The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1208, 1 March 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE NEW ZEALAND AGRICULTURIST. MONDAY, MARCH 1, 1880.

The New Zealand Herald—a paper that has given almost unqualified and unremitting support to the present Government—seems to be awakening to the fact that, after all, the Government is no better than it should be, judged from its standpoint of excellence —the appropriation of fat sums for public works in the Auckland Provincial District. We, too, say that it is no better than it should be—that, in fact, it is a great deal worse. But our gauge of excellence is not the narrow one of provincial aggrandisement—it is that of an equal and just distribution of public moneys and honest administration of colonial and native lands. By this gauge the Hall Government has been tried and found wanting. The Herald says the late Government were chiefly blamed for errors of administration. So they were, and, in a great measure, justly so ; but, as the Herald hints—although, as we have already said, we do not judge of the Government by the same standard —the present are just a3 great transgressors in that respect, and, they might have added, much greater transgressors in many other respects. There i 3 no patriotism in the Colony. Each centre of population judges of the worth of a Government"by the amount of money it expends in it. The Hall Government bid for popularity by promising each centre of population a share of Government expenditure on works of a character and extent in accordance with the ideas of its people. Of course, the Government cannot be expected to keep all these promises, which were made purely with the object of securing them in their seats. All Governments are privileged to mislead Parliaments and people. But they at their peril indulge such a privilege beyond the bounds ordinarily permitted. The lavish promises of the Hall party turned the heads of some of the conductors of newspapers throughout the Colony, and a change of policy followed. There were none of those gradations in the operation which are generally observed for decency's sake. Only yesterday they had been loyal to Sir George Grey's party —to-day no name was bad enough for it, the leader having been suddenly transformed from a beneficent to a maleficent being. They have committed the indiscretion of a woman, who, listening to tales of her husband's inconstancy, poured into her ears by one who professes to be disinterested, but whose design is to step into her husband's shoes for the sake of her money, seeks and obtains a divorce and marries her faithful husband's detractor. She afterwards repents the change in sackcloth and ashes. There are evidences that these newspapers will do the same. The Herald sees its mistake, and poura forth this jeremiad :—" The late Government were chiefly blamed for errors of administration, and the new Government have obtained credit chiefly because -they show a disposition to reform in administration, but our local experience with the Minister of Public Work 3 is not by any means a happy one. All representations through the Harbor Board or members of the ! Legislature are ineffective to attract Mr. Oliver's attention for one moment to the condition of the Auckland Harbor. The City Council have now their cause of I quarrel. Some time ago it was proposed | to do something to abate the nuisance caused by the drainage flowing down i Stanley-street. This has been a matter | of complaint for years, and justly so. There i 3 a great difficulty, however, in having a proper drain made, as several bodies are concerned. It wa3 thought that delegates might be appointed by all those interested, who should agree upon | the work to be done and the respective payments to be made. As the drainage chiefly come 3 from the hospital, it was thought that the Government should be asked to appoint a delegate—and they were so requested. No notice has, however, been taken of the request. All the other bodie3 have taken the necessary step 3, but the whole matter is ' stuck' from the fault of IheGovernment." It is not to be supposed that Auckland will get everything that was promised in that famous document, the contents of which are a3 foreign to Parliament and the countiy as the North Pole. The Herald ought to have known that it would be impossible for the Government, with a revenue so lamentably reduced by a fallins off tb e income from land and railways to fulfil all the promises that were made by them when in their extremity. What would the ether portions of the Colony say to the fulfilment of promises so improper that they are not fit to be made known. We suppose that the Auckland Harbor Board and City Council were, according to the sepultured document, to have bad anything they chose to ask for, except the moon. We are with interest watching the course of political events. The new Government —the rising sun worshipped by some of our contemporaries and the people—will vet be more detested than were their predecessors, whose failings were grossly exaggerated for the purpose of gaining a point in favor of that Conservatism which no true and thoughtful colonist believes in, and of turning the tables on Sir George Grey and hi 3 followers for their attempt to carry Liberal measures.