The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, MARCH it, 1866.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXV, Issue 1634, 12 March 1866, Page 2

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, MARCH it, 1866.

A few days ago, Mr. Paterson, a member of the present Government, presented himself for re-election to the electors of Dunedin. He has been returned by a triumphant majority, as he well deseryed to be, against several new aspirants to a seat in the General Assembly. In Mr. Paterson the people of Dunedin have an honest and independent member, warmly attached to and interested in the place which he represents, and sufficiently liberal to give a fair consideration to the claims of all parts of the colony as well as Otago. And yet, though Mr. Paterson has these merits and many others, and though he holds a seat in the Executive Council of the colony, he is not, properly speaking, a statesman. He has not that stamp of mind which causes its possessor to make politics a profession; nor does he affect an ambition which is not natural to him. As he entered the House of Representaso he is now, a pure representative of the people, and not one of their self-constituted or accidental governors. It is with this understanding of his character and position that we must read Mr. Paterson's address to his constituents from the hustings before his election. If we look upon him as speaking the mind of the Ministry, andforeshadowing the policy which is being matured for the next session, we shall certainly make a great mistake. In some few points he conveys information with which only his official position could supply him; but, generally speaking, the address is one which takes its colour from the place where amd the people to whom it is spoken, and not from the Government offices in Wellington.

We must put down the suggestion about taxation to official knowledge. Mr. Stafford had already publicly and boldly announced his intentions on this point; there was therefore no secret about the designs of the Government, and Mr. Paterson contented himself with enforcing the necessity of the step. To the same source we must also refer the somewhat unsatisfactory information ahout the Panama contract and the time of its commencement. It appears that the details of the contract are not yet finally concluded, and the General Post Office is as yet uncertain when the first steamer will begin her voyage. But as there is a written agreement between the Government and the company, and the faith of New South "Wales is absolutely pledged, we cannot take the words of Mr. Paterson to mean anything more than they absolutely express—that the only question open is as to time, and that even now the negotiations on this point are possibly in course of completion. On the other hand, Mr. Paterson is clearly speaking extra- j officially, as a Dunedin man to a Dunedin public, when he talks, even so< guardedly as he does, about the ports of call for the Panama service being possibly fixed at Auckland and Dunedin. We do not for one moment accuse Mr. Stafford of playing fast and loose with Wellington in this matter. He has said very plainly that the question is already settled and he will not disturb it. Mr. Paterson must be looked upon as addressing himself to a topic held to be of great importance among his constituents, and telling them what his duty as their representative in the Assembly will be, not what his opinions as Acting Postmaster-General are. He thinks, if a Northern and a Southern port can be made the ports of call instead of one in the centre,without injustice to the rest of the colony, that plan ought to be adopted. In this conditional statement he agrees exactly with the opinion of his colleague Mr. Reynolds, who has no official inspirations within him; and the two gentlemen could adopt no more honest or more prudent form of reply to an urgent demand of their constituents. Passing to the question of the tariff, we have from Mr. Paterson's mouth no more official information than that the Government is collecting the facts relating to its operation, upon which the details of a measure may be constructed. But there is no symptom whatever of a "Ministerial" statement in.this | not even a glance at the principles on which it would be wise to construct a tariff, or the evils which it would abstractedly be well to avoid.

We, f( think .these instances : are enough to sh'd'w that Mr. Paterson in his Hustirigsspeech was not declaring of his colleagues, but ad-

dressing himself chiefly to questions of interest to his own constituency, and generally giving to all subjects a local colouring. What was at all official occurred in the shajje, not of ideas which might have originated in the Cabinet, but of facts which could be gathered in the routine of a department. Accordingly, when Mr. Paterson addressed himself to the most important subject in his speech, we must consider him as speaking under exactly the same conditions. In what he said about Separation and the reconstruction of the provinces we are not to imagine that a Ministerial policy is disclosed. The people of Otago have recently adopted a modified theory of Separation, which extends to an enlargement of separate provincial powers, and a reduction of the control of the central Government. Mr. Paterson took up this question as he found it at Dunedin, and argued it on the spot in the direction favoured by his audience. It is impossible to believe that he brought from Wellington to Dunedin the Dunedin scheme itself, with the approval of the Cabinet endorsed upon it. Mr. Stafford's ideas have always gone in an entirely opposite direction. Colonel Haultain is an Auckland Separationist, pledged to maintain the integrity of Auckland. Neither of these gentlemen can by posj sibility have assented to a plan for ! absorbing small into large provinces, | but cutting off from Auckland a good i slice to enlarge the borders of Hawkes Bay. We venture to say that the proposal of Mr. Paterson originated in Otago. The first object was to reannex Southland; to treat Marlborough and Nelson in the same way was the natural suggestion upon this of any one who looked over the map of the Middle Island. A similar division of the North Island into three strong provinces was the corollary to the proposition in its second stage. _ And Mr. Macandrew's idea of provincial independence applied to the whole completed the scheme as it fell from Mr. Paterson's mouth. We think the plan, being apparently adopted in Otago, deserves every consideration. But we absolutely refuse to believe that the present Government is engaged in maturing any such policy for proposal to the Assembly.