A GENERAL ELECTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 906, 12 July 1889, Page 23

A GENERAL ELECTION.

Judging from present appearances there is little likelihood of the Government being corn-

pelled by an adverse vote of the House this session on any vital question of policy, to appeal to the country. And it is well for the country that this is the case. A general election would have been inevitable had the opponents of the Property-tax achieved their expected triumph. The Colony cannot afford to dispense with this tax, and so Ministers, if defeated on that question, would have no alternative but to appeal. Still the necessity would have been regrettable, and it is well that there is little probability of its arising. A general election just at the present time would be purely mischievous. Sir Harry Atkinson has often been attacked for his saying of 12 years ago that “ the Colony needed political reet.” Yet that was absolutely true then as it is true now. Its truth was but too disastrously proved by the event. In place of political rest the Colony bad two years of unrest and of so-called “ Liberal ” agitation under the Grey Ministry. The consequence was that two years later Sir Harry Atkinson had to return to office to devise means for meeting a deficiency of a million which had been left as a legacy for him to deal with. In 1884 again the Stout-Vogel Ministry came in preaching the gospel of political unrest. Tfiree years passed by and a half million deficit was the outcome. The present Government in their two years of office have by careful ar.d judicious administration managed to turn that deficit into a surplus—small, it ii true, but sure. Some debt has been paid off; loan expenditure has been severely constricted; things have been placed generally on a sounder basis. At the same has been a gratifying improvement in the prices of produce and in the state of trade. If the Colony is only let alone and allowed to develop itself naturally and without artificial stimulants, it will do very well. But to turn all politics upside down just at this juncture by means of a general election would be to run the risk of checking very seriously that favourable course of development on which the country has entered. A general election year is almost always bad for trade. It disturbs everything and everybody. A necessary remedy it unquestionably is at times, as in 1887, but one that Should never be resorted to if this could be avoided. What is it hoped would be gained by a general election a.t'the present time ? Simply the removal of Sir Harry Atkinson from poweh and his replacement by Sir Robert Stout. Would this game be worth the candle ? Scarcely, we should think; The present Ministry have been taunted with having “ no policy.” Do they want a policy P Or, rather,is not theirpolicy thatof keeping the finances in the sound condition to which they have now been restored f of quietly developing the resources of the Colony and promoting the settlement of its lands ? The Colony needs no sensational policies of “ leaps-and-bounds.” What it requires is peace and rest, to enable it to work out itß own salvation, undisturbed by political agitators and crotcheteers and faddists. In fact it simply wants to be let alone, and it will take very good care of itself. A general election would most likely result in favour of the present Ministry ; but supposing, for the sake of argument, that it sent back as Premier Sir Robert Stout, who denounces as “ parsimony ” what we regard as reasonable economy, and who was the very man who by hi 3 alliance in 1884 enabled Sir Julius Vogel to begin the new career of political extravagance, the outcome of which was a deficit of .£528,000 in three years, it would hardly seem desirable to repeat

such an experience. New Zealand had much better make up its mind to plod along steadily for a year or two more without trying any rash political experiments. We cannot afford to make any fresh mistakes.