The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1884.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7221, 22 April 1884, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, APRIL 22, 1884 .

Apart from any question as to the particular value of Mr Rolleston’s speech, upon which, as a matter of course, there may be various opinions, there, are two points which stand out very clearly in connection with the meeting of Saturday night, and they aie points of no small importance. The first is the character of the meeting itself; the second is the tendency of public opinion as manifested by it. Both of these, as we have said, are of importance, and the one supports and emphasizes the other. It is not possible for any one to say that the expression by that meeting of opposition to the present Government was merely the result of demagogic agitation, of rowdy intimidation, of the bearing down of respectable men by a parcel of V larrikins. Such things have happened before, and will doubtless happen again; but they did not happen on Saturday. True, there was a good deal of good humoured interruption, and the utterances of the speaker were not received with that deeply respectful subservience which their grave solemnity might have deserved. Mr Kolleston, all through, was travelling on a line distinct from that of his audience, and, while he was soaring into illimitable space, seemed to forget the necessities which they felt in their more practical sphere. And the interruptions, which plainly consisted chiefly of “ chaff,” were but so many indications to him of the amusement of people who cared little for his grandiose theories, and were mostly laughing at him. A joke being a thing not, as a rule, congenial to his nature, he probably failed to appreciate the fun of the thing; and so, whilst the people laughed, he went on in the very deepest seriousness farther and farther from their region of thought. But, with all this, there is not the least suspicion that the slightest ill-treat-ment was intended or perpetrated. The electors of Avon had judged their member, and were quite prepared to inform him, in the plainest possible way, of the verdict against him. Nor, indeed, could any plainer mode have been found than that which they adopted. Not only was a distinct and terse vote of censure passed, and that almost unanimously, but it was passed without even the pretence of speechmaking by us proposer, and the meeting very quickly put a stop to the maundering of a gentleman who wanted to inflict upon them his inconvenient oratory. A more emphatic condemnation has seldom been pronounced: a sharper blow has never before in New Zealand been struck at any member of the G-overn-ment, or of the Legislature. So, as we said, where there was no suspicion whatever of unfair dealing, of unintelligent brute force, of the madness of stupid agitators, it is not possible to take the result of Saturday’s meeting in any other way than as a free and rational verdict of public opinion. Not only so, but there is a clear and unmistakeable conclusion to be drawn from the very nature of the interruptions themselves, as to the tendency of public opinion here in Canterbury. That tendency is undoubtedly in the direction of a speedy extinction of the Centralist policy. It is, of course, open to the advocates of Major Atkinson’s Government to do as they have already done, laud Mr Eolleston to the skies for daring to uphold the noble “ Colonial ” system, and to refuse sympathy with the grovelling narrowmindedness of those who cry out for more local freedom. It is, indeed, the only course open to them. Whether Mr Eolleston himself saw it on Saturday or not is questionable; at least, we need not stop to discuss that point. But the organ of his party is compelled to acknowledge it: the current of public opinion is setting so strongly against Centralism that it cannot be ignored. It is all very well to take a high moral tone; to lose oneself in a maze of platitudes and vague theories about “ broad Colonial principles” and so on; to astound and perplex the people with what, in America, they call “ high-falutin talk.” ,

But Colonial principles have had their day: they have been tried for eight years, and have been found oppressive and injurious. The practical good sense of the public has shown the mistake that was made in 1875 in listening to the misty utterances of thcorizers. As Mr Rolleston himself put it on Saturday —in a sentence which embodied his own condemnation —the people in 1875 went in for Abolition, and now they repent it. The supporters of the present Government cannot overlook the fact that local control of public affairs is the object of the state of feeling now prevalent amongst us. In reality, the proceedings of Saturday are an excellent indication of this. The meeting, as we have said, was a respectable, intelligent, and orderly one. Interruptions there were, but they occurred because the speaker was travelling on lines where his audience did not care to follow him. In the report which we published yesterday it occurs over and over again that laughter greeted some sentence of Mr Rolleston’s' in which, as a mere question of words, no source of laughter is observable. The reason was that ho was, so to speak, off the rails. Had he boldly fought for Centralism, and defied his opponents to show how local government would he an improvement on it; had he grappled fairly with the principles underlying such questions as the Railway tariff, or Railway Boards of Management, distinctly showing how much better all these, things are done from Wellington than from local centres; had he ventured to justify, in set terms, the change of front which he has made of late years; he would probably have found his audience, we will not say sympathetic, but at least attentive. Plainly speaking, the real point at issue now is—shall we, or shall we not, obtain Decentralisation ? The question of Colonial borrowing, the question of settlement of the lands, the question ■of railway tariffs, the question of taxation, all come back in the end to that one thing. On that hangs the issue to which Major Atkinson and Mr Rolleston have brought the country. The Ministerial organ has, to a great extent, realised this at last, and puts in prominence, before any detailed examination of Mr Rolleston’s speech, the discussion of the main principle—a principle which, as we fully expected, and predicted last week, Mr Rolleston very carefully evaded. We have not, therefore, been wrong in our statement at the beginning of this article, that the tendency of public opinion is fully shown by, and its nature emphasized by, the rational character of the meeting of last Saturday.