a few hundred emigrants ; and, as is contemplated, a Colonial Admiral to buy a fifteen hundred pound steamer—we are squandering our money as fast as we get it. Had this plan of Messrs. Williamson and Sheehan’s not been so happily frustrated, we should have found other Superintendents soon on the move Europe wards, followed by the rank and-file of all the Mayors and Road Board Chairmen in the Colony, eagerly bent on a mission to raise the wind at some oue else’s expense.