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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8533, 6 April 1891, Page 4

It is quite natural that a new Ministry, each member of which is burning with enthusiasm to place something on the Statute-book, and to reform the administration in some particulars, should have an extensive programme for their first session of Parliament. Ministers have evidently large ideas of what they will be able to achieve most of them being new to office. The Premier, however, must know that it will be quite impossible to overtake all the measures in the semi-official list which has been published. To propose to deal with a multiplicity of subjects will only be a weakness to the Ministry, for each Bill brought in will have some opponents. No Bill can go through except by the aid of public opinion, and that cannot be sufficiently aroused when it is distracted with a multiplicity of subjects. We presume that the Government are bound to deal with the subject of taxation, and to attempt to substitute a land tax for the property tax. To do that will occupy a large portion of the session. The Ministry ought certainly to attempt a reform in the administration of native lands, and that is also a difficult subject todeal with. Ministers are no doubt exceedingly anxious to reform the'LegislativeCouncil and the electoral laws, but we think they should begin by laying aside these subjects at once as beyond their strength for the present. These can stand, but it is always an evil to have the colony threatened with a change of the system of taxation. If the Ministry can next session carry out their proposed change in the taxation, get rid of the present block in regard to native lands, and provide for certain public works, they had better for their own sakes leave everything else for another year.