POLITICAL GOSSIP.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXIX, Issue 52, 29 June 1870, Page 3

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

[FEOai A COBHE3POUDENT.I "Wellington, June 25. I hope the public will not grow impatient at the apparent apathy of the Assembly. Whether for good or for evil there is abundant of motion and interest striving beneath the surface. If you look at the order paper, you will see members are collecting and storing up arms and ammunition for a warfare, the object of which is not yet very well defined, and cannot be defined till the ambiguous hints of the address, and of the scanty Ministerial speeches as yet delivered, have taken clearer shape. Interest has its foci in two great questions — Colonization, general or local — and Protection. The Government have said nothing about protection. In answer to a question by Mr. Parker, Mr. Eox requested patience till after the financial statement. Mr. Hall has called attention to the peculiar hardships of the farmers, and the subject will, I think, assume a prominent place in the discussions of the session. Let Ministers take what part they may, I do not think they have any strong or united convictions on the subject. "When indeed Mr. Vogel, last session, wanted to conciliate the cockatoos of the Otago Hundreds, he seemed, with Mr. Sawin, to " smell a rat," but if the public should be of another opinion, I daresay he will be .able, with the same worthy gentleman, to " own it don't smell very strong." The constitution of the Ministry, and the versatility of its three most eminent members, will enable them to treat protection, or any other subject, as an open question. If you ask a free-trader in the lobbies, "Won't you agree to a small duty on grain?" the answer probably is, " Oh yes, all right, pass it round." One real philanthropist has not even forgotten a class as virtuous as they are oppressed — the printers and publishers of New Zealand, and kindly proposed a heavy duty on foreign and printed matter of all kinds. Think of the comfortableness of that, Mr. Editor ! and be converted from your chilly doctrines. "We are all very amiable in this colony, and shall become doubly so when we have shut the door on the outer world, and sit down cozily with no society but our own New Zealand compatriots. The objection, that the taxation of everything else up to the full level of the price of skilled labour in these islands, will have a tendency to tax out those whose contribution to the commonwealth is only money, has been sufficiently answered by the observation, that the capitalist cannot altogether withdraw if he would ; that without foreign trade, what do we want with coin ; and that the Government will be relieved in its finance by adopting the fine, old plan of greenbacks. Between ourselves, I find our Free-trader a very dull sort of fellow; "ponderous respectability, destitute of genius," as Mr. Moorhouse happily expressed himself at the late Canterbury election. Your candid mind, Mr. Editor, will perceive, as I have done, the force and the flue fancy of the arguments and proposals of the Protectionist, and you will cease to soil your sheet and offend your readers' nostrils with the musty doctrines of Adam Smith. I cannot give you any more precise account of the colonization plans ; next Tuesday will appease our curiosity. You know the House of Eepresentatives and the provinces, and will be able to conjecture as well as I, that this fine Christian policy of " passing it round," is quite likely to be applied by a large party to the guaranteed million or other funds available for public works and immigration. I find, however, a large number of men who hold by the principles advocated by you in articles recently printed in yonr paper on the subject, viz., that the two things, public works and immigration should be carried on pan passu ; that the works should be colonial — arterial, opening up the remote country — not centralized in their plan, but begun at many points on a prearranged symmetrical scheme ; that the immigration should be set on foot at home through the agency of old successful settlers who have made their property in the colony ; that the operation should extend over a long period ; and lastly, that a non-politi-cal board should be charged with the carrying the system into effect under a general negative control of the Colonial Government. It is quite possible this may be Mr. Yogel's scheme. If so, I fancy the House will close with it, the ultra-provincial supporters of the Government alone opposing. It is curious whilst the country believes itself poor, and knows that the new generation of the North Island population is growing up with very scanty means of primary education, to hear that the Government have no idea of aiding primary education, but have a scheme for " "Universities." This is, I suppose, a development of provincialism. A new Vaccination Bill also shows the same taint. It proposes to compel the vaccination of every child, and orders the Governor to appoint officers and districts for "Westland. But that happy land alone is so favoured. The Superintendents are invited but not enjoined to do as much for the provinces, but if they don't, there appears no method in the bill of compelling them. The parents therefore will have to find vaccinators and certificates, or incur the penalties of the Act. Alas, the demon of small-pox and the demon of ignorance know nothing of the 39th parallel of south latitude, or the Hurunui, or the Waitaki ; and any poison they may sow in one province will spread without railroads into others. The Ballot Bill, which is going rapidly through, had also the mark of the tenfold cloven foot. The obsolete power to delegate the declaration of polling-places for provincial elections to the Superintendent, was to be included in it. This has been exscinded. We are also to have a Disqualification Bill, to exclude paid officers ; but this again will not exclude the Superintendents' tails, which have often encumbered half the floor, and strangled half the business of the House. These are ill omens for the finance and colonization schemes, but yet, as I said, there is hope in the versatility and " many sidedness " of the Ministry. They have left Mr. Reynolds to bring in " Separation ;" Mr. Haughtou to bring in manhood suffrage}

Mr. M'GHllivray (a new member who hardly knows yet the weight of his enterprise), to bring in the " Imperial relations " on foreign policy, as, I may almost call it. Mr. Eichmond has introduced, with general approval, a bill, in tbe object of which I know at; least two or three of your most intelligent readers will keenly sympathise. It is called the. Married Woman's Property Bill, and is to ' the same effect as a -bill introduced by the Eecorder of London, and passed through the House of Commons last session. What its objects are, and what Mr. Eichmond has to say for it, I must leave you to learn from Hansard, for the post is closing. By-the-j bye, Mr. Vogel is going to reduce the postage rates to 2d. — advancing by half-ounces instead of ounces. I know you like a joke, so I reopen my letter to tell you that the Colonial Architect reports that the roof of the House of Eepresentatives very likely will not fall in for above a year. He has sent a piece of one of the beams, about the size of a thick octavo volume, as a warning to Legislators.. A member whose wonderful wit endears him to a large circle far and near, says it is a sample volume of the New Zealand Sansard — dry rot.