The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1884.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7226, 28 April 1884, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, APRIL 28, 1884.

The defeat sustained by the Government at the hands of public opinion on Saturday night in Christchurch eclipses the severe disaster of the previous Saturday at Papanui, In a meeting of very much larger proportions there were very much fewer hands held up for the Government. The number varies, according to the testimony of those who took the trouble to look round the hall, from three to half-a-dozen, Christchurch has declared with unanimous brevity that it “has no confidence in the Ministry.” The result is very encouraging to the Opposition, in whose ranks will soon be comprised all the lovers of good government to be found in the membership of the House of Representatives. That result the Premier tried hard to prevent. A finer exhibition of manly courage, presence of mind, good tern-

7>er, and unreserved straightforwardness of reply to questioning has never, wo are hound to admit, boon made upon a public platform in this city. His bitterest political enemy will allow readily that a largo share of the honours of war wont with the Major, Had his cause been equal to his manner of upholding it, nothing could have resisted him. Had ho merely failed to earn a vote of confidence in his Ministry, the failure would not have been any proof of the weakness of his cause. As he failed to got any demonstration whatever against the crushing weight of the hostile verdict, the brilliancy and vigour of Ins defence must be taken as showing how irredeemable a cause the Premier had come down to champion. Interruptions and groans being the usual accompaniments of hostile political meetings everywhere in these days of politic il indiscipline, as we found it necessary to observe the other day in reply tc a critic, who, himself a most furious opponent of his opponents, seems to have got it recently into his head that battles ought to be fought with rose water, interruptions and groans need not be selected for any special critical mention now. They come in the way of every unpopular speaker, like hedges and ditches in the way of a rider to hounds, and they have to be negociated. The verdict of the meeting could not well have been otherwise. Of the four subjects selected by the Premier for discussion two were perfectly irrelevant, and upon each of the other two he had the worst possible case. The first irrelevant subject was the depression. What the Major had to say about that was excellent. But nobody has ever accused him of responsibility for the depression. The charge is that he and his supporters ought to have given to their predecessors the considerate treatment, during a time of depression, which they now claim for themselves. We congratulate the whilom Apostle of Gloom on the cheerful view he now takes. After the manner of converts, he runs about drawing attention to what he has “discovered.” “I have found out,” he says in effect, “ that during depressions we must he brave and self-reliant. We must wash our faces so to speak, and look pleasant, though our stomachs are empty. I lose no time in giving the public such an . invaluable recipe.” In reality this is telling ns what we know, and what has been said hundreds of times. It has no more to do with the unpopularity of the Government than it has to do with the war between the Chinese Empire and the French Republic. To deliver a lecture on the depression, under the circumstances, was, the Premier does not like the word, but there is really no other, audacity irrelevant audacity. Still more aulacious was it, as well as irrelevant, to descant upon the good which the Public Works policy has done for the Colony. He should have kept that portion of his remarks, and a very interesting, well-reasoned lecture, they will make, for a caucus of his own supporters. They are the only people who followed him when he was the Apostle of Gloom; and to encourage him and each other, they are always writing and delivering homilies on the enormous burden of our debt, and the small amount of anything useful which we have to show for it. For the Premier to take up the time of a large public meeting, with what is virtually a castigation of his own Parliamentary majority, is hardly the way to public confidence. More especially if, as on Saturday night, he shows them that the Public Works policy has led up to the present state of the public credit, and then, in the same breath, claims that this state of credit is entirely due to the Government of which he is the head. The Premier’s own refutation of his claim to public confidence was an argument for the passing of the motion of want of confidence.

The bad part of his case consisted of the Local Government question and the grain rates. Upon the first the Premier had the courage of his Dunedin opinions, which, when repeated, lose nothing of their effect upon the wonder of an audience. Upon the grain rates the Premier was more full and explicit than any Minister has ever been before. On his own showing, however, he must be condemned, even if we grant that the rates were not imposed to make up for deficiencies in the Consolidated revenue. We may he allowed to suppose that had there been no deficiencies in the Consolidated revenue there would never have been any hurried adjustments of the railway revenue. But we are dealing with facts and not suppositions. The fact is that the railway revenue was down as well as the consolidated revenue, and the Premier says that for the coming year he was compelled to adjust the railway revenue for its own sake, for good reasons. The adjustment was the only alternative to calling a meeting of Parliament. We admire this new-horn tenderness for the public credit, which survived a very much ruder shock contrived for it by the honorable gentleman himself in 1879, during the second session of that painful Parliamentary year. But we deny that there was no other alternative. The stability necessary for industry required that the loss of a few thousands—the Premier made absolutely light of it —should have been submitted to, till the ordinary meeting of Parliament. The great principle is that alterations of rates should not he made without ample notice to all the interests concerned. The inability to understand that principle is, as Mr Wakefield said, a Colonial reason for want of confidence in the Government. Underlying this question is the great question of railway management. The more the Government speaks on this subject, the _ more it proves its inability to realise that the worst system is the political system.

And that constitutes another grave item in tho proved indictment against tho Ministry. The Premier has made out tho best case in hw power for his advice not to turn out the Government, and ho has faded to make the case good, Tho only answer possible to a Ministry, which openly claims to bo tho only competent Ministry tho Colony can produce, has been given, Tho Premier’s claim, founded on tho alleged demerits of others, has boon met with a vote of no-coiifideneo in tho merits of his Government. Canterlmry has at last asserted herself, and will lead New Zealand in sending Ministers out of office.