The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1868.

New Zealand Herald, Volume V, Issue 1346, 10 March 1868, Page 2

The New Zealand Herald

AUCKLAND, TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 1868.

SPECTEMCTR AGENDO. " Give every man thine car, but few thy voice; Take eiich mail's censure, but reserve thy judgment. This above all, —To thine own self be true Ami it must follow, as the tho day, Thou canst not then he false to any man."

Ake wo to have finaiicial reform, or are a few captious and envious people to lead the thoughtless away to the destruction of the movement now afoot ? To us tho proposition that Reform alone can save the Colony from ruin appears so self-evident a one, that wo cannot understand the attempt now made by our cotemporary and a small section of the public to throw cold water on the efforts of the promoters of tho Auckland Financial Reform Association. Party feeling and narrow-minded prejudices have been politically the baue of Auckland. It is their existence and indulgence which has destroyed the usefulness of some of our best public men, and driven many of them from fan active participation in public affairs. It is to the indulgence of these feelings that we owo tho lukewarmness, indifference, and apathy of the people themselves in the discussion of every question which affects their interests as a community. Let any movement be set afoot for a public purpose, and if it be known who aro its promoters it may be as easily known who will be its opponents. The natural result of this division is weakness. With an enemy thundering at the gate it is ruin.

Admitted that Reform is necessary; admitted that it is our interest aud duty as a community to co-operate with tho associations springing up in the several Southern provinces for the purpose of bringing about a more economical administration of the Government of the Colony—admitted all this and who will deny it, aud iu what, we ask, has tho A uckland Association, so far as it has gone, failed ? Did any sane man expect that it would spring Minerva like from the brain of its first originator, endued with the wisdom of experience, armed cap-a-pie, and prepared at once to do battle with its adversaries. To expect this was unreasonable, and yet wo believe much of the apathy shown towards the movement lias been caused by some such feeling. Our cotemporary in his issue of yesterday seizes this apparent weakness in the Association, and ridicules its promoters becausc they do not come at once before the public with a cut and dried policy for the future government of the Colony, and are not prepared to lay down a particular line of conduct for the future course of the Association's operations. Iu this he, and those who follow him, are manifestly wrong. The people of this community, in common with others iu the colony, feel the oppression of governmental extravagance and expenditure. They unite for the purpose of strength and to effect a successful resistance. This is the first step, aud this is what has been effected by the public meetings which have taken place. The next step is the appointment of leaders, for without organization nothing practicable can be done. The election of a working committee provides these leaders. "We have yet to see whether the men chosen are efficient or not. But when once the committee is formed let it be recollected that we have then the machinery for successfully working the Association in our hands. Such members of committee as prove mcom-

potent for the duties they have undertaken ox* who may be found to be playing the traitor to the cause, can be replaced by abler and more honest men. Let those who carp at the present constitution of the committee show themselves better fitted for the position, or point out others whom they think are so, and it will then be easy to make the committee equal even to the fastidious requirements of the ei-mem-bers for Parnoll and Kaglan. As we have said, the public have been led away in the matter. They have been taught to look for tho appearance of some coming man upon the platform whose torrents of eloquence should sweep away, as with a flood, tbe evils under which they suffer. Oratory and declamation are not the only or even the principal weapons with which the hydra-headed monster of corrupt Government must be slain. Nor need wc look for an instantaneous success. It is not by the mere effervescence of the expression of public opinion, rccordediu resolutions at this or that public meeting, that we shall effect our object. The minds of the people must be deeply stirred. They must have something more than the mere vague cognisance of Government misrule which they now possess. They need to be educated in tho history and details of their wrongs. It was thus that the battles of Free Trade and of Reform were fought in the mother country. It is thus we must fight the battle of retrenchment, or rather, the Battle of the Constitution, in New Zealand. By the dissemination of political tracts, through the columns of the prests, through the agency of political clubs, branch associations, and a variety of means we must stir the mass, until they not only feel the misgovernment under which they groan but know the true causes of that misgovernment, and their remedy also. This is the work of the committee, a work which once thoroughly performed in the several Provinces in New Zealand will carry all before it. Tho real work of reform is a very different one to that which passes for such in New Zealand, and which usually makes its appearance a month or two before each session of the Assembly and dies the first week of the Session. This is not Reform but its shadow only, boru of the platform and the stump, but having no organization, no ramifications, 110 streugth, no root. It is the offspring of beat and passion, not of reflection and determination. Clearly then, thej' are looking for tho fruit before the blossom even has burst forth, who take such a view of the labours and results of the Association as is entertained by those who now seek to oppose its endeavours. But it is said that tho promoters of the Association do not command the respect and confidence of the public. This we deny. It is not because one or two well known place-hunters have taken an active part in its formation that it need be denounced as a sham. No one sincerely believes that it would become such even though the official element were larger in it than it is. The Premier himself and the Speaker of the Assembly are both members of the Nelson League, yet no one doubts the sterling sincerity and honesty of tho committee of that Association ; the lectures delivered and the papers published by its committee are not the less surely doing the work of political reform in that part of the colony. Neither is the Auckland Association less deserving of popular confidence because amongst its promoters are to be found confirmed Provincialists in opinion, or even Provincial officials. It is not for local, that is, for Provincial, reform that the League was commenced. The thin end of the wedge of dissension and failure was introduced when, at the first meeting, a Mr. Rodgers, the mouthpiece for the time of a high General Govern ■ ment official, drew a red herring across the scent by the introduction of an amendment to the second resolution proposed, and which made the action of the Association apply equally to matters of local reform. Those whose interests were bound up in the continuance of the present rule of colonial officialism foresaw what might follow the establishment of such an Association, and artfully threw upon the platform of the Brunswick Hall an apple of discord. Our cotemporary was not slow to pick it up and to make the most of it, and at once declared the object of the promoters of the Association to be simply a desire to gratify Provincial Government extravagance at the cost of the extravagance of the General Government; a device merely to turn the corrupt stream of expenditure into their own pockets. It is not, however, with local political reform that we have now to do. That has been forced upon us already. Even had it not been, it was a matter which wo had in our own hands. There cotikl be no Provincial extravagance but with the consent of the Council, and none but Auckland constituencies are rc presented in our Council. It has been our own fault then that we have suffered provincially. If we chose unfit men to represent us we had only ourselves to blame. We cannot, however, reach the Assembly as we cau the Council, and hence the necessity of tbe League to bring about tbe reduction of General Government extravagance. Let us then accept the work of the promoters of the Auckland Reform Association as far as it has yet gone. It is only so far indeed that we have any right to judge it. Candidly speaking we see no reason why the people of Auckland should doubt its houesty or its efficiency." Considering the stage to which it has only at present reached, Mr. Lusk spoke plain and sensible truths when he said There was a " very great snare which they were " very much in danger of falling into, " ITe had had the question often asked him

" —What is it you propose ? What exactly "is it that you want ? What reforms do " you wish to bring about ? When he said— " It is not for me to tell you that, tliey im- " mediately turn up their noses, and say— " Oh, it is a mere humbug, then there is " nothing to come of it. If he attempted to " state in so many words exactly what they " wanted, it might well be said that lie was " trying to humbug the public. It was not " for him or any dozen men to say—We " know exactly all about it; we know what " the evil is, and exactly how it is to be " remedied. They were there that night to " ascertain how the thing was to be done. " It was only by putting their beads to'•'getlier—their senses together—that they " could adopt means to bring about what " they wanted."

"With the committee lies the future modus operandi. That is not a work of the platform. All that we ask for them is a fair field. As we said before, the Association beginning from its first germ must progress according to the natural order of all things by little and little. It is not because one Reform League has failed, that another must necessarily fail also, neither is it acting the part of good citizens in those who lacked ability to carry that first attempt to a successful issue, that they should endeavour to upset'all subsequent attempts. As regards our cotemporary, we can only say that with the exception of the Acclimatisation Society Are cannot point out a single instance in which ha has not endeavoured to thwart any public movement undertaken for the benefit of this Province.