The Otago Witness. THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 1891, 1 May 1890, Page 20

The Otago Witness.

THE WEEK.

WITH WHICH IS INCOBPOBATBD THE 80WHJTBN MBBCTJBY. IHVSSDAF, MAY 1, 1890.

" Nunquim iliud natnra,"allud ssplentia dixH/'— ■Juvimi. "Good nature and good lenie muit over Jold. m ."Pom.

Mr Hislop has made a distinct advance in his status as a politician by omcini the admirably clear, effective, uetciwot. and modest speech he has just delivered to his constituents. He had a somewhat difficult task in following Sir Robert Stout, who had done his best, under the pretence of taking Mr Hislop's part against his colleagues, to hold the member for Oamam up to ridicule among' his constituents. Sir Robert drew a dismal picture of Mr Hislop wandering abont the lonely lobbies waiting to be sent for, while the Ministers were sitting comfortably round the Cabinet room fire and en joying the sensation of keeping him in suspense. Of course this picture was drawn ostensibly to express indignation against the members of the Ministry, but its real object was too obviously that indicated by our contributor " Civis " in a Passing Note upon the occurrence; nor did the truth, ingeniously as it was veiled, altogether escape the notice of the audience itself, whioh, as " Civis " remarked, " was English, and the 'defence' was overdone." However, it all turns out to be the merest moonshine; Mr Hislop was received with the utmost cordiality by his colleagues, and was practically made Minister of Education on the very day of his arrival in Wellington. A rather grave remark wasmadebyMrHislopupon SirEobert Stout's statement (as reported) that the member for Oamaru had been consulted by Sir Robert before tbe latter decided to speak in that town. Mr Hislop declares that the advertisement oJE Sir Robert's speech vms out 36 hours before the ex-Premier spoke to him on the matter, and mildly concludes that Sir Robert "mast have been misieported." These personal matters being disposed of with commendable temper and dignity, Mr Hislop proceeded to refer to the land, and

finance acHevements of Sir Robert Stout and Sir Juius Vogel when in combination together, snd traced with much , effectiveness the listory of the Midland Railway Syndicate, from the impudent and extravagant Meigg's proposals so desperately fought for by the " Railway Party " which alone kept the Stout- Vogel Government in office, down to the time when the matter was taken over in aa advanced stage by the present Ministry with the almost unanimous concurrence of the Opposition. He also traced the enormous financial deficits of the late Government, and showed that they occurred in spite of the seizure of over £100,000 of the Sinking Fund, and of the placing of large items of expenditure upon loan which could only legitimately be charged to the ordinary account. His defence of Mr Richardson's land administration will well repay comparison with Sirß. Stout's fascinating and frothy generalities, which, however they may aid in the political exigencies of the moment, fall to pieces when examined either in the light of practical common sense, or in that of a conscientious comparison with the speaker's past professions and his actual use of past opportunities while holding the office of Minister of Lands. We believe that the Richardson policy of allowing the settler to name his own form of tenure of all sections surveyed and opened for agricultural settlement; is abundantly vindicated by the figures with regard to classes of settlement given by Mr Hislop; and there can be no question that among the settlers themselves it is the most popular system ever devised. Sir Robert Stout's denunciations of that, of the ballot, of the reduction and re-valuation system, and of the extension of time to deferred payment selectors may excite applause from a town audience; but in the country, at least where the struggles of small settlers during so many hard years are well known, few would venture to raise a cheer for it.

We daresay there are a good many of our readers who do not think Onr much of Mr George Fisher. Amnteur The circumstances under Trcniurer. which he left the Atkinson Government were not exactly such as to entitle him to a martyr's crown, and the remarkable political conversion which he underwent immediately upon the cessation of his official life was just a little too abrupt and complete to place his sincerity beyond question. But Mr Fisher has always been a useful member, capable (though a trifle bumptious) in debate, caustic in attack, and cautious in defence, and with an undeniable head for figures. Moreover, he is a politician who, as the Americans say, has "come to stay." It is understood that he will certainly be one of the Wellington members in the next Parliament, and he is consequently the better worth attention now. Let no one therefore be prevented by a perhaps natural bias against Mr Fisher from bestowing attention upon his criticisms of Atkinsonian finance as presented to the readers of the Daily Times in a recent issue. Treasurers, it must be remembered, count upon the general detestation of figures and aocounts as one of the surest means of getting their own way. With that odd habit of arriving automatically at odd conclusions which distinguishes the British public, they will take figures from a treasurer without thinking any the worse of him, but they cherish a grudge against anyone else who attempts, however modestly, to dose them with the same article. The public, in fact, likes its figures, as it likes its religious dogmas, from an authorised source. People who will sit humbly for hours listening to the most deplorable twaddle from a duly certificated theological graduate will nevertheless resent the smallest attempt at wholesome practical advice from a person in a tweed coat and a variegated necktie. Now, Sir Harry Atkinson is not in the least the kind of Treasurer who can safely be left to manipulate the colonial finance without being controlled by capable criticism ; and if we all unite in saying " Oh, bother George Fisher," when we come across two columns of distressing statistics in oar daily paper with that gentleman's signature appended, we cannot expect that the country will receive the assistance in these matters from politicians generally which is^ undoubtedly a distinct necessity of tbe times. We ought, on the contrary, to accord an encouraging welcome, not only to Mr Fisher but to every other public man, whether in office or out of it, who will put the official Treasury figures in an intelligible light before the country, and give an honest, capable •opinion ac to what they really indicate with regard to the country's condition.

We congratulate the Anglican community on the satisfactory settlement The m»hop»' o f the difficulty which has Mo»ci. b een agitating their church. We also congratulate the venerable Primate on his re-election to the office he temporarily vacated ; and, lastly, we congratulate Bishop Suter on the dignified and unexceptionable attitude taken up by him at the election. Tbe large attendance of the general public at the meeting of the Synod showed that considerable interest in the proceedings was felt, and it would have taken but a very slight deviation on Bishop Suter's part from the path of duty and good temper to lead to a regrettable scene. There is room for a difference of opinion as to the appropriateness of some of his remarks in his official address to the Primate, in which he defined what, in his opinion, was " the best reason for congratulating you [Bishop Hadfield] on your accession to that office :" but it is clear that the general tendency of the conduct of the proceedings by the Bishop of Nelson, including the address in question, was highly creditable to that prelate. It is not everyone who, being called upon to formally abdicate a high office which he had done his best to obtain, and actually had obtained for a brief space, could in the moment of his disappointment address to his successful rival words of friendly and appreciative wel3ome. Nothing in Bishop Suter's short career is Primate became him like the leaving of it. Cheremovalof theobstacles to the installation >f Bishop Julius is also a desirable result of he recent Synod meeting. The speech of he Primate himself was of no general aterest, dealing as it did almost entirely

with questions of church government which concern nobody but the Anglicans alone, and probably not many even of them ; and for the rest considerable ingenuity seems to have been shown by the Synod in promptly extinguishing every member who wanted to raise a discussion on any subject whatever outside those which they had chiefly assembled to decide. The result was a short, business-like, satisfactory session, in which (borrowing a phrase from the head line of this column) we may fairly declare that " good-nature and good sense were joined " from first to last. It resembled, in fact, a friendly little round game more than an arbitrament of the champions ; in harmony with which pleasant idea we have borrowed a title for this paragraph from our Chess Editor, to whom the moves of bishops are quite an everyday circumstance, and who tells us that bishops of " opposite sign " never do collide, however much they may skirmish round each other, unless they are actually " off the square."

The prospect of exchanging correspondence with Great Britain at the Twopence ra t e o f «j£d per half ounce is Halfpenny. a very fascinating one ; and although the Post Office is doing no more than its duty in setting to work to let the people know exactly what the proposal means from a revenue point of view, still we must not let the Poßt Office have things all its own way. In other words, we must not let questions of revenue (even assuming the Post Office prognostications to be reasonably correct) be the sole deciding element in the settlement of the matter. The colonies, it would appear, have been as astutely "dished" by the Imperial Chancellor of the Exchequer as ever was any Whig by the most cunning Tory Premier. Mr Goschen has for the last two or three years been "pestered" by Mr Henniker Heaton about postal reform in much the same way as Mr Roberts says he was pestered by Mr Harris Hastings about the Exhibition. The phrase, by the way, is a little hard upon those agitators ; but the extraordinary redundancy of aspirates about their names must have accustomed them to being a stumbling block to some of their friends in certain particnlars, their " united H's " summing up to something fabulous. Besides, they both have the consolations of success, and of the applause of their less go-ahead contemporaries, who readily recognise that to pester into existence an Intercolonial Exhibition or international cheap postage is a happy and honourable development of the art of buttonholing. Mr Goschen, then, having suffered for a couple of years under the persistent prods of his tormentor, and having noticed that so long as the discussion was only theoretical the latter received considerable support from the colonies in his advocacy of cheap postage, has conceived the clever notion of suddenly granting a very large measure of the much sought reform — a step which, under the reciprocal system of postal arrangements,' brings the colonies face to face with the necessity of either doing likewise or begging the Chancellor of the Exchequer to withdraw his generous but costly benefaction altogether. Most likely Mr Goschen is now enjoying the effect of his little joke ; for the Agents-general of all the colonies are wildly cabling to their respective chiefs to know what they are to do with the gift which the Chancellor's magnanimity has already proffered, reminding one of nothing so much as of the man who was generously presented with a white elephant, coupled with the information that a few bags of potatoes and a couple of haystacks per diem, would under all ordinary circumstances suffice for the animal's maintenance. Moreover, all the secretaries to all the colonial post offices have got their slates to work and arebusy figuring out the most appalling results in the way of reduced revenues and increased difficulties!; andasfor the Postmasters-general themselves, there is probablynot one of them who does not wish Mr Goschen and his " two penny-halfpenny " policy anywhere.

Nevertheless, although a reduction of postage to so material an extent tiio Fiy i 8i 8 quite likely to make a conon siderable difference on the tho wh«ci. wrong side to the postal revenue, we trust the question will be considered by all the colonial Parliaments in a spirit devoid of that narrowness which so long crushed and nullified the farseeing wisdom of Rowland Hill. Cheap intercommunication, it should be remembered, is an ever advancing product of civilisation, and as each advance is made it becomes itself a most active agent in the securing of progress. The most patient attention should be given to all available facts bearing on the question, and an anxious endeavour made to frankly meet and accept Mr Goschen's liberal proposal if our circumstances do not positively forbid the possibility. We do not in the least intend to say that because the proposal is a liberal one it should therefore be accepted, or that those who will ultimately advocate its acceptance must necessarily be in the right, and those who think it imprudent or inexpedient in the wrong. But what we do feel is that any politician, and especially any Minister, who urges the refusal of an offer from the central bureau of our national commerce to cheapen our means of intercommunication must either be prepared with reasons of a weighty and convincing kind or stand condemned as an enemy to national progress. We should very much like to hear of somebody who would undertake the role of " pestering " Sir Harry Atkinson on this important subject. Mr Cecil Raikes, the British Post-master-general, repudiates with a decidedly unpleasant sneer — judging from his speech at Liverpool as just reported by cable — the idea that Mr Henniker Heaton has had anything to do with his colleague's announcement of a policy of reduced ocean postage. With all apologies to Mr Raikes, we decidedly differ with him. He is modest enough to compare himself to a wheel, and Mr Heaton to the fly thereon ; but he forgets that it was only when Mr Goschen took charge of the coach that the wheel was dragged out of its old groove, a result with which its own exertions had as little to do as the fly could possibly have had. Apart from this, however, everyone with common sense and common fairness will credit Mr Heaton with a large share of the result. Have we a good " pesterer " in our Parliament who will follow suit ? If not, now that the Exhibition

is over, could not Mr Harris Hastings be induced to give lessons ?

The Customs revenue returns for March show an increase on the Returning corresponding quarter of Fro»pority. ] ag t year to the amount of £31,000, which is the first indication we have had for some time past of increased activity in the import market. It may be partly due to the increased demand caused by travellers to the Exhibition, but can hardly be wholly so. The chief item of increase is not quite a satisfactory one— viz., £19,000 on spirits,— but sugar and tea show increases of £6500 in nearly equal proportions, and ad valorem goods of £10,000; while there is a decrease on " other duties not specified " of £4300, and of £1000 on goods by weight. The primage duty is very slightly under that collected for the corresponding quarter, which would indicate that there was no increase in the total of imports, though there were larger clearances under the abovenamed heads. Dunedin stands high in the list for the year ending 31st" March, the amount of our contribution to the revenue being £387,514 against £1,500,650 for the whole colony, or more than one-fourth; while Oamaru and Invercargill contributed between them other £50,000. This provincial district is therefore holding its own against other parts of the colony. Auckland comes next with £316,403, Lyttelton with £261,675, and for Timaru £17,859, and Wellington with £273,855, and for Wanganui £17,116. Dunedin has of course benefited more than other places — indeed at the expense, to some extent, of other places — by the Exhibition demand, and we can hardly hope to occupy so good a place next quarter. There can be little doubt that through the Customs and Railways the Treasury has benefited to a much larger extent than the amount of the grant generously but wisely given to the Exhibition fund. There is good ground for hope that, apart altogether from the exceptional cause ta which we have referred, the revenue will keep up fairly well throughout the year, but there are no signs of a rapid increase. The gold returns for the quarter are on the whole satisfactory, taking into account the exceptional scarcity of water both in Otago and on the West Coast. The total export amounts to £234,502, against £239,877 for the same quarter of last year. Of this the West Coast contributes £89,569, and Otago and Southland £87,484; Auckland comes next with £37,533, and Marlborough with £14,953. The dredging and hydraulic schemes now in process of development have not yet had time to tell largely on the returns, as, with few exceptions, the machinery is not at work on the claims, and a certain number of miners have been withdrawn from their regular pursuits to initiate these new modes of working. Before the year is out, however, a number of claims will be in full work, and from the prospects obtained and the success of one or two companies which have already got to work, we may anticipate a large increase in production. It is, however, evident that more capital will be required than is at present available to start many enterprises just as promising as those which have been already floated, and it will be a matter for serious consideration how this capital can be best obtained. Both in Otago and on the West Coast there is room for a large number of dredges, and for hydraulic operations on a large scale with good prospects of success, but it must take time to float these successfully, and no doubt the public will prefer to see several of these schemes now before them in successful operation before putting their hands further into their pockets.