SEPARATION. (FROM THE "OTAGO DAILY TIMES," MARCH 20.)

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3354, 16 April 1868, Page 3

SEPARATION. (FROM THE "OTAGO DAILY TIMES," MARCH 20.)

The leaven of discontent is working, and the advisability of separation ia a conviction in Canterbury. Once bo lukewarm on the subject, that province has now spoken out, through its representatives in the Provincial Council, and declared that Insular Separation, pure and simple, is necessary for the welfare of the Middle Island. This change of opinion need take no one by surprise. It is the necessary consequence of the action taken by the htafford Ministry. Very likely, when Mr. Stafford and his colleagues read of the decision arrived at, they will be taken by surprise. They, no doubt, wrongly estimated the character of public opinion in Canterbury. Accustomed to have the support of the members of that province in Parliament, and having had the assistance of able men _as Ministers who represent electoral districts there, they deceived themselves as to the state of public opinion, and^ imagined that in Otago only was there a wide-spread desire for Separation. Judging by the measures adopted last session , they appear to have thought that in severing Westland, and rendering Timaru practically independent, they were doing that which would please the people of Canterbury— a province which they seemed j;o consider the hotbed of Centralism. It does not appear to have occurred to Mr. Stafford, Mr. Hall, or Major Richardson, that they were really serving the cause of Separation by those acts. They seemed rather to have imagined that they were crushing the movement by the measures they took, instead of fanning the flame. They may now, perchance, wake up to the consciousness of the reality, and find that they have alienated, instead of securing, the support of the province. Just now, there are several reasons why the attention of the peopl* of Canterbury is turned towards Separation. The difficulties through which the province has been passing have had something to do with it. When all industries are flourishing, when men engaged in business are absorbed in the prosecution of their private employment!, they have little leisure to devote to politics. Perhap3 at no season is vigilance more necessary than at such prosperous periods. During these, abuses are liable to grow up, extravagance is unnoticed, and the signs of the times are unobserved. But when those halcyon days are passed, and the clouds begin to lour ; when profits begin to fail, and the burden of taxation begins to be felt, a change, both social and political, takes place. Warnings, once unheeded, become attended to ; measures, once barely glanced at, became narrowly scrutinised; the actions of Ministries, once neglected, are watched and discussed, 'ihrough these phases Canterbury has been passing ; and if they have at length drawn the attention of the inhabitants to the dangers and disadvantages of Centralisation, notwithstanding the inconveniences of the ordeal, they have at any rate worked some good. But other circumstances have combined with those just mentioned to work the change of feeling that is so manifest in the decision arrived at by the Provincial Council of Canterbury. The most able members of the Provincial party have invariably pointed out that Centralism really means conferring upon the Colonial Government the power to expend tke revenue of the wealthier upon the poorer provinces. That this opinion is well founded, is evident from the desire evinced in those provinces to abolish provincial institutions. Auckland, which twelve months ago was foremost in professions of desire for separation, has gravely discussed the advisability of the abolition of its Provincial Government. The heavy price paid to the Auckland members for their adherence to the Stafford Administration seems to have extinguished that political fervour that marked both Council and people about this time last year. Hawke's Bay, long considered a prosperous province, has declared itself in pecuniary difficulties, and ready to accept a central torm of government. Taranaki would very soon fall into the same groove, and there would shortly grow up a feeliDg in Wellington that would lead to a like conclusion. Apart from the failing general revenue of most of those provinces, some of them have no land revenue, and public works are necessarily but feebly prosecuted. While, therefore, there are rich provinces to the southward, there issonvsthingtobegained by Centralisation. The sweets of Southern revenues have been tasted too often not to render the desire to feed upon them permanent j but the extraordinary appropriations for Northern benefit, of last year, are too fresh in remembrance in the South to be lost Bight of in the estimate of the evils of Centralisation. Add to these facts the evident tendency to drift into a renewal of Maori troubles, and the catalogne is sufficiently copious to account for the resolution at which the Provincial Council of Canterbury have arrived.

Paris at Night.-A atroll m &• *mk ■* "J* was another recreation. la awak of 'Jree mdea I saw hundreds-at one place I made out two hundred -^of people sittine outside the e»f6s and wine S hop» at small round tables, drinking wme, seltz, beer, &c. They seemed very comfortable however strange it may look to others. The wine does not seem of an Kricatingkind, though it might be efficacious in quantities. I know a glass o beer drunk in some places will either stupefy or intoxicate more than half a bottle of the ordinary wine drunk here. It seems just to lift the spirits, and has a tendency to make home and friends not quite so far off. Bo» a quenching drink, syrups, wine, and seltz-water are > very nice. The people were in a very gay mood, but not boisterous j none of the ragged and dirty misery. , to be seen any time in our gin palaces. There w««..( very good order, no quarrelling, bat they_ seemed toi - be taking e»sy, quiet, and accustomed enjoyment.' 110I 1 o did not seethe homes of these people. —Saint PauPs, edited by Anthony Trollope.