A NORTH ISLAND VIEW.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 785, 26 November 1873, Page 3

A NORTH ISLAND VIEW.

More than once we have felt almost compelled, as it were, to call attention to the out-of-session speeches delivered by Wellington's favored Superintendent (Mr Fitzherbert). "We did so at the time when he unfurled the " tattered flag of Provincialism," as he termed it; and again upon the occasion of that speech of his when opening the Provincial Government Buildings. To-day we have to review a speech delivered at the opening of the Waihenga Bridge, with proceedings attended with luuch eclat. The place is 200 miles or thereabouts from Wellington, and the special reporter of the Wellington Independent occupies, with his description of the journey to Wairarapa and the opening, several columns of that journal. Tolls are to be levied for crossing the bridge in question, and the prospect of paying these aeeni to have been the only damper upon the proceedings. That they were racy enough, the subjoined extract from Mr Fitzherbert's speech will show. That gentleman, at the banquet table, was only too glad of the presence of between 400 or 500 up-country residents—including ladies—to pour out as bitter and vituperative a speech as ever we can remember perusing in any of the annals of this Colony—and there are many bitter speeches on record. A lady who christened the bridge sat on the chairman's right hand—that chairman was the hon. Mr Waterhouse, who was more than eugolistic in proposing Mr Fitzherbert's health. His speech is marred with a ring of sycophancy. Under the circumstances it would almost seem as if Mr Fitzherbert had for the nonce lost his head. How can the union of interests, the be3t efforts of our colonists, be directed to promote the welfare of the Colony as f a whole if statesmen of Mr Fitzherbert's calibre are to rule its destinies. Of course we put the speech down to the fact that this generally wily astute politican was off his perch, or had an attack of the " bile" or "gout" We regret that such a speech has been made. Its very assumptions are not tenable. The North, fattened upon a profuse Imperial war expenditure; upon the Colonial revenue; upon loans covering millions—the interest of m hich the taxpayer in the South is yet burdened with. In a word, the boot is on the other leg. Mr Fitzherbert did not forget his own position. He recognised the vox populi element to make his throne popular, lasting and aggrandising. He says : —" If lamtogo on and fight the uphill battle I have fought, which has not been a hopeless battle, I ask you to strengthen me with your support. I ask you to look at this bridge as a sample of five or six bridges built in different parts of the province since the present Government took office, and I ask you to look at them as a sample of the work it is in our hearts to do —as a sample of what we have been hitherto able to achieve for your benefit and for the benefit of your wives and children. Unless, therefore, we are strengthened by the voice of encouragement, which adds echo to echo, builds sound upon sound, and increases the capacity and the reputation of every man, I for one shall not be able to continue the struggle, for struggle it is, unless so strengthened. With that support I should not shrink or quail from any difficulty, and if you do not fail me I will not fail you to the last gasp of my breath. I should be glad, if I had the time, to show you how fortunate the Southern Island has been, owing to the windfall, gift, or arrangement by which the provinces of that Island have received millions of money which has enabled them to carry out gigantic public works without calling upon the ratepayer to contribute his portion of their cost, whilst we, in the North, have been denuded of our just rights and the contributions to which we were fairly entitled. Millions of money have been given to the South for nothing they themselves ever did. Was it the Southern people who colonised New Zealand ] Not at all. It was the brave and undaunted settlers of the North who accomplished that great and noble work. We led the van, but like many other pioneers we have starved, whilst those who came after us, without any effort on their part, without any sweat of the brow, have reaped the advantages. Whilst they were quietly sleeping at home, some of them indeed not yet born, we were struggling with the difficulties of colonising these shores, where we succeeded in founding a country now one of the brightest gems in the Queen's diadem. (Cheers). We, unarmed and impotent, except in the noble enterprise we possessed, were the first to colonise New Zealand, and win these magnificent islands for the settlement of the large number of people who are here now. (Applause). But there came after that a number of people to the Southern Island, who, using the term in a Pickwickian sense, filched the land from us, and I say were it not "for a feeling of wonderful generosity on the part of the people in the j*mrth Island, which can only be equalled to +hat which any of you might feel in giving away your land after you had discovered it and ploughed and fenced it, the South Island would not now be in such an advantageous position. We discovered the land which has yielded to the people of the South such enormous fortunes without the cost of any effort or energy on their own part They would never have had the courage to settle on that land but for the encouragement of the colonisers of the North, and now they are putting millions in their pockets and laughing at us for not being able to do the same thing. Ido not begrudge them their money, but I denounce them, as I denounced them in the House of Representatives, for sneering at the poverty of the North, and at our inability to build bridges such as the one we have opened to-day. TheD, with such impecuniosity as this, and with the rapacity of the Colonial Government to contend with, how were we to make the country fit for settlement."