REVIEW.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 87, 9 October 1869, Page 5

REVIEW.

t( Daily Times " — numbers containing reports of debates in Otago Provincial Council, Session, 1869. " Hansard," 1869. It is at once an amusing and a melancholy task to wade through the reports of the proceedings in our rival senates. The amusement arises from the mock importance, bombast, and personality of a portion of the members; the melancholy, from the contemplation of the probable fate of a country governed by such legislators. : The physical features which enabled Greece to rise to the highest pinnacle of glory, and which a little later caused her abasement, are to be found in K"ew Zealand. The congeries of commonwealths which formed the Hellenic Confederacy were not further apart from one another, physically, than are the numerous provinces which form the colony of New Zealand. But the period when this separation could be advantageous has passed away ; the tendency of the age is to centralize power, not to diffuse it. Science has annihilated space and time ; has made politics as applicable to an empire as ito a city. The small assimilate to the great : Prussia becomes Germany, and Piedmont, Italy. With such startling | lessons of the political necessities of the time, the intensely local spirit of our M.P.C.'s and M.H.E.'s appears even more dangerous than it is ludicrous. In none of the long harangues we have perused have we found a single esp cession calculated to show that the speaker viewed matters from a colonial, and not municipal point of view. In the Provincial Council, where the dignity, education, and intelligence of the members is considerably belowthe standard of the General Assembly, the debates resolved themselves into un- j seemly squabbles over the division of the public revenue. Each member is clamorous for the district he repre- ' sents; few indeed lift up a voice on behalf of tho general weal. This nar-row-minded and selfish policy has made the Province of Otago disreputable. Her political leaders are viewed as a band of self-seekers, and are justly deemed incapable. In the Assembly i the same struggle is repeated, although with less disgusting effrontery and loud-mouthed denunciation. Here is a battle between districts ; there, between rival provinces. The leaders of parties have to purchase support by an indirect bribery. Province No. 1 represents so many votes, which can only be secured by subsidising a useless work. Province No. 2 has a cer- i tain number of members, whose sap- i port can only be purchased by a piece of class legislation, and so on through I the whole catalogue. In this manner a splendid revenue is bo -disposed as to show a yeariy^deficit. Were'even this the sole evil, i% would be enough to excite grave ( apprehensions in the mind of every thinking man ; but it is not all. New Zealand politicians, only capable of viewing things in the concrete, and utterly ignorant of the first principles of social Btatics, are peculialry ! open to corruption and intimidation. They studiously foster local prejudices, and encourage local jealousies. Their maxim is Divide and Bule, instead of Consolidate and G-overn. They adopt the principles of an exploded kingcraft, and play class against class, interest against interest, community against community. Q» a larger scale than usual this tenden^ms seen in the

popular cry .for the demand of the separation of the northern and southern portions •of the colony! Tot to those who look upon the British colony as but the chrysalis of an independent power no measure could appear more fraught with disaster. Two small states so closely situated could not fail to be jealous of one another. Hence would arise harrowing enactments and prohibitive tariffs ; indeed, a foreshadowing of what would result may be seen in the state of affairs which enables Adelaide to export her produce everywhere except to the other Australian colonies. These considerations, and the extreme probability that the success of the Maori race in the North Island would be followed by the imperilling of the South, should bid our agitators pause, but unfortunately they are as incapable of anticipating the future as they are of comprehending the past. If they can return to their constituents with a portion of the public money in their hands, or announce the passage of some measure locally popular, they are content, heedless oi* the injury they may have done to the rest of their compatriots. Over-legislation is much more injurious than under-legislation, for the latter acts as its own corrective. But the gentlemen whose speeches are contained in the publications mentioned at the head of this article are of a contrary opinion; they are sent to Dunedin and Wellington to legislate, and as they are paid for their labours, appear anxious of supplying quantity, "however heedless they may be of quality. In no other way can we account for the numerous new Acts passed during the last session of the Assembly, most of them being entirely local in their application, many of them inconsistent with the received principles of science, and all of them characterized by that narrowness of vision we have already commented on. The fact is they are passed by a body of reasonably honest Englishmen who have been accidently pitchforked into a position for which their early training had not fitted them. Considering all things, they come out more creditably than the politicians of several other young countries. They are not given to high-falutin and spread - eagleism ; do not, like a Victorian statesman, repel accusations "as a lion shakes the dew-drops from his bristling mane " — they are, in short, intensely practical. This so-called practicality is the national vice. It means that truth should in all cases be sacrificed to present expediency; as though truth and the higher expediency which considers the future as well as the present were not always identical. Legislation founded on principle is utterly beyond their depth. If they adopt a Free Trade policy, it is on account of cheap bread ; if an agrarian law is passed, it is because some commonage is over-stocked. It is too much to hope for any improvement during the present generation. The Press, a power elsewhere, is here the humble follower, and not the leader of public opinion. Consistency is a thing unheard of, as the recent history of the journal which is the acknowledged "leader" of the Otagan press will abundantly attest. Commercial success is, in fact, the goal aimed at, there being no representatives in this colony of the numerous class and party serials to be found elsewhere. A good advertisement is the certain road to an equally good "puff" — a fact of which many of our leading men are. perfectly well aware. With narrow-minded statesmen, and a purely commercial press, we cannot hope much from the present race of I politicians. Does the future offer a fairer promise ? "We fear not. The very faults which characterize ourselves are inculcated on our children as virtues. Our educational system is purely objective— is, indeed, rather a training of the memory, than a strengthening of the mind. This is much to be regretted, more especially as the reaction against the romanticism of the stumnund drang, which has attracted to itself the rising intellect of Europe, supplies the very qualities we stand most in need of — sweetness, sympathy, and elegance. The introduction of this movement to the upper forms of our schools ia a work well deserving the careful attention of all who appreciate the importance of the object in view. But the subject of our educational system is. too vast to be considered in the last paragraph of an article like this, and must be postponed for future discussion.

Where do people begin on the practical I alphabet of lore ? At the ba-be. ** My dear," said an anxious matron to her daughter, "it is very wrong for young people to be throwing kisses at one another."—" Why so, mamma ? I'm sure they don't hurt, even when they hit." Hollo-way's Pills. — Mastery over Disease. — There is a cons taut tendency in the human body to paas from strength to weakness unless some means be adopted to counteract the " wear and tear," and other deteriorating influences. ; Holloways Pills effect this admirably : they accomplish all the most exacting invalid can require. As alteratives they regulate the stomach and rouse the liver ; as purifiers they improve ■ the blood's quality ; as aperients they promote peristaltic action, and as tonics they invigerate the nervous Bystem. They have blessed with health thousands previously blasted by disease. In all cases the indigestion, palpatation, perapiration, headaches, heartburn and functional obstructions, suffereis have Holloway's Pills as a resource to fall back upon, which will nerer disappoint their most sanguine hopes.

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