The Waikato Times.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 671, 7 September 1876, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

Equul .md fxat* justice to nil men. Ot w)iHtPMT kuu« 01 |>er<u.iMou, leli^iun or |l'i!lt,l ill • • • # • Here shall the Pi en tha Pkopi,r*B riffht maintain. Unawcd by influence and unliribfl by gnin.

TnVRIDA Y SKPTk^fBER 1 I^7f.

Thr policy of the now Government i is now before the country, and if, -as Major Atkinson said, it contains little which the House will not have expected, it is not, that we can see, tho worse for that. Ihe cour/ry was not looking fop or looking forward to h policy of surprises at the fag end of the session, when the ! most that cmld be expected of any Ministry, however able or popular, | w«s to effect u masterly retreat j btiyond the entrenchments of the recess from the state of party confusion nr.d complication in which they found tho House. It will be when they meet Parliament next session that we must look for a policy of a distinctive character. This much, the country /-will unquestionably look for, but now is neither the time nor the occabiim. The Auckland Opposition presH, nevertheless, already carpH at the policy item by item. We should indeed be surprised were it not so. 'ivliimtevo, however, have a difficult task before them in which a nice display of tact will be required to keep 'the Home, now * calming down from tho feTer heat of late party bitterness, Irom breaking off from the work of practical legislation and returning to a renewal of wordy conflict on purely party questions. The" Herald" know this well, when only on Tuesday, unablo "Openly to attack the policy , as such, it querulously carped and sneered at it, »nd finally to prejudice tho public, regretied a want of thoroughness in its view of the Abolition question, stating that "If the new Ministry were to carry Abolition into effect at once, with one purs* aud one interest for tho whole Colony, we feel that they would have hearty support from even tho Provincial party of every shade." The " Herald" must he well aware, that, according to all Parliamentary u-age, the question of the colonisation of tho land fund as it proposes, is dead for the present session. Like that of financial separation it has been discufcijpd aud lost, and even if it wero wise and politic — or even consistent with that .orumon understanding wliich, though nothing is said about it, cvory shrewd man outside the Assembly must certainly feel had been como to' between leading" *urn of all p.irties in the House previously to tho building up of the prehent Ministry — it was not competent to re-open in tho same session matters thus definitely disposed ofAs to the question of Abolition, even the Wellington correspondent of the " Herald" admits that tho Ministry would go out in three days if they .attempted to abandon Abolition. In this the Assembly atrl the ooantrj is heartily in accorJ Whero they have joined issue heretofore has not been on the abfitract question of abolition, that "is, of abolition per se, but on the consequential one of the form of local Government which shall repluce it. And hence, wo think, that the new Government has acted wisely and well in relaxing the cast iron nature of the Counties JBJ1 — not exactly by making- it simply permissive, and leaving, as the member for Dunedin wonld have, one portion of the Colony lefc out of its operation altogether — but in making all portions of the Colony como within the operation of the Act ; leaving to each individual county to say, when constituted, whether it will exercise the goreruing 1 powers inveaud in it by the Act, or remain merely the agent of the Central Government in the distribution of its fair share of public moiioy to each individual i road l>oard within its boundary. Altogether the Government policy, if it leaves much, and necessarily so, to be matured during tho recess and brought forward ior consideration during the next session, denls fairly, we think, with tho questions now about to occupy the attention of tho House, and is calculated to disarm opposition of anything of a dangerous chardcter. Moderate men, «yen among the Opposition, will feel that if the policy as a whole is not altogether that which they would themselves have advanced, the practical business of the country, ap»irt from all reference to certain vexed questions left over to the consideration of another session, is in the hands of men in whose honesty an«l political integrity they can safely confide.