The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1892.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 34, 10 February 1892, Page 4

The Evening Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1892.

For tie cause tlipt lacis cssletanoe, For tlio wtouj iliat noeds resistanco, For tho futuro in the distance, And the good that ire can do.

Thirty-eight years ago, like the rest of the Australasian colonies, we secured representative institutions. We then clamoured for Responsible Government, which, with some hesitation, the Mother Country granted us, reserving only the power of the veto.

With the rashness which belongs to youth, we promptly harnessed our new steeds to our infantile States; for a little while their gambols interested us and amused the spectators. In no long time, however, we found that our steeds, like the horses of the sun in the story, wanted to take the bit between their teeth—and they took it —dragging us along at a pace that astonished us, and alarmed our friends.

In like manner our Responsible Ministers very" soon fslt their power, and lost no time in making us feel it. So long, however, as our Responsible Ministries consisted of the Featherstones, the Foxes, the Staffords and the Richmonds, no great harm was done. In ten or twelve years they did nothing more than get us into the Maori war, and the colony into a debt of about seven millions sterling: In those days cur Responsible Ministers were reasonable and moderate men. Most of them talked well, and all of them meant well; and they went along in a cautious sort of. way: Fortunately, the Provincial Councils afforded them theatres on a small scale to put their ideas in force in a small way that did nobody much harm.

But in 1870 Mr Julius Vogel came on the stage. He very soon voted all our great men slow. He said they were either asleep or blind to the resources of the colony. His forte was money, naturally. He did not propose to lend us money, for, like the rest of us, he had none to speak of. But he proposed to borrow. Not a paltry million or two. He made a bolder flight. He proposed to borrow ten millions to begin with, and to make a thousand miles of railways with them. This bold proposal took our breath away. Up to that time we had been mainly content with bullock drays, and were mostly happy. We were going slow, but we were going sure. Like that other Oriental magician who carried a lamp and made the slave of the lamp do his bidding, so our Oriental magician carried a lamp, which he said, if properly bandied, would make the slaves of the lamp on the other side of the world make all the railways we needed, as well as a good many we did not need. He told us that his wonderful lamp would make our roads, build our schools, increase the wages of our working men, and make most people happy ever after.

In Parliament he flouted the old fogies, persuaded some of the members and dazzled more. He appeared on our public platforms, where he drew such pictures of progress and prosperity that he quite carried away the people who listened to him. The openmouthed crowds swallowed all he said, and howled down every speaker who opposed him. So he got his way. Then he became chief of the Responsible Ministry of the day. He worked his lamp to some purpose. He borrowed and borrowed and borrowed. He had laid the colony under so many obligations—to money-lenders— that he obtained a title, and became Sir Julius. The colony had got a white elephant, but didn't know it, then.

Twenty years of this mad borrowing and spending went on, till at last we pulled up, or were pulled up—which is the same thing with a difference —at thirty-seven millions of indebtedness. Then our Responsible Ministers woke up and virtuously declared, when they found that nobody would iend us another sixpence, that they would borrow no more.

Hitherto, Responsible Ministries had followed each other in rapid succession, not one of them being responsible for a shilling: The colony by this time had learnt that Responsibility of Ministers meant nothing more than loss of place and pay. Our ancestors made their statesmen responsible by chopping off their heads now and then. We adopted no such harsh measures. Our legislators merely shuffled ..the political cards, and the Responsible "ins" of to-day became the Irresponsible "puts "of to-morrow. That was alt.'

In this way we have found that Responsible Government has been a broad farce. Just a safe and profitable mode of throwing dust by the sham Responsibles into the eyes of those who were really responsible—the people of New Zealand. Cato, the old Roman, is credited with saying that he wondered that the medicine men of those days how gulled the people could meet one another in the streets without laughing in each other's faces. In like manner, when we come to think of it, it is just as surprising that our Responsible Ministers could ever meet each other without laughing in their sleeves.

The fact is, our Ministerial Responsibility begins with the assumption of office and ends with the loss of the pay and the power which the office brings, the real responsibility resting on the shoulders of the people who, in the heavy taxation they are now bearing for the wild extravagance of the sham Responsible Ministers they set up to rule over them, may perhaps learn the lesson that though Responsible Ministers may come and Responsible Ministers may go with titles and well-filled pockets, all real responsibility rests on the backs of the people, who, when the music and dancing have come to an end, have to pay the piper.

One lesson we may have learnt—to trust our representatives and Governments less, watch them better and allow them to borrow no more. In that way, the game may have been worth the candle. From many different sources we hear that the resolution of New Zealand, not to re-enter the English money market for some years to come has greatly, strengthened our credit at Home. The experience of thelastyear or two has shown the colonists that as a people we can safely rely upon ourselves and our resources, and it is earnestly to be hoped that the good resolution which has been taken will be steadfastly acted upon until the prosperity ot the country is re-established on a firm basis.