The Southland Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1875.

Southland Times, Issue 2244, 24 December 1875, Page 2

The Southland Times. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1875.

A. FEW meetings like that in the Theatre on Wednesday, and a few speeches like Mr Cuthbertson's— and the Provincial ranks would undergo considerable thinning. All that is necessary to make Abolition triumphant is to exhibit its true character, and this service Mr Cuthbertson performed for it- Nothing is easier than to strip Provincialism of the pretences under which it has been thriving, and to show that its claims aart symbols properly belong to its rival. The people have been trepanned into the belief that popular privilege and the Provincial system are inseparable, and that Abolition involved somehow a dark conspiracy against their liberties. Nothiog could be further from the truth, and a contradiction is to be found in every line of the Abolition measure. The A bolition Act might be described as the full and secure endowment of e\ery district of the colony, and the guarantee and extension ot the administrative rights of the people. Provincialism, on the other hand, is arbitrary and despotic centralismuncertain and fickle in its operation, and, as experience has proved to this community, an utterly unsafe instrument to provide for the necessities ol Government. These are the comparative merits of the systems. But the day for practical comparison is past. For the establishment once again of Provincial machinery, the decision of Invercargill would not have the weight of a feather. Let the electors look past this idea as a chimera, and let them not spend their strength for naught. There is this problem before the people — how to make their influence felt in the New Parliament. Will they send up Mr Lumsden to plead for a hopeless causa-rto damage their position with the Grovernmeni;

by a futile and querulous opposition ? Moreover will they put power in tht> hands of one who has used his previous influence to thwart aud defy them, and to carry out his own whims and fancies of administration ? He has chastised them with whips — will they give him the opportunity of ch.ist isinq; them with scorpions ? VV T e trust that no such calamity is in store for Invercargill or Southland as the return of Mr Lumsden to the House of Representatives. As it was well put the other evening, let the constituency show that there is such a tiling us political gratitude. Let them vindicate their intelligence in the eyes of the Colony by returning again a man whose power of thought and speech have already j^iven weight to the claims, not of Invercargill only, but of the district of Southland. Mr Cuthbertson will carry to Wellington the prestige of past houors and past services. He st.inds well with those •who can forward or retard our interests Who will be true to us, if we cannot be true to ourselves? We speak for Mr Outhbertson, not in the spirit of partisans, but because we have the honest conviction that, better than his rival, he will advauce the true good of the colony and the interests of the district to which wo belong. We oppose Mr Lumsden, because we dread his policy, and believe that his influence in Parliament would be against good government, and judging from the past, disastrous to this community. Let the electors make the return of Mr Cuthbertson sure, and put in safe keeping their own interests and the constitutional well-being of the colony.