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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 856, 6 August 1879, Page 2

One or the weakest methods of siipporting an attack upon an existing Government, during a commercial crisis, is to lay the cause at the doors of Ministers. Nothing can be more peurile or unfair. The charge is one easilyjmade, and oftentimes difficult to refute. If money is tight ; if Government debentures have depreciated in value ; if the progress of public works is impeded for want of funds, Ministers are blamed. It is true that such a state of affairs may be fairly chargeable against the Government ; but, on the other hand, it is a misfortune which may have been inevitable under an excellent and careful administration ; or, again, it may have been brought about partly by incompetent administration, and partly by causes for which Ministers must not be held responsible. Much gratifying support is, as a rule, accorded to the politician, who, in the midst of a financial squeeze, is the first to borrow this somewhat old-fashioned artillery from the last who used it, and bring it to bear upon the Government position. "We have been accusiomed to take some credit to oui'selves in that we have abstained, through all our systematic disapproval of the Grey Government, from making use of weapons of this kind, except where it was most clearly apparent that they would be legitimate, appropriate, and effective. The country has now arrived, however, at that critical point in financial matters which, occuring as it does at the very culmination of a general commercial crisis, is probably more than ever before in our history, resolvable for weal or woe according to nothing more or less than capable or incapable administration. It will therefore depend largely upon the correct financial guidance of the Colony, during the present and commercial crisis, wnether the country passes with triumph or with • disaster thi'ough the monetary difficulties which at present undoubtedly surround us ; and in proportion as this is so, the result will the less depend upon the ordinary outside controlling causes of commercial affairs. It therefore behoves the public to resist at such a critical time in a special degree its natural l-eluctance to bestow a keen and painstaking attention upon the details of financial administi-ation ; and it becomes the duty of the leaders of public opinion to strive more than ever to overcome the natural distaste of people in general to the dry details of the ptiblic accounts, and to force upon public attention, by the insistence born of close and conscientious examination, the true gist of the measures their representatives have before them. In the face of such heavy additional taxation with which the colony is threatened, the question of financial control is far above all other present questions for the tax-payers of the colony to deal with.