THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH.

Otago Witness, Issue 1630, 26 August 1871, Page 1

THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH.

The Governor's Speech to Parliameni appears to have been constructed with the |view of throwing into prominence whatever matters of lesser importance it was possible to touch upon, and slurring over everything as to which any public anxiety exists. This is going v step beyond the usual method of cursorily touching upon prominent topics only, and virtually saying nothing about anything. No one will feel much surprise that the Speech should have this character. Meeting a now Parliament, uncertain of their ground, and wanting the support of their chief, Ministers had need to be more than usually careful not to commit themselves to anything, and to give no hint of purposes which might raise prompt opposition. The laboured gathering together of so many topics into so short a compass betrays, however, more trepidation than we gave Ministers credit for, and is one of the surest signs of conscious weakness. It is but the volubility so common with weak people when they find themselves forced to face persons whom they know to be about to say some disagreeable things to them. Not a word is to be found, from one end of the Speech to the other, indicating what measures Parliament will be asked to consider in developments of the so-called colonising policy. Perhaps we ought to admit an exception to this in the case of the title of one of the Bills announced, viz., that for ' Providing Land for the Settlement of Immigrants. 1 Under ordinary circumstances we might have looked for some reference to the fact that this Bill would be laid before Parliament in connection with such remarks as are vestured upon in regard to the policy" with which- it is connected. Instead, Aye find it slipped in near the end of a long list of promised Bills, a majority of which are of second-rate importance. Ministers are evidently waiting to take the sense of the House before they commit themselves upon any of those points of public policy in regard to which the country is anxious or agitated. The name of this Bill is, however, ominous. Following upon the requisition lately made upon the provinces for the handing over to the General Government of Reserves on which immigrants may be settled, itis evidently intended to be the thin end of a great wedge. It is the only exception to what we have stated — there is nothing else in the Speech which gives the slightest; indication either as to the figure at which the Government estimates the success of its policy, the attitude it will assume towards those who oppose that policy, or the development which it is intended to seek for it during the coming year. Very similarly is the question of finance treated. The Governor had nothing new to tell the country when he announced that the ordinary revenue had fallen greatly below the estimate formed of it last year. The fact that this is not the only colony in which the Customs revenue has fallen off is carefully brought into prominence, and much is made of the commercial depression which is alleged to be the cause of this untoward circumstances. We are then informed that the rise in the price of our great staples of export, the rapid growth of local industries, and the progress of immigration and public Avorks, justify the belief that the depression is exceptional. Wo do not quite see the logical connection between the belief and those things which are put forward as its j\istitications. We believe, also, that the causes of the fail 111*6 in the revenue are more deep-seated and more various than Ministers profess to believe them to be. Our tariff is in itself an oppression to those branches pf commerce which it a&ects, and upon which the taxation ip ,

levied. Very so\md is the advice to honourable members of the House of Representatives that they should adopt measures for 'eqvializmgthe revenue and the expenditure.' It is high time this thing were at least talked about. Year after year the colony has been spending more than its income, and such a state of things cannot go 011 for an indefinite time. No one,, however, expects the present Government to face the difficulty. That is a task which, however long the reigns of power may be left in their hands, they will carefully leave as a legacy to their successors in office. On the present occasion they do not even profess to have prepared a measure which will deal with the subject. We do not complain that they have not put forward a policy in the Governor's speech — that, no one had any right to expect. But to slur the matter over with a hint that it rests with the House ' to adopt measures for equalising the revenue and the expenditure,' whilst matters of trivial importance are dilated upon at length, is something worse than weak. So, again, with Native affairs. A line about our relations with the Native race, and a whole paragraph 011 the death of a Native chief. If the statement that our relations with the Natives continue to improve has any solid foundation, there could have been no more fitting opportunity of blazing forth to the world the facts on which it rests. Its troubles with the Native race are New Zealand's weak point in its competitive race with other colonies. If we can venture to assure the world that these troubles are really dying out, His Excellency's Speech was precisely that public document in which the attempt should have been made. If this extreme reticence aboiit Native affairs has any meaning, it must lie that the Government has no faith in the results of its own policy, and that it views the present state of things with the same suspicion and distrust as its politiqal opponents do. But it is hardly in the nature of our present Ministers to distrust themselves, or to have misgivings about the propriety or prudence of anything they may do. So we can only believe that the Native Question is slurred over, like everything else of importance, through an anxious desire to exclude from the Speech anything that will raise a debate or provoke open opposition before the pulse of the Hoxtse has been felt.