The Southland Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1869.

Southland Times, Issue 1171, 26 November 1869, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1869.

The Address of His Honor the Superintendent at the opening of the Council on "Wednesday, which we reprint at length elsewhere, forms a marked exception to the ordinary run of similar state papers. Regarded more as a mere matter of ceremony than anything else, they are generally couched in that smooth phraseology prescribed by official etiquette, the statements made being so nicely balanced that all parties miy interpret them favorably to their own opinions. In the present instance, however, the "speech from the throne" clearly indicates the course the Government intend to follow. It is void of ambiguity, plain and explicit, with an air of open honesty about it which is most seductive. The apparently "frank and full statement of the case" might lead many who are opposed to the policy foreshadowed, but who are too apt to take matters of that nature on trust, to throw up the sponge in despair, and resign the issue of events to fate, and the party in power. A little consideration, however, will show the document to be essentially a party production, one-sided and deceptive. The worst features of the situation are pushed into prominence with evident zest, and the difficulties of our position paraded with ill-concealed triumph. After laboring to convince the Council of the hopelessness of further exertions on our own part to extricate the province from its embarrassments, and intimating that but one practical course is open for adoption, it is surely bitter mockery to invite the members " to consider the subject calmly and dispassionately, divesting your minds of political antipathies." Had the t Address comprised only the first three paragraphs, and the concluding sentence of the fourth, it would have been more in keeping with the occasion of its delivery, and

the balance might have been put in both more appropriately and effectively when the debate on the question of re-union c;ime on. There is one remarkable statement made in tbe second paragraph, which must rather surprise those, acquainted with recent Executive manage^ ; merit. HisjiHonor is made to say:--" Thfe dfficial retrenchment has been carried to the verge of impairing efficiency, and I can hold out no hopV of further reducr tions ;* but in idne' department — ihdt ot K -the -Bluff Hrarfror"— afi'merease" "must~be proposed to secure its_efficient jjonduct. Tt must be manifest, therefore, that retrenchment is not the solution of our difficulties." When it is remembered that the leading member of the present Executive recently took office for the express purpose of carrying out a thorough system of retrenchment, and I that the Bluff Harbor staff was curtailed to its present limits by that Government — against the advice, and in spite of the remonstrances of the late Superintendent — it is indeed astonishing to find with what easy grace that error is now acknowledged, ani the necessity for increased expenditure in the department a Ivoeated, Had the trade of the port been augmented in the interval, the prop >sil would have been perfectly in order, and intelligible, but as it stands, it is simply another instance of the contempt which some individuals have for consistency, and the facility with which they /can shift their position when it suits them so to do. | There are several : other points open to criticism, but since the above was written, they have been fully adverted to in the Council, and Want of space forbids us extending our remarks in the present issue.