THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1890.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8287, 20 June 1890, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1890.

The fourth session of the tenth Parliament of New Zealand meets under somewhat peculiar circumstances. Instead of there being two parties, a Government and an Opposition, with all the members more or less firmly attached to one or other, we have aeon- I ... unpicturesque confusion. It dition of unpieturesque contusion. It looks almost a farce for the Government to put forward anything like a programme of legislation, in the circumstances of the case. Ministers have concocted a speech for His Excellency, and the Colonial Treasurer has, it is stated, put together a number of tables setting forth in great detail the exact position of New Zealand, holding up to view "evidences which during last year were afforded of the substantial progress made in the circumstances of the colony." All this we shall learn from the Financial Statement, and then, according to all accounts, we shall hear of Sir Harry Atkinson as a Minister no more. We shall have a new Premier, and, as a matter of course, a new Ministry. We have heard a great deal about a " continuous Ministry ;" surely we shall finally have done with it now. Whether New Zealand will be any the better for that remains to be seen. But there is no doubt that the retirement of Sir Harry Atkinson will mark a new order of things. He has been in politics for about thirty years, and lias been in office for a large portion of that time. Sir Edward Stafford and one or two others separated themselves from political life when the great blast of the public works scheme began to be felt. They did not like it or its author. Sir Harry Atkinson went with the flood, although no one will ever probably know whether from the first, and throughout, he has cordially approved of the scheme. He has been its ruling and guiding spirit of late years. Perhaps it would be safer to say that the passion for expenditure refused to be ruled or guided, and that Sir Harry Atkinson was content to remain somewhere in the front. But his retirement means a final close to the public works era, and the commencement of a new one. It is fitting that he should signalise the occasion by a statement of flic position of the colony. It is a pity but that he could have retired at a happier time, with the prestige of having left the ship of State with a fair wind on a smooth sea. Pity but that lie could have asked us to look back with unalloyed triumph and pleasure to the history of the last 20 years. As for the members of the House of Representatives, they too commence the session under exceptional circumstances. They are politicians unattached. They have no constituencies. If the House were to be dissolved to-morrow merely a fraction of the members would come back. The truth is that the close of the present Parliament should also close a period of history. The speculative politics of the last twenty years are past. Every constituency has been striving and struggling to get as much out of the colony as possible for itself. It did not matter whether the expenditure was beneficial to the colony or not; it was beneficial to that particular locality. Money was to be had, honestly if possible, but at all events money. That was the form of advice from the unconscientious father to his son, but in our history the constituencies rather outdid that parent. They did not even trouble their representatives with the instruction, " honestly if possible." The only colour it was thought necessary to put oji

was, If you do not plunder the colonial ] chest, some other members will, so, i above all things, get money. During the last two sessions the field of enterprise in that direction has been much restricted, but the members are all blood-poisoned, and our only chance is in scattering them to the four winds, and having a general election with new political ideas. Coming now to the speech, there is not much in it to approve, nor much to disapprove. The Government is delighted to say that while there has been. an increase of revenue, it has been in items which show that there has been "no departure from the temperate habits of the people." This is a hit at the people of England, who last year gave the Chancellor of the Exchequer £1,800,000 of additional revenue from spirits. If there had been here a revival of prosperity, briskness of trade and commerce, abundance of well paid labour, reductions in taxation, as in England, we do not know that " the temperate habits of the people" would have come in for compliment. We are afraid that most people, looking at the statistics, will come to the conclusion that it is scarcity of money that has kept the " drink bill" down. It would be a bad thing that the amount spent on spirits should be increased, but it would be a good symptom, and as such we should not object to see it shown in New Zealand. As to what is said about the increase of settlement, that indeed is a most favourable feature of the past year, and no doubt Parliament will support any Government in a judicious expenditure to further promote occupation of the waste lands. We demur altogether- to the paragraph about the necessity for making " exceptional provision" for school buildings. Tho Boards of Education, as they have not to raise the funds they spend, but simply make demands on the colonial exchequer, compete with each as to who shall get most. We doubt very much whether there is any real necessity for making " exceptional provision" for school buildings, In this respect country settlers have been ! spoiled. Every few settlers consider j that they ought to have a school and a teacher's residence. They dun the Board, and the Board duns the Government. There should be some standard fixed upon, and as nearly as possible observed throughout the colony. We are afraid that this is a piece of popu-larity-hunting on the part of the Government, and that if an inquiry were made it would be found that the only proof they have to oiler of the j want of school buildings would be that | demands had been made from different quarters. There is no such clamant j necessity for an extra expenditure in i this way. Any absolutely necessary cases ought to bo met for a year at least out of the ordinary grants to the Boards, and they must economise in other directions. What is available of the surplus ought to be devoted to reduction of taxation. The good that would, be done by even a trilling reduction would be enormous, because it would show in what direction the Government had determined to go. To spend the surplus in school buildings when the settlers are leaving the colony owing to the excessive taxation, and when the education expenditure is extravagant at every point, is downright folly.