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New Zealand Mail, Issue 246, 5 August 1876, Page 12

Sir George Grey and Mr. Mac Andrew have started organising what the former will presently term a magnificent display of spontaneous public opinion. "East and West and North, and South" their messages on Wednesday "flew fast, "and by this time " many a town and market place " will have heard "their bugle's blast." With the able clerical assistance of Mr. John Sheehan and Mr. Stout, telegraphic messages were on Wednesday sent to every part of Auckland and Otago, instructing the faithful followers of the Superintendents to call public meetings, at which the great separation resolutions are to be affirmed by tremendous majorities. The instructions, we believe, are concise and comprehensive. Wherever there is any population, of course there will be a meeting, but the want of population is by no means to be permitted to hinder the good cause. A meeting is to be called under any circumstances, the necessary resolutions are to be declared carried, and a telegram is to be forwarded in which the sender will be at full liberty to draw on his imagination for the numbers of those present and the enthusiasm displayed. It is easy now to understand why the leaders of the Opposition were so anxious to secure delay before commencing the debate on the separation resolutions. They showed plainly on Tuesday night that a delay of a week would have been most acceptable, and it was only the unmistakeable expression of opinion of the majority of the House that compelled them to accept with an ill grace a delay of two days. Time was required for the pulling of their political strings and for the expected puppet performances. During the course of the debate which commenced on Thursday we shall be favored every now and again with telegraphic intelligence showing how the present generation has the same confidence in Sir George Grey that he himself assures us posterity reposes in him by anticipation. Unfortunately the House will take all this for what it is worth. There is no doubt but that the whole colony, with the exception of a certain number of prejudiced people in Auckland and Otago, is against separation, and it would not at all surprise us to find counter meetings to those of Sir George and Mr. Macandrew proving this. Not that such a course is necessary and desirable. If Parliament cannot carry on its deliberations and arrive at conclusions without public meetings to dictate to it, the sooner it ceases to be a portion of our governmental machinery the better. Public meetings are quite right and proper in their way ; they are a portion indeed of that free expression of public opinion which forms the true political and social safeguard of English speaking communities. But a Parliamentary representative is not a mere delegate, and. the true guide for his conduct in the Senate is to be found in an adherence to the principles he professed at the time of his election, and for the profession of which he received the confidence of a majority of his constituents. And we make no question but that Sir George Grey, under some circumstances, would be inclined to express in good round rhodomontade the plain opinions we have put forward, and further, to point out that the expressions of public meetings were not deserving of regard. But this is a length to which we would not go. It would not at all affect the position we take up, if meetings throughout the whole of Auckland and Otago were to express disapproval of Sir George Grey's and Mr. Macandrew's most lately hatched policy. The principle would remain exactly the same, and it is for this reason that we venture to suggest to those gentlemen that the strenuous exertions they are now making in the way of preparing cut-and-dried expressions of public opinion, are perfectly

superfluous and unnecessary, and will have no weight with the majority of the House. However, if the two Superintendents are anxious for public meetings, we would draw their attention to the fact that by an ingenious method it would be possible for them to procure public meetings in their favor all over the colony. A public meeting in any place other than those which they now control, would readily affirm "Thattheunity of the colony should be maintained," and would also endorse the opinion that l ' the seat of the Colonial Government should remain as at present at Wellington." Let them have public meetings in those places which are against separation, and which form the bulk of the colony, and at these meetings put only the portions of their resolutions that we have quoted. A ratification would follow as a matter of course, and the result would be telegraphed in as glowing a manner as possible. That result would be quite as useful for their purposes as anything that will come of their present plans for procuring "an expression of public opinion."