DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, JULY 3.

Otago Witness, Issue 918, 3 July 1869, Page 13

DUNEDIN, SATURDAY, JULY 3.

¥A « Statement of . policy was made, by Mr Fox on Tuesday nighty which, is said to have been * rather coldly received ' by the House of Representatives. \ It is impossible .to suppose that the sentiments he £aye expression to were Ithe cause/of this cold reception. We have not before-usa full report, of the.deb;ate ; on, the. Want of Confidence motion, but . we have sufficient information to warrant us in saying that what Mr Fox said on this occasion was precisely what thpimajprity of the ECouae expected and wanted him to say, when, , by. its; late. vqte, 1 it put him into office. 1 Outaidejthe House' the.same inconsistency isequ^lly apparent. Of course Mr Fox's programme and explanations danot embpdy the opinipns of the majority of .thepeo-. pie, of the .southern portipn of this. Island. Nevertheless they, do, when compared with the ideas of the , late Ministry, take a large step in $iat direction, and are , almost.identical with those of the more moderate party amongst ourselves. Yet this statement (known to us as yet only through the medium of the telegraph) has certainly been received by men of all parties in Otago with the same 'coldness' as it is reported; to have met with in the Assembly. We have not to look far for .the reason of this. It is the men rather than their proposed measures who are not trusted. The colony knows something ,by experience of Mr Fox. His jvi.^ to the old world, after the complete' collapse of his last attempt at governing New Zealand, has made him) u'iftil lately, almost a stranger to the majority of the people of this province ; for it j was not till 1865 that much general interest was taken in New Zealand politics by thoße whose residence here dates only from the days, of our gold discoveries. But those in Otago who remember the days when he, last held the reins of power, have, in, common with their fellow colonists in other provinces, great hesitation in accepting this gentleman as the right man in the light place. Mr Fox followed that conglomerate of weakness the Domett-Bell Ministry. He took offioe with splendid opportunities, with an enthusiastic following, and with a cash-credit at his bankers for, comparatively, an unlimited amount. Nothing could be.more deplorable than the condition of, our affairs when his short reign came to an end. It was not all Mr Fox's fault,, bnt his name stands, too prominently forward in connection with the affairs of that day, not to reap for him a large share of the odium which attaches to all who had then any important part to play in the Government of, the Colony. Hi« antecedents then are not at all in his favour. What has he done to reclaim the suffrages of the public since his -return 1 On his arrival a number of his personal friends, in; the district where he usually resides, and a few politicans anxious for office, immediately hailed him, ( Thane of Gawdor ' — the coming man. He seems to have accepted the rdle with a vanity, worthy of Macbeth, and to have worked up to tho end in view with a pertinacity worthy of Macbeth's wife. Since his . re«entrv, upon it, the floor of the Assembly has been the arena of- an unscrupulous strife for power. Tho names of great principles may have beenvheard rosounc^ing, loudly above the din of thia battle, but the fight has-, lot , boon for them, i The ■polioy of Fox in 1863 is the policy he denounces, in 18&9. . Is" thew. any wonder that; he, is. distrusted, in,, tho House, and. far. and wide beyond its walls % Wo Anly. echo ,the. general voioft of publio opinion whon wo. say that it is deeply to be regretted that the ..ytrthrow or tho Siurroai) Ministry

*efcfle*fe# the^ecesßiqn'of '.\jT6x ''to, rpis\r pis\ fremiershib'inevitoei" r ' " : !■,' ' And what about Mr Fox's, colleagues? Up. to Jhe time at which we write| he wenis to, have/ had, much, difficulty in finding any. « A new member of ,the House, 1 whose simplicity had evidently been imposed upon by one of those jokes which, are always played j on new . boys at school, "freshmen at college, verdant Greens wherever they ;#o, new "chums before they acquire 'colonial experience,' and, equally so on new members when first they begin to haunt Bellamy's-?- wrote to one of his constituents, that :Mx Fox was to be Premier, and that the rest of the Ministry were to be elected by the members who had voted .with him on the Want of Confidence motion ! It would probably have been very well for Mr Fox if he could have made so safe an arrangement. Outof the heterogeneous « concourse of atoms' which formed the late Opposition, the selection of a stable cabinet- is a task, in the endeavour to execute which he may well demand our "pity. However, he has formed the nucleus of a Ministry. Some of the erratic, matter wandering about ithe political' JKosmos, seeking rest and (hitherto) finding none, has been attracted to him. The nucleus once being made visible, we need not despair of a tail, since there is plenty of like material floating about unappropriated. Neither a Fox, a Vogel, nor a M'Lban, will find much difficulty in accepting any colleague who will accept them. But will the House — will the country, be satisfied 1 No one pretends to doubt what the answer to this question will be. Hence the coldness and indifference with which the programme of the new Ministry has been received.