The Westport Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1872.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 965, 26 April 1872, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 26, 1872.

Mb Dillon Bell has recently addressed his constituents at Invercargill. One of his titterings, epigrammatic to a degree, furnishes the colony with a subject for earnest consideration "The ministerial scheme," said Mr Bell, " will either ensure groat prosperity, or plur.ge tho colony into absolute ruin." The truth of this proposition no one will be disposed to doubt, all hough many would have been better pleased if the speaker had indicated in less Delphian sounds his opinion as to which alternative was most lively to be realised. It will not bo gainsaid that some such scheme as that adopted by Ministers, if carried out energetically and with a sincere and honest regard to the welfare of the colony, might result in opening up the country and developing its latent resources.

The improvement in value of all our staple products, and recent, discoveries full of promise of future wealth, justify the belief that a discreet expenditure of borrowed money would be most politic, and perfectly in accordance with every principle of sound statesmanship. But, notwithstanding these favorable conditions, and the wellgrounded hope that they will continue to increase, the conviction does suggest itself, and is growing in strength, that the Government are ne'ther competent nor to be trusted with works of such magnitude. That they are not to be trusted is provod by the wholesale appointments made without stint to new and unnecessary offices. In many cases these have not been warranted either by pressing emergency or personal fitness, but have been created to reward some useful supporter, or to conciliate some wavering friend. Then again regard the lavish expenditure of these same Ministers in wanton pleasure trips over the face of the globe! Do the circumstances of our overtaxed community admit of such an expenditure as Mr Vogel has involved us in during the last year or so ? Or have the results he has attained proved aught but an unmixed evil? The San Francisco Mail Service forsooth is triumphantly pointed at by Mr Vogel's admirers as the colossal result of his ability, his exertions, and of his astute diplomacy! And the advent of Mr Broaden 'and Mr Carruthers is advanced as an unanswerable proof in the same direction. These benefits, however, people are obtuseenough not to appreciate. In fact many careful practical men are united in denouncing the first as the very pinacle of the Vogelian column of folly ; whilst the last illustration has produced benefits of so infinitesimal a character, that they are altogether undiscernible to the naked eye of mortals cast in the ordinary mould of humanity. Then the competency of Ministers to deal with such large operations is scarely more manifest* From these premises the conclusion naturally follows that the Ministerial scheme will hurry the colony into that position of ruin to which Mr Bell alludes. MiBell says there can be no retrograding now. We have placed our feet on the burning ploughshares, and we must go on even to the bitter end. That a supporter of the Government should feel himself driven to contemplate this possibility argues most forcibly in favor of the conclusion we have drawn. It is hoping against hope, to anticipate that the present Assembly will move to avert this alarming possibility. There are too many influences at work to allow of any spontaneous growth there of high minded patriotism. Still there is one ray of silver lining to the dark cloud overhanging—"and that is, that the people are beginning to see the extent to which they have been deceived by specious promises. A dissolution too is perhaps nearer than m=>ot ontiV-Jpotc If it oiioulcl happen, the people may to some extent repair past mismanagement, and, let us hupe, avert that " absolute ruin" to which Mr Bell so significantly refers.