The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1871.

New Zealand Herald, Volume VIII, Issue 2342, 28 July 1871, Page 2

The New Zealand Herald SPECTEMUR AGENDO. FRIDAY, JULY 28, 1871.

The action of the provincial authorities in the management of our goldfields, is a question every day forcing itself more and more prominently on the attention of the public. The general feeling of dissatisfaction which has prevailed for some time, is gaining strength, both at the Thames, and at Oorcmaudel, aud, in fact everywhere people are becoming impatient over the

long-continued passiveness, or something worse, of those whose business it is to foster the gold industry, rather than obstruct its developement. This is no more than might be looked for. Our goldfields, we need hardly say, are the sheet anchor of the province— possibly of the colony itself. To be inattentive to their requirements,therefore—to overlook or neglect anything necessary to their effective administration—is felt to be not only a blunder, but a crime. And it cannot be concealed that the manner in which our goldfields have been dealt with, as a rule, for the last twelve or eighteen months, exhibits an amount of chronic listlessness and inactivity on the part of the Government, sufficient to lay them open to the weightiest animadversion. It is high time, we think, that this state of things should be borne quietly no longer. The public must bestir itself and apply a remedy. It is clear that the management of our goldfields, in the hands of the Superintendent and his Executive, is a total failure. This has been long known to those more immediately interested, but the fact now forces itself on general observation. We are not prepared to say in what pro portion the blame may be distributed between his Honor and his advisers one hand, and between the system and those who administer it on the other. But we do not hesitate to affirm that the province, and the goldfields population especially, is heartily sick of the whole proceedings. A change—a radical change, we contend must, and will be insisted on. It is impossible that such systematic disregard of the wants and wishes of the mining interest here, should continue to be tolerated much longer. We do not know, we say, what share of blame attaches exactly, as between the Superintendent and his Executive. It is perfectly true there is no recognition of a Provincial Cabinet under the delegated powers, but it is equally true that the Superintendent in terms of the compact of responsible Government, proposes to consult his advisers on all matters of administration whatever, not excepting the goldfields. llow far he may have acted accordingly we do not know. He is not bound to take their advice. But whatever may be the degree of complicity between himself and his advisers in this instance, the utter miscarriage of their united conduct of affairs on the goldfields, must be chargeable solely on the Superintendent himself. We cannot hold him any leas blameworthy, because others may claim to participate with him in his acts. He mainly is responsible. The Executive is accountable to the Provincial Council for the advice it may give, but the Superintendent,as the law exists, is amenable to the Colonial Government for whatever is done or left undone. In the meantime the public cares little for the official etiquette of the question. It looks to the results And the results of his Honor's administration under the powers he holds, so far, we are bound to declare, are a failure in no ordinary degree. We regret exceedingly being compelled to write thus plainly on the subject. But the fact is, the neglect of the gcldfields has been overlooked too long. And, at the present moment we see 110 prospect, whatever, of a change for tho better. We have again and again complained of the supineness of the authorities in this matter. We have pointed out the fact that public works promised by the present Government, at the Thames, and at Coromandel, have never been entered on. That the gold duties are not being devoted to the purposes for which they are intended. That the existing communications on the field are not being improved. That the wharf accommodation is utterly inadequate ; and that 110 encouragement whatever, is being held out to systematic prospecting over the numerous auriferous districts. It is quite impossible longer to deal as mildly as we have been accustomed to do with this state of thiugs. The public interest demands a measure of fidelity in treating the subject now, which we confess we have been slow to resort to heretofore. We observe that the Superintendent, in his lecture at the Thames a short time ago, hims®lf makes deprecatory allusion to the management of the goldfields under the delegated powers. We confess to be wholly unable to understand the drift of his Honor's remarks under that head. He finds fault with the principle of delegation, and condemns it as a system. So far as results are concerned in the instance of this province, we fully agree with him in his conclusions. But he affords us no clue to the ground on which he considers the system at fault. t*o far as we can perceive at present, the chief objection to the system is that it does not bring home the responsibility sufficiently to those administering under it. But that would be a somewhat novel ground of objection on the part of any one. To say the least of it, it is unusual for an individual to complain that he cannot do his duty properly according to his instructions, because iu the event of any neglect on his part, it is not very clear who is to do his share. Yet, such appears to be the only possible logical deduction from his Honor's remarks under the head of the delegated powers. Did the Superintendent show that his hands were tied in any way; that it was impossible, or difficult for him to make a free use of his own judgement in matters essential to the good government of the goldfields, we could understand why the delegated powers should call for his unmeasured condemnation. But in the absence of anything of that kind, we fail to see that his Honor's position is improved in the slightest degree. It is not because he has been prevented from doing what he thought proper, that his administration is found fault with. But because he has himself wilfully and deliberately chosen, and followed up a do-nothing policy from, the day he was elected Superintendent to the present hour. We challenge him to point out a single instance in which any of the matters complained of is traceable to a defect in the powers with which he is entrusted. We are no advocate of those powers, or of the principle on which they are based, but

we cannot accept an issue on false premises. And Mr. Gillies will look in vain for an acquittal, either from the press or from the public, on the ground be essays to take up in this instance.

The attempt to realise some idea of the dimensions of an extraordinary event, is an excellent mental exercise. "We lose much of the significance of historical epochs through failing to measure them with our powers of comprehension. Individual observation, under the most favourable circumstances, is extremely limited. The general cannot observe the unprovided accidents which govern the details of a battle he has planned. He may be conducted round the limits which make the range of the greatest fury, but his knowledge of the passions engaged, the motives urgent, or means employed is imperfect, often more so, than that of the indifferent observer who may also be at a greater distance. Let us consider what one single year has brought forth. It is just one year and one week since the brand of war was thrown out of the Tuileriea, and this day, the palace of the people, as well as an empire, is a heap of smoking ruins. The engineer has been hoisted by his own petard; the man of war is an exile ; and the glory of a vicarious greatness has gone out.

Most people who have gone to Paris have visited the Morgue. It id a dreary place. There the bodies of the miserable, the desperate, and the lunatic, which have been wrested from the river beneath are exhibited, and bereaved enquirers go in and out to see whether any one of the dozen corpses always on those rude trestles, wears the figure, face, or clothes of a relative, wife, father, mother, or sweetheart. If people stay long enough, they might see the over wrought anxiety dissolve into copious bursts of sorrow, and this followed by busy solicitude of undertakers, and the measured pace of the funeral cortege to the garden of Pere la Chaise.

Take the Morgue at some thirty feet square, and the number of its men tenants at twenty every day. It would require 150 years to pass through it the victims that have been found buried in the ruins of Parisian dwelling houses. It is estimated that the number of Frenchmen put Tiors de combat during the last year is nearly Ltree million', and the number who hVive died of their wounds, and have through wounds become a permanent burden upon society, cannot be less than three-quar-ters of a million. Three hundred miles of road would barely suffice for room for this lying in state, and dance of death when the great trumpet sounds. More than three hundred square miles of land upon which the vine and the olive nourished, and 2,000 homesteads, have been, with their tenants, destroyed by fire or dispersed by the sword. Such are some of the fruits of this wonderful year. The ambition of man, the resources of science, the passions of opinion, have gone beyond the domain of any control devised by human foresight. Frenchmen are not to-day what they have appeared in times past. This war has destroyed their reputation as well as their power. And a reputation is a great rampart about a man and a nation in time of difficulty. They who possess it are not lightly insulted or attacked. "La Gloire " was the dream, the aspiration of French recruit and veteran. All things were done, all things required to the glory of France. And who is so self-confi-dent as the Frenchman? Who is so great a master of insouciance,persiflage, and niaiserie ? How is it now ? The Emperor who paved the ways for cannon to slaughter the people, i 3 spared the necessity of preserving his throne in that manner. He lives within the borrowed shelter of foreign walls. The French character must in all future time sustain the reproach of inflated vanity. His chivalry had degenerated into braiding under the third empire. The streets which were planned to enable the Imperial G-overn-ment to sweep down insurgents with cannon have been trodden by a foreign and a triumphant enemy. And Frenchmen turned upon and rent each other when Germans passed. The pave ments are torn up, the lamps are broken, the palaces are demolished, and women as well as men make the air foul with shrieks and curses, as they pour their petroleura shells into the houses of the peaceful. The fire that fell upon the city of Sodom was not more terrible than that which has searched out the modern G-omorrah.

And there is another aspect of the picture, more dreadful still. The horror of death in battle is transient. The alarm of breaking and bursting and toppling of solid walls lasts but a while, but the hideous picture of women become brutish, and men fiendish, is more ghastly than all that has passed before. The sketches made by eyewitnesses are not to be surpassed by the diabolic pencil of Fuseli in the pourtrayal of unspeakable fury. We gather the lurid light of one or two. A woman is conducted with a band of prisoners, and she faints. " Get up," said the officer in charge. " I cannot," was the weak reply. The officer drew his revolver and shot her through the heart. And this was the act of a Frenchman. "Women are dragged out of holes and cellars, mobbed, then propped up against the walls and shot. And this is what is left of French society, of French politeness. The same writer tells us that men will hold aloof in very fear from those they love best. That no man holds his safety worth three hours' lease. A sterner fate than even the former reign of terror seems at hand. It would almost appear as that of a mighty nation God-stricken, dissolved like the empires of old, to repeat to mankind the lesson he is so apt to forget, that he who would walk in security must walk in the decent observance of laws which shall have religion for their object, as well as necessity for their sanction.