SEPARATION

Southland Times, Volume VI, Issue 491, 11 June 1866, Page 3

SEPARATION

(From the New Zealand Advertiser 21st May.) Seventeen months ago the people of Auckland held a monster " meeting^ to initiate the cause of Separation, and eight months ago Mr Thomas Russell addressed the House of Representatives, in the ablest speech he had ever delivered, introducing a series of resolutions on the same subject. At the former time, the people of Auckland spoke as one man upon the subject, and at the latter, their representatives did the same, and found several Otago members who secended them in their endeavor to cut the Colony in two. "We will put on one sids either the removal of the Seat of Government, or the Panama Service, as the cause for either the demonstration in Auckland, or the resolutions in the Assembly, and take the avowed reason for both to prove that the party must come before a new Assembly -with diminished strength ; unless, indeed, they como with a determination still to pressi tor that which they themselves acknowledged to bean evil, in spite of the changes that have taken place to lessen the necessity for it. The avowed reason for so earnestly demanding Separation was the injustice done to North and South by the Weld Ministry. Of course with this were coupled others which may be called auxiliary to it, such as the proposition to send away the troops, and fight the natives ourselves, and the_ consequent turning of the jSTorth Island into a seat of internecine war, where European and Maori would be engaged in cutting one another's throats, and all the proper objects of colonization would be defeated. Such, also, was the reason given by the far South that the war was being carried on at its sole expense, avid without; the slightest benefit to it, and this reason has^ certainly been re-echoed by other parts of the South since. But the chief reason given by separationisfcs last session of Parliament was the fact that a Ministry hostile to their interests was in power. This being the ca?e, wo are at a loss to conceive what arguments the advocates of the measure will come before the Assembly with this year. Another Ministry, placed in office in great measure by their action, will occupy" the Treasury benches and that Ministry, far from alienating North and South by its measures, has pursued the very course which arguments would show to be most beneficial to them. The natives are no longer to be attacked, and although the troops are going away, it is with no intention of fighting °the Maoris ourselves. This, in fact, meets the objections of both North and South against the late administration and there has been no new reason given why Separation shout be demanded. Auckland, at all events, has no cause for complaint now. She has got the "Waikato lands, and a grant of money to enable her to coloniso them, and for this she is indebted to a Minister, whom the success of any Separation resolutions in the House would at once turn from office. Otago, also, has one of her members' in that Ministry, he being the gentleman that she has shown most confidence in by returning him at the head of the poll, and he must go if Separation is carried, for whatever his opinions may have been last' session, he is bound to vote with his colleagues in the next one, on so vital a question as this. Auckland has returned her members all pledged to Separation, regardless of what they may think upon other subjects, but Otago has more wisely exacted no pledges from hers ; they can, therefore, come with less trammeled hands to the debate on tht question,' while those of Puckland, however thoroughly they may feel that the necessity for having recourse to the evil of Separation is passed are bound to redeem the pledges they have given on the hustings, unle3s their constituents will take back those pledges from them.