The Press.

Press, Volume XIII, Issue 1770, 14 December 1868, Page 2

The Press.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1868. Mr Stafford in his reply to Mr Fox's resume of the work of the session used the following words —" This is the first year since I have heen in office that the House lias shown any inclination to vote what the Government thought sufficient for defence purposes." And again—"The hon. gentleman stated that we had failed to do what Mr Weld would have done as to defence. I do not know what Mr Weld might have done if he had remained in office. He might possibly have obtained a larger provision for a defence force, but he had not obtained any when he went out of office." Now, the fact is that Mr Weld had obtained a vote for £60,000 for one half-year, for the establishment and maintenance of an armed constabulary force. It is important to bear this in mind, for the Government throughout last session appeared to endeavor to shelter itself under the cry that the House wits responsible for the present state of affairs. On another occasion, speaking of native administration, at the time of his taking the office he said — " The Government had been required to make bricks without straw." The fact being that the House had voted a sum of £58,000 for native expenditure. Both these votes, w.hich had gone through every stage except being placed in the Appropriation Bill, were rejected by Mr Stafford. What wonder if, when in a subsequent year he proposed a vote for defence purposes, the House gave unmistakeable signs that it was determined to keep him to the bargain he made on taking office. He had bid for j office with silly promises which he could not have well considered, and the country had began to reap the advautage of the prompt action of the Weld Government on the East Coast and elsewhere. The troops had not yet left the country in any number, and so matters were allowed tc drift till the present time. nWe are now suffering for the ter-

porary gratification ufihe vanity of one .nan, who was aided by unthinking > and dishonest combination to grasp j • power under what were then termed by Mr. Hall •**■' circumstances of indelible j disgrace " to all concerned. j How men who had worked under a hightuinded and honorable man could • bring themselves to work under one { who had really reversed the policy of i their chief would be a mystery were ifc j not that we have so often of late seen similar causes working similar results. Again vanity—again interested combination, with a total disregard of all constitutional principles. The retribution which with unfaltering step never fails to overtake those who " sell the truth to serve the hour" has in this instance somewhat severely visited those of the Ministry who are possessed of consciences, as undoubtedly Mr. Eichmond, Mr. Hall, and Colonel Haultain are —the lesson is one they cannot forget—they must amidst the terrible disasters which have occurred have come to the conclusion that the world will not necessarily go right if they " holler out gee" at the wrong time. Cold-blooded, intriguing, unscrupulous politicians, as we believe Mr Stafford and Mr Fitzherbert to be (they havejio pretensions to be statesmen), will admit a tardy but heavier Nemesis. The lesson for us to learn at the present time is not to return to Parliament those who will intrigue to place in office any particular set of men, to make as Mr Hall said the other day " a strong Ministry." We regret that members from Canterbury should have lent themselves to the intrigue in 1866. We still again regret that last session, instead of boldly acting on their conviction- of the incompetence of the present Ministry, they should have preferred to keep them in office rather than, acting according to the spirit of the constitution, to turn them out and abide the result. If Mr Moorhouse and Mr Whitaker had not joined in the intrigue of 1866, peace might now have prevailed, and the dread of heavier taxation might not have now been overhanging us. We cannot be surprised at the result. Mr Hall, a man of undoubted honor, of great ability for work, but weak in power of recognising a prin-ciple-—Mr Eichmond, a man of much larger powers of mind, of a conscience, sensitive beyond measure, and tending to a maudlin dilettantism — Colonel Haultain, a man of large heart, little mind, and well principled, so far as his lights go —have been brought under the influence of a cool, calculating intriguer, who has used them for his own purposes, and they have weakly acquiesced in action from which their unfettered judgment would have revolted. The country will not forget, nor easily forgive the way in which the present Ministry have abandoned all principle, all sense of right, in their dealing with the Dunedin Princes Street Eeserve, the Otago Superintendency, the Manawatu Block; and lastly, in spite of their own parade of virtue in the Disqualification Bill of last session, in defiance of all decency and precedent in their appointments of Mr Haughton and Mr Bunny. Of this, more hereafter.

The New Zealand Gazette of the Ist December contains a return of the quantity and value of the imports at aud exports from the different ports of New Zealand during the quarter ended the 30th September last, compared with those of the corresponding quarter of the year before. The total value of imports for the quarter was £1,204,563, against £1,170,055 during the quarter ending September 30,1867. The difference is chiefly caused by the increase of imports at Auckland, which rose from £155,366 to £241,140. This ia of course the effect of the Thames gold-fields. The total exports were £725,549, against £824,873 during the same quarter of the previous year. This falling off is almost entirely due to a diminution in the yield of gold, which fell from £703,947 to £594,937. In the export of grain there was a large increase, namely from £8241 to £29,511; of this sum the export of oats accounted for £22,090, and of barley and wheat respectively £3756 and £3965. The total exports for the quarter were in value about seventwelfths that of the imports. Taking only the principal ports in each island we find that during the quarter Auckland imported goods to the amount of £241,140, against an export £85,221, of which only £59,226 represented the produce of the colony and was chiefly made up by the value of the gold exported, viz., £38,266..j Wellington, during the same period, j imported to the value of £117,698, and ; exported only £6574, of which again ; only £1677 was colonial produce. At 1 Nelson there appears to be some mistake in the return given of imports, but the exports amounted to £12,244, i of which the value of the gold exported was £8634. At Lyttelton the imports were £170,935 and the exports £28,474. Of the latter amount the value of the grain exported

was £ 18,52-4, and wool £6776. Dunedin imported to the amount of £-137,731, and exported £176,011;. of which gold alone took up £150,790. Invercargill and the Bluff together imported goods to the value of £31.321 and exported £8798. Tho figures appended to the chief ports of the West Coast goldfields afford some curious evidence of the fluctuating prosperity of a mining country. Hokitika last year (that is, in the quarter ending September 30) imported to the tune of £176,071 ; this year she sinks to £61,557. Greymouth, on ihe other hand, rises from £-16,-490 iv 1567 to £97,950 in the corresponding period of IS6B. Westport and Brighton, whose exports last year were £17,537 and £1596, this year import nothing at all. The same Variation is to be remarked in the exports, which it is scarcely necessary to say consist, with the exception of a few hundred pounds, entirely of gold. Hokitika has fallen from £233,508 to £155,090. Greymouth, though notexhibiting so great a decline, also fails to come up to the return of the same three months of last year, having exported only £97,950 against £124,915. Westport has slightly bettered her position, her yield of gold being valued at £139,670, an improvement on last year of about £17,000 ; but the return from Brighton, which in the corresponding quarter of 1867 was credited with an export of gold to the amount of £69,460, is absolutely nil. The exports from all the ports in each island were, from the North £94,709, against £85,334 during the same quarter of last year, and from the Middle Island, £630,840 against £739,529.