THE New Zealand Herald. SPECTEMUR AGENDO. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1876.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIII, Issue 4439, 4 February 1876, Page 2

THE New Zealand Herald. SPECTEMUR AGENDO. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1876.

We have drawn attention more than once to the remarkable coolness with which the Melbourne Argus ancl its weekly issue, the Australasian, lay down the law in New Zealand affairs. They know better than New Zealanders what is good for them. They settle with a stroke of vlie pen questions that perplex our best men. As to Sir George Giey, ho is demolished by the editors of these papers in the most triumphant way, and their effusions are recopied into our own Government organs to shew what they think of us and think of Sir George Grey in Victoria. Now we have no desire to return the compliment. We do not believe the "Victorian people either fools or rogues and do believe them far more competent to manage their own affairs than we should be to manage for them. There are points however in which their politics are of peculiar interest to ourselves at the present moment. Like us they believe the tendency of their political movements is to throw more power into the hands of the wealthy few, and to take it from the people. They are resisting this tendency to the best of their power, and in resisting it some queer erough manifestations are made.

Let U3 take, for instance, one of the debates on the financial statement on which the conflict between parties has more immediately tamed. In its origin the dispute was about protection and taxation. By protection the revenue has been made to decrease seriously and to show a deficit of £200,000. Mr. Berry's party adheres to the protective system but would malce up the deficiency by taxing freehold land and incomes. In order to equalise taxation they propose to make the taxes heavier in proportion to the sum at which a man's property is valued. They propose that all incomes below £500 a-year should be free. Being ousted from the Ministry, their successor Sir James McCulloch reversed their policy so far as to make the taxes equal in percentage oil all classes who are taxed. He thus repudiates the policy of " bursting up" large properties on which Mr. Berry openly relied. Sir James McCulloch is obliged nevertheless to bow to tho idols he helped to ercct. The interests factitiously created by a protective policy are too strong for him, as they wero for his predecessors and aj they will be .fnr Jiio oucocasors Tor some time to come. The defeated Ministers asked for a dissolution. The Governor refused to grant it. They then declared the estimates should not'be passed. Mr. Berry, their leader, said they would raise themselves " as a stonewall" to stop all business till the dissolution was granted and public opinion taken on the dispute between parties in the House. The "stonewall" policy lasted some time but in the end the Government triumphed by a vote of 43 against 28. In the course of the debate many hard and not a few queer things were said on botli sides. Mr. G. P. Smith who seems of the "corrosive sublimate" order, lamented that personalities should be indulged in, but did not regard himself as in the least degree personal when speaking of his opponents in the House and out of it, as " dirty political scum." Probably ho considered the general character of the assertion saved it from personality, but this could hardly be applicable to Mr. Berry, who politely interjected " just what you are" as the elegant and eloquent jriirase glided from his enemy's tongue. Mr. Smith rejoined that Mr. Berry had resigned from the Ministry to avoid being "kicked out," and declared if tho people of Victoria followed him, " every decent man should retire from public life." Mr. Paterson thought the time had come when "the' curb ought to be put on Mr. Smith's! licontious tongue." It had "brought about the violent death of-one mail, and consigned another to a living grave." He reproached the honorable member with these and other oft'ences, and urged him to look to his own side of the House before talking of character in any way whatever. Mr. Woods complained that Mr. Smith was a general villifier, but he had the gratification of knowing that his honorable friend "had been kicked so often that he knew by this time when a boot was imported or when of local'manufacture." Mr. Higginbotliam rose to quell the storm. He drew their attention to the fact that they had already seen " three Ministries and three Budgets during the last five months." He discussed the propositions of both Cabinets in the calm and statesmanlike style characteristic of one who is a Triton among the minnows around him. Rising beyond the details of the dispute, lie dealt with great principles involved in its consideration :—

In,the case of taxation, it was not equality that was to bo lr.oked to. We ought to consider what of we.vlth was bist able to brar taxation; what class could be most fairly called upon to bear it, and what reasons therft were for pUciug a particular tax on one cUss. He contended that unless something was done to check the aggregation of lartre estates, the same results w-'Uld foil w here as in England, where at *ne end of the social scale was enormous wealth in the hands of a few, and at the othnrend of the socitl scale, horrible poverty suffered by millions. He considered there was gr«at greund for dissatisfaction at the manner in which the present Government had taken office; but like the lion, member for Maldon, he W4S under no temptation to speak harshly or unfairly of any individual member who was seated on the Treasury benches; but as a whole, the circumstances under which they came into office, and still held their seats, were such as to fill him with deep discrust, because he did not know to that moment on vhat grounds they had assumed the Government, or what was to be the nature of the po'icy they had agreed to adopt* He feared that it was only too true that the ■House and all its members had fallen deeply in the estimation of th«se to whom they were accountable— their constituents. In his opinion, this was all due to the abominable system of-the party on the Opposition benches always trying to take the place of those on the Treasury benches. ,

Now. there is a remarkable similarity in many respects -between our position and "that of Victoria, but we have the enormous advantage of dealing for the moment with constitutional and' hot financial questions. It is not oyer the taxation of any particular class we are contending. We do not seek' selfgovernment and political equality by "bursting up" large estates, or levying class taxation. Our problems are more intricate, as our system, of govern-

ment has been, but our people" are infinitely better sense, and have had a continuous, saud more, complete poUtiraf taining. . In Tilelboume and' inft&e, countiyi.<lfitricts being held. ' Ihe most \open threats are indulged in of 'brmging '20,000 men to;march on to force the dissolution of Parliament, which the Governor refused to grant. On the other hand, within the walls of Parliament there are - members - stoutly taining its absolute power, and that the people to it—not it-to -thepeople. -The-public meetings are-stigmaj-tised a3 merely rabble, or classically spoken of as " dirty scum" by the aristocratic., " Smiths" and other scorners of plebeians in the Victorian world. .The pretension of colonial Parliaments is really becoming serious. It- exceeds very largely the claims of' the English Commons, who are restrained by the traditions of their" own struggles against the tyranny of Kings, in which they were aided by the people. The same pretensions, it is true, have been put forward with equal loudness in England, biit the occasions have been rare, have been the forerunners of disaster, and have been always sought "in Parliaments that had been grossly' and deliberately corrupted by the Crown or its Ministers The Crown was the corrupter when George 111. got into his own hands all the patronage of the country, and used it to make a Parliament of "King's friends" only. Even then the arrogant pretension of Parliament could not resist the assaults of the worthless Wilkes. It made of him a popular hero, and ended in his triumph against both Parliament and King. That in which the King failed in England, and in which English Ministers have failed at various epochs, colonial Parliaments are not likely to uphold with success. Despite the declarations—so loudly and so often reiterated as to cast doubt on the belief of those who make them —we do not regard the crowded and enthusiastic public meetings everywhere held in Victoria as only fit for scorn. Knowing little of the rights of the struggle on either side, we see too strong a parallel in the conduct of our own Assembly last session and that of the Victorian Assembly now. The one has been rebuked in the most unmistakable way by the people whose meetings and voice it affected to despise, and we should not be surprised to see the same result with the other. Thinking men will ask once more with Mr. Higginbotham, what is the real cause of this strife and confusion ? Is it. traceable to the vain attempt at party government where there are neither men nor parties to carry it out and where statesmanship degenerates in consequence into corruption and mere trickery? They have no Provincial Governments in Victox-ia, yet we find Mr. Campbell charging the Government with having "bought the Warrnambool constituency by public works to the tune of £10,000." Throughout tire colonias party government is on its trial. In England it has been a success. It lias been so nowhere else. Least of all can it be said to have been a success among ourselves. It has helped to bring our Provincial Governments into ridicule. It has plunged our General Government • into chicanery and debt and is sinking it rapidly in public estimation. So long as nominated Governors are part of the colonial system, this mockery of English party rule is unavoidable. It is the sense of its incongruity that has mado men like Mr. Higginbotham in Victoria, and Sir Georgo Grey and others among ourselves, desire to see an entirely new system, in which uom'uieeism of all kinds shall cease, replace the weak compromises that were proved impracticable in the United States before they, were adopted by the colonies in which they are now distracting the people and insidiously undermining the self-government they profess to foster.

It is not a little remarkable that minds of legal and judicial training should be foremoat, and.generally successful, in directing the attention of even the students of nature to the significance of particular classes of natural facts. From Bacon down to the author of the " Correlation of Forces," the legal mind has been most felicitous in observing those antitheses of sense and idea, which, being truly interpreted, constitute sound theory. Two Australian Judges, each a colleague of the other, have, apparently without auy mutual agreement as to the direction their respective observations should take, projected separate spheres of scientific enquiry, which cannot fail to lead to important and valuable results. Sir Redmond Barry, in his capacity of Chairman of the Philadelphia Exhibition Commission, has suggested the compilation of a record of the comparative physical powers of Australian boys, "with a view to the establishment of a standard which shall serve as a test, by means of which the improvement or deterioration of the English race in the Australian colonies would in future be discerned. It needs no penetration to perceive that such a . suggestion is universally applicable, and the importance of it may be measured by the facility with which the application • may be made to -particular places or phases of society. The simultaneous suggestion made, by Sir Wiliam Staweii has a more recondite appearance, although in a strictly technical seuse it may be regarded as the correlative of the other. His intelligence has observed a mental difference in the minds of colonial and European British boys, which is indicated by the general statement that the perceptive powers of colonial born boys manifest their, activity-at an earlier age than those of boys born in Great Britain. The question proI posed,- is whether the earlier maturity (if I maturity be implied in potentiality) is foli lowed by an earlier decay, and if so, what are the conditions of tnis observed degeneI racy. . It will be seen that the inquiry of Sir William. Stawell . leads us back to that | of Sir Barry Redmond. Each leads inevi-. 1 tably\ to the other. . If a standard of I physical development be established to 1 measure the powers of the youth of Australia, a similar standard may be found for any other country in the world. Once the standard, shall have been determined, there presses for solution a vast array of associated questions, for the total result in any one case will be the product of conditions of habitat—such as climate, situation, soil, and the productions of nature generally. At this point the second enquiry appears to begin; for employment, social usages, tendencies to particular departments of. study are exten_ sirely controlled by surrounding physical conditions.. The conclusion.to, be arrived at, embraces mental characteristics and capacity. It would be impossible in a notice like the present toindicateall the national possibilities and distinctions "which might be inferred from the two enquiries conducted with; scientific precision. Those who manifest a proneness to speculate as to future contingencies might predicate a possible union of the Englishspeaking races of the world, which should derive nothing from territory or other material issues. Bat the frait of such speculations or enquiries can. never.be gathered except by the aid, of the strictly scientific method. Therefore' it is, that the subject , once started, is of importance to every country. "What applies to. the youth of Australia applies to the youth of New Zealand. It is not mere idleness to ascertain the fact, for example, that a given number , of New Zealand boys, not picked, but brought

into the first rank by some active pursuit, will measure favourably in stature?and~linib for limb with a like, number of youth* of the other colonies, or of any of the American States .? The the yourfg of English extractiou.being these countries, t.-would ifurnish,\ attendant l data fori the? physical side of the enquiry. Sir William. StaweU's observation of a mental difference between' Colonial Tjorn and British born, boys appears to have originated in a-] comparison of answers to questions from a "competition-- fori-'schooll.prizes;nlt;:is : nofc! jaecessary to.puint out that, such a competition .is. subject to.too much disturbance from i ,a variety of extraneous causes to afford'the 'material o! a safe~and conclusive judgment.•There. are other spheres, of • emulation which afford a greater variety as well as.number of 1 i facts of a. reliable, because more compre-, j liensive signification. That an immense. 1 I jchange has occurred, not simply in the' I character of mental development during the ! last .half .century, ' cannot' be denied, i Branches of knowledge that were fifty I years ago included within the curriculum of | a liberal education, now stand at the very i summit of mental' culture. Subjects of study are now wholly disregarded which i then excited the ambition of college gold medallists. These changes mark a correlai tive change in the depository of knowledge, i whatever that may be, whether it be con- ! stituted by material substance, intellectual form, or both, or. by the action aud reaction of one upon the other. It cannot be doubted that such a change is accompanied by a change in outward physical expression. In what sense is the one indicative, or explicative of the other. This is a new field of enquiry : it must be full of the most curious and instructive facts. If scientific men shall address themselves diligently to the legitimate inferences to be derived from them, there cannot be a'doubt that results of the highest value bo obtained. Whatever the amount of the advantage that may accrue, it cannot fail to be of a permanent character.

The inquest on tlie body of Edwin Packer was held yesterday, and, as was anticipated by everyone, terminated in a verdict that he had been murdered by the native Henry Wynyard. The servant, Mary Ann Sutton, was first examined, and her evidence is of great importance. She is quite confident that the man who went into Packer's room was Harry. "Wynyard—haying seen his -face. This witness seems to have had some indefinable apprehension that something was wrong; the remark made by Master Cleghorn is also not' a little remarkable, and one is almost led to the conclusion that there was some element of antagonism between the Maori and deceased, which has not yet been brought out. To those who were in his company on the preceding evening, however, Harry seems to have uttered no word "which would show ■what he was then contemplating. On the night before the murder,, he went to a place of amusement, and slipped out from his bed in the early morning. Most people will suspect that we have not yet got at the whole of what is known at Orakei about his movements. It seems curious, as we have before remarked, that he should have been anxious in enquiring for the natives at Orakei, and especially for the native Marsh, and that after finding Marsh and the others he should simply have sj>oken to tliom and passed on. It is singular, indeed, that he should have enquired for the Maoris' place, as he must have known quite well tlie situation of the native settlement, and one would think that a man in his position—red-handed from a deed of blood—would not be inclined to run about asking .unnecessary questions. His object in seeking for Maihi must have been to obtain assistance in his flight, and yet he asked for none. Of course he may have been deterred by the presence of others, or he may have changed his mind. At all events it now seems certain that the murderer is in the country between Orakei and the Firth of Thames, endeavouring to work up towards the King country. "We should think it hardly possible that he could roach that place of refuge.