THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, FEBERURY 1, 1877.

Thames Star, Issue 2519, 1 February 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, FEBERURY 1, 1877.

Dr Waims, at Morningside, has been addressing a meeting of settlers at that place on some of the present political questions of New Zealand. At this present time those who give politics more I than a passing thought are broken up into divisions and sub-divisions, each or many of which may have some good! element at work in it, that it is as well to; consider the views of each even though we cannot agree with all—perhaps not with anyjof them ; and as Dr Wallis is a fairly representative man of the party to which he belongs, and one who, to give him his due, is not afraid to say what he thinks, and morever carries some weight with him, it is right for this reason also, as well as on the ground of hearing both sides of the question, to consider what is said on what Mr Bees would call, we; suppose, the present crisis. His lecture at Morningside Dr Wallis appears to have divided into three heads :—(1.) The Governmental separation of the islands. (2.) The hanging up of the Act. (3.) The greed >of our public men and their want of moral principle. To take .these in the order we have; given them Dr Wallis says: that four objections are brought forward why the two islands should not have separate Governments (1) a large country or colony is better than a small one. This we have all along maintained, and we i know of no argument that has ever been raised to gainsay it. That " union is | strength" is acknowledged everywhere, j and though of course a country may grow \ so large in extent as to become unwieldy | and incapable, of being governed fairly from one centre, yet this can never, or should be never the case with New Zealand,'whose extent of territory must be limited to the two islands which form the colony, and surely no one will say these are too large to be governed by one government, with the example of Great Britain and France before them. There are limits to everything under the sun, and" any principle . carried to excess becomes an abuse, and this abuse of having a country or colony so' large that one government could not maintain order throughout it, might readily be imagined in countries like America or Australia, where of necessity the principle of federation must be applied; but this necessity by no means exists in New Zealand, and therefore the very first objection which j Dr Wallis assumes will be taken we Hold to be fatal to his advocacy of separate governments. (2.). The second objection to be- raised against separation, I Dr Wallis assumes is, that it will be urged that one government for New Zealand is Ijkely to be cheaper than two. This is in a great measure mixed up with the first objection, for if a large colony be not better than a smaller one, but rather inferior to it, then it follows that if there be two colonies there must also be two sets of rulers. If only one colony, surely it stands evident to common sense that the fewer there are to rule, the less the cost to the tax-payers, provided, of course, that men of the same ability are in each instance selected. It may be said that were there two Governments, each could be composed of a smaller number than. were there only one, but it will readily be understood that if the islands were separated many of the offices now performed by one man would have to be continued in both islands with of course two persons to fill them. In fact, as the Government now exists, if separation came into force to-morrow, and two Governments formed, there is hardly i a single office that could be abolished in either cabinet. The second objection therefore does but confirm the .first, in that if the first be valid the second adds force to it. (3.) The third assumed objection is that the public creditor wouldobject. This is very likely to be the - case, in the same way as —to compare small things with great—any capitalist who lent money on the security of a firm would object to the obligation being divided into two parts if the two partners wished to dissolve, especially if one of them were to take with him more than three-quarters of the stock on the security of which the money was ad* vanced. (4.) In the fourth place, it is presumed that if separation be effected the Maori difficulty would devolve entirely on the North Island. That this would be the case in practice, however much the theory be advanced that in the event of an outbreak the South would assist, can hardily be doubted. The scanty Maori population in the South makes a Maori rising more than improbable. Not so in the North. While if we are to depend on the South to go security for us in the matter of our debt, and to bear the expenses of a war should one occur, equally with us, what advantage is there in a division of the Colony ? These four, objections Dr Wallis said were unsubstantial. The report of the proceedings does nat state on what grounds he arrived at his conclusion, but simply that they were so. We have in the remarks appended to them endeavored to show that they were not so. Dr Wallis then proceeded , to say, that though there were no solid | arguments against separation there were many in favour of it. Of these many he proceeded to give three—(l.) On account of the impoverished condition of the

Colony, and the injustice under which the North Island suffers. (2.) From the interests of the two islands being to a large extent incompatible. (3.) From historical .analogies. How the impoverished state of the Colony can be made a plea, or rather a " solid argument" for separation wo fail to see. On the contrary, if the present condition of the north—and Dr Wallis is arguing in favour of the north—be bad when joined to the wealthy, south, would if; not be much worse if separated? Because the climate and products of the two islands are different Dr Wallis considers this a " solid argument " for separation. The south is agricultural, the north mining and commercial. (Is not the south commercial too ?) Suppose this argument to have any force at all, just consider how it would work if applied elsewhere where we are not biassed by interest or ,parfcy feelings. A fair analogy would be between the north and south of England: Sent, Sussex, and Surrey are entirely agricultural, while Northumberland, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire are almost entirely taken up with mining and grazing; they bear very much the same relation to the south counties as the North Island to the South. Their climates also are very different. What would be thought of a man at home who would advocate their being separated from each other by advancing the solid argument that they differed in climate and i products ? The arguments advanced from historical analogies are not given, so we are unable to examine them ; but we certainly would have thought that from the days of the Heptarchy, and even beyond it down to the present time, all history pointed to the fact that, so far from separation strengthening any state or states, it invariably weakened them, and the old story of the body and its members seems applicable here. Dr Wallis certainly has not made out either that separation; is necessary or even advisable. We reverse comments on the after part of his speech.