HANSARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 879, 3 October 1868, Page 2

HANSARD.

"*A review of the Session now drawing to /its close is not calculated to yield much satisfaction to an impartial observer. Ten or twelve numbers of Hansard, it is ' true, may be pointed to as its fruits ; and •possibly there are some who may be satisfied' with that result. There has .been no want of energy on the part of our representatives. They have -talked abundantly.' Every one of , them, we suppose, -may point triumph,",ahtly to Hansard as the faithful •^record of his labours, Column after - column, page after page, will remain for never as undying testimonies to the elo- . qiience and the wisdom that have been exerted on.our behalf. And yet we fear that the country, as a whole, will not be • satisfied. The . long speeches, the sensa--tional telegrams, the startling para'l graphs, have awakened no grateful or endearing associations. The hard headed and too practical public will ask, what are we the -better for all this Hansard? What does .it represent, beyond the fifty pounds an ,- hour which these speeches cost us ? We have had one long debate spun out from week to week, followed by another" long debate also span out from week to week. 'Dozens of speeches have been made for the purpose of ascertaining the Government's polioy ; and dozens of speeches have been made for the purpose of evading the question. In the midst of this endless discussion our ears are filled with rumours of war and of war's desolation. Blood is spilt, money thrown away, cultivation checked, discredit heaped upon us ; our revenue is falling off, our taxation threatening to increase; difficulties crowding in upon us, and dark forebodings harro wring the mind with a sense of coming disasters. We admit the eloquence of our representatives. We have read their speeches with attention— studied their statistics—applauded their perorations — chuckled at their jokes ; but we cannot accept a dozen numbers of Hansard as proof that they have satisfactorily discharged their duties, j A remark made by Mr Macandebw in the speech we published yesterday would do credit to the greatest of living statesmen. Whether His Honour will in future be' ranked among the great luminaries of political science, we do not know ; but had the passage we allude to been uttered by a Bismarck or a Palmerston, it would have called forth the admiration of his bitterest critics. 'The curse of the colony,' said Mr Macandbew, ( whether as regarded the interests of the European or the Native race, .was too much statesmanship — so called. What was wanted was rest— political, legislative rest ; and ff he could see a Government on those benches which would be content to do jjothing for the next three years, he would willingly vote them supplies for ihat peridii if they would only give us breathing time, so that the energies and the resources which were now being wasted in Native policies and in playing at Parliament, might be devoted to the real work of colonising these islands. 1 Some such reflection must force itself upon the mind of every true colonist who notes the political events of the day ; and now that it has been put in terse and unmistakeable language by a leading politician, its truth will commend it to the common sense of the public, For two or three months past, the eyes of the colony have been fixed on the political arena at Wellington, as if from that centre must issue every ray of light in our present darkness. The disappointment has been- universal. Little or nothing has been done on which the country cap. congratulate itself; a series of feption. fights fras taken js&ce, with

varying; fortune :on Either aide j- but the great work- of colonisation— r-&e work j ■which we are all' here tp f>erform: — Mas; not been advanced a single stage,. A contrast—a^ antagonism — seems <to have sprung up between these two tßing%-our colonisation and our politics ; an opening has been, made for the, conviction- that politics and progress are inconsistent ; and should the experience of future years resemble the experience of the present, policies may acquire a bad. odour in the nostrils of good colonists. If the colony is cursed, it is cursed by its politics ; in this respect it shares the fate of its sister settlements. Of no colony can it be said that' its legislation has been wisely adapted to advance its material progress ; while the progress of that legislation — bad as it is — has been marked by the most humiliating scenes. The price which a colony may be called upon to pay for its political pleasures has been painfully demonstrated in the case of Victoria ; but the evil may fall far short of the sufferings endured by Victorians, and. yet prove disastrous to a younger and less developed country. Our Legislative Council is haunted by a fear of deadlocks, and has striven to guard against that contingency by limiting its numbers : but are deadlocks .the only mischief that politics engender ? An open rupture must be a great calamity ; but even that may not be wcrse than the misdirection of our energies^ the wasteful expenditure of our treasures, the retarded development of our resources, the withering commerce of our poris. "We have witnessed a bitter struggle between the two leading parties of the colony — a struggle in which our destinies as a people are said to be involved ; but who can resist a suspicion that the destinies of the people are mere euphe- 1 misms, and that the issue of the struggle affects nothing so much as the personal interests of the combatants ?