SATURDAY, JUNE 13.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XXIV, Issue 3404, 13 June 1868, Page 3

SATURDAY, JUNE 13.

public-house licenses turn out particularly well this year ? The prospect will not be all dark, for it is Imagination that holds the candle. But half the province is in revolt against the provincial authorities, and this can hardly be passed over in the speech. The panacea for the ills now felt will be the Road Boards system. True, this does not necessarily mean much, but at least it will look well. The country wants local selfgovernment. The paternal Government of the member for Newton will be all in favour of local self-government. The country wishes to spend the money it raises upon itfjelf. The Provincial Executive will be only too happy, seeing it has no chance of go'tting hold of the money for other jrarooses. In thiß way we expect the thing will go off pretty well. It is altogether probable that the Council will not quite believe in the golden future that will be painted. It is much more than likely the members will suspect the delicate financial touches of the j Provincial Secretary of a tendency to mislead. We do not think it probable that anyone will imagine the Provincial Secretary's views of local self-government to be the same thing with those of the people at large. All this will be reserved for iihe (Government at a later period, however. It is comparatively an easy thing to compose a speech which, like a sermon, invites no reply: tfte Provincial Secretary will find it a vastly different thing to get the policy of the speech approved. A policy that depends on hope is; a delusive policy for Auckland as a province. If it takes credit for a golden future • a£ the Thames, it manifestly reckons without j its host, as the Council may well be of the opinion of the disappointed suitor in the song, that if the Thames be not rich for them it matters little how rich it is. If it looks for payments from the General Government, it looks to what some one called a delusive estimate „last session. If it proposes to please and satisfy the settlers by the Road Board scheme, it is little better than bunkum, as Road Boards are not new things here, and. their blessings are not unknown. "We have already intimated our opinion that the Provincial Secretary had all his troubles before him, and the nearer the time approaches, the less inviting those troubles appear. "We need not say we do not envy the member for Newton : .We might almost Y say that we pity him. 'Our pity is not indeed akin tp love, for we suspect that, he will get no more than he ought to get. But it is a pitiable plight when a man has occasion to stand as the Representative of the things he tyit lately Hated. It is no pleasant position When he must unsay all that he has said, and Bay all that he, the other day, abused others ■for sayiiig. It does not elevate a man in the eyes of his neighbours, and itcan scarcely fail to injure, his position in his own eyes, whea he has to avow a sudden conversion, and propose for himself a consequent salary. But it may be that our pity is thrown away -in the present case. There are anomalies in creation as strange as that of a man who would actually enjoy such a position as this. , The Provincial Secretary may, for aught we can tell, be one of those of whom the poet sings '.7A maroiful Providence fashioned 'ein holler On piirpose that 'they 'migtit their prinberples Bwaller ; and, in such a case, he may feel that he only follows the law of his being. It may have been in accordance with the promptings of this implanted instinct that the member for, Newton has made so much, noise about his' principles, just as the Indian juggler is careful to display the knives which he is about to swallow. Like the juggler, however, his task is as yet only half completed whe"n ( the swallowing process has been gone through. The knives nave yet to be reproduced from the capacious throat of the one, and new principles have to be exhibited to an expectant public by the other, > He has already exemplified the capacity with which a kind naturejhas gifted him : we hope she will not fail him now, but that lie may yet exemplify the rest of the quotation by showing how "It oan hold any quantity of 'em, the — can, And bring 'em up ready for use like a pelican. If this is done we have no reason to complain. Let everything, even pelicans, follow the of nature, and some goodwill come of it. "We only trust that, if this be the case with the Provincial Secretary, the' principles which he ,does exhibit to the Council may be ready for use. Of half--digested principles we have no opinion, and we are sure the Council will have none. '

THE DINNER TO THE CHIEF JUSTICE, i We re-publish in the Weekly News of this day the extended report of the Auckland bar dinner, given to Chief Justice Sir George A. Arney on his return to Auckland after two years' absence in Europe. His Honor the Chief Justice's response to the toast, " The guest of the evening," so ably proposed by Mr. Gillies, is reported at full length, and, we are sure we need not say, will be found well worthy of pertisal. ___