THIS DAY'S MEETING.

Colonist, Issue 75, 9 July 1858, Page 2

THIS DAY'S MEETING.

We have been favored with the subjoined circular, issued on July 7th, purporting to be an address to the " Residents of the Province," requesting them to meet at the Wakatu hotel, on Friday (This Day) :-

Sir, —A Preliminary Meeting of the Residents of the Province will be held at the Wakatu Hotel, on Friday next, at half-past Two precisely, to consider the steps which should be taken consequent upon the refusal'of the Executive to grant Leases to work the gold-fielda of the province. Your attendance is requested.

Unfortunately for New Zealand, she has neither the Electric Telegraph of Europe, nor the Gaelic Cross of Roderick Dhu. The one might flash the news-to the Wairau, and give an energetic settler time to make his appearance booted and spurred : the other might gather from the hills and plains around a decent muster. We can hardly expect that the feelings of " the Province "■ will be adequately represented by a meeting which must of necessity be made of town's people. That there may be a meaning or a use in so short an announcement is just possible,, and the interest of one peculiar class may be represented with voluble energy amongst a party happily selected all of one mind. We look forward to see an account of unanimous applause and general complimenting each to other, as it may be their turn to speak.

We cannot help observing -that the opinion of the " Residents of the Province " is requested to be taken at an hour of the day when two thirds, and we speak within bounds, of the " Residents of the Province " cannot attend. It would well become the good farmer, the industrious shopkeeper, or the laboring man with a large family dependant upon his exertions, to leave their employments at such an hour. That there are some few whose business could make it worth their while to attend such a meeting, no doubt. But before the meeting is held we unhesitatingly tell those who assemble, that if they, want a true opinion on the matter, they must seek for a more numerous assembly than can be produced in a business town during business hours, and unbacked by the representatives of that very agricultural and pastoral district from whose hard work their light work derives its profit. In the name of all Justice, let the proceeding be bruited about to the four winds of heaven. Let there be no close packed meeting assuming to themselves to represent the opinions of men they securely prevent from attending. If the meeting is to express the sense of the Province, let the Province know of it, and give all a chance of hearing and speaking.

" Men may be mad for opinions," says CroliY, " but they are never mad for facts." Whatever truth there may be in this apporism, it is singular enough, that the acerbity of party, the fierce onslaughts of sects, the crusades of all kinds of ruffianism, the inexpiable crimes of heretical dissent, the ever-renewing strifes and eternal quarrels of mankind, are nearly always occasioned by trifles. Merest vagaries, dressed off in inflated metaphysical crinolines, have been swollen into such importance as to become the pretexts of mighty wars. It is not improbable that the real cause of the Crimean sacrifice, directly and indirectly, of some

half a million of lives, was a vague Western dread of the influence of some fanatical Russian raving, in years gone by, about the Head of the Greek Church, dictating to the world, as of old, from the supreme apostolical chair of Constantinople, the New Rome; and a figment about Tincleanness, the wonderful defilement of pig's grease, has been avowed all along as the reason of our present terrible Indian butcheries. It is needless to dwell on illustrations of this kind; for any one can see how easily they might be multiplied. But we may as well say in passing, that they are impressively admonitory, and teach the serious moral of. the utmost caution in what most common sense would esteem as trivial or unimportant; but which a deeper philosophy, comparing results with results, will ever treat with deference. Nothing can be truly regarded as insignificant which involves the fate of armies, the peace of society, or the issues of destiny. Were it not for their awful consequences, we might laugh, laugh with exhilirating explosions of mirth, at the stir which men rouse up on the silliest occasions. Auguries from the whimsical flight of birds, or the nervous action of the entrails of sacrificial victims are sublime prognostics from palpable manifestations, when compared with the vanities of men's secret notions, —things at length sublimed into opinions—or things like other things for which many an inexorable persecution has raged, and the piles of a thousand martyrdoms have burnt. "Facts are stubborn." They are obvious, demonstrable, certain; men are not so absurd as to turn their brains about them, or break their heads against them, as sanguine opinionists do against the blocks adorned by their spidery beauties. They are public coin when once circulated; and may be the property of any one. With opinions it is otherwise; they are part of ourselves. We may type their image and' superscription for mien to receive, circulate, and, if they be so foolish, worship also; but the original stereotypes are hid, under dust and cobwebs of still more worthless reflections, probably in some -darkish upper storey, where what is called learning lies coffined in attic lumber, without the solemnity of burial. There we can keep them if we like, where no one can find them, high and dry, under sacred cover of nature's mud-work, like the golden plates of Moroni himself. There we may hoard them, and dream about them, and, like myriads o^ others, wax mad about them, and then fight about them, and, if we be very clever maniacs, get half the world to-fight about them likewise. Now, be it duly known, as known verily it must be, that when men begin to squabble, and bite with their sayings, and scratch prettily with the fingers of their invectives, and multiply themselves as it were into a crowd, or a mob, generously paticipating in their excitement, or, what is nearly the same thing, get the half-read scribes of a colony, State, nation, —or more still, a noisy, time-serving Times newspaper to join in or head the affray— gracious stars!—then, be it the majority or minority of men of sense and genuine information or not, it is styled public opinion. That is to say, the public somehow have been bit, and the hydrophobia of the mental saliva —the virus of opinion, is diffused abroad. Ordinarily, public opinion as received and current amongst the masses of our species, is not the deliberate thought or reflection of reasoning minds, but the extemporaneous readings, or hurried newsy snatches of thought, swallowed as some greedy timists do their meals, standing, leaving poor intellectual digestion to ■make the best of its bile and gastric ability at leisure, or no leisure, as business may allow. In fact, when we more nicely examine, we shall find that most opinions, and what are bruited for public, opinions too, are no real, quiet, cogitations, the offspring of mind, featured with earnest contemplation and careful judgment, but the wayside foundlings of passion and folly, notions cast forth by others for passing interest or charity to adopt. We. speak here of general opinion in tolerably easy periods, when no great oppression or public overt act compels men to think for themselves. No one has greater respect for the workday mind of the world than ourselves; but it is mostly so occupied with private affairs as to preclude the I opportunities indispensable for producing such congregated or numerous expressions of intellect as the phrase, public opinion, supposes. Established vulgar rights,.common usages, and popular morals are ordinary standards of thought and appeal; and so long as writers, teachers, judges and rulers conform to these, public opinion silently accords in their sayings and doings : violate these glaringly, and then the ■" voice of many waters,''

—" public opinion," will thunder along its coasts, in a manner not to be mistaken. Meanwhile, as every gentleman of European education and travel will readily admit, much that is termed " public opinion" has no title whatever to that august expression. The veriest common place, the poorest trash of public prints, or the reiterated nonsense of faction, or local small talk, is made to bear that imposing style. The meaningless simplicity of silliness, in many a pert oaf, who never in his life studied a single valuable author, is frequently palmed. off as the great idea, the opinion of a whole people; the drivel of a driveller who wants vision to see beyond the scrawling of his creeping and slimy fancies,—such 13 the stuff,; according to some, that a nation's understanding generates and spawns forth! And the stupid breeders of such animated dregs imagine, to be sure they do, that their wretched effusions of feculent ignorance must be the produce of national thinking—"public opinion!" In this way, as a phrenologist would say, do simpletons, with large veneration and self-esteem, wanting in causality, comparison, and individuality, magnify themselves into greatness, and like one of the Hindoo gods, become a many-shaped everybody, or a personated pantheon. They and public opinion are the same! Hear them, —all Greece is vocal in their Delphic utterance, and all Olympus also. The oracular manner of editorial plurality is infinitely more absurd than any trickery practiced by the organ of Apollo ; that spake only for the gods, but this for gods and men alike concerned in its politics. Its plural egotism is more than deified; it resembles one of those incarnations, so popular in the east, in which more than man is symbolised by giving to an ape the respectable appendage of a tail. But in this we censure a craft to which custom compels our compliance :— Cijudex damnatur". or as a venerable Catholic authority has it, for the edification of Roman ears and eyes : Propter quod inexcusabilis es o homo omnis, gui jtcdicas. In quo enimjudicas alterant, tcipsum. condemnas : eadem enim agis quce judicas." The sentence of condemnation, however, does not at this moment apply severely, in our case, inasmuch as we are really dual editorially, as the more profound of our honored readers will doubtless have seen. So we

may presume to know a thought or two more respecting opinion a la public than sages of more limited entity.

Although, in society, where frequent political and general gatherings occur, the predominate thought may be called its opinion, and that maybe inferred from the vote of-its majority, no matter what proportion the said majority may hold, yet the moral worth and intellectuality of each party should be studied and compared in order to a just conclusion on the subject. Where such formal avowals of sentiment do not or cannot take place, it has to be presumed from the views of leading persons, general conversation, the tone of popular journals, or the assumed views, demeanor, or the habits of the people collectively. Consequently, from" the intangible- and undefined state of the multitude, their opinions, not unlike certain vapors floating over them, will ever be somewhat misty and changing, and of difficult delineation. The humors or impulses of a rabble, or a mob, as at the burning of Bristol, or the window-smash-ing of Apsley House, should never be called public opinion. We might as well call the rancor, prejudice, and malevolent bigotry that raged around the cross of Christ, and the crucifixion itself, expressive of. opinion. Passion, detestable hatred,'outrageous pride and the like, might be there ; but judgment which opinion presupposes, and deliberate-reflection were absent. Truth itself said of the 'Jews: " They know not what they do." So may it mostly be said where bage feelings usurp the province of reason. Such no more represent genuine opinions than the lowering redness and blackness of a tempest exhibit the quiet true daylight.

The nearest approach to a fair estimate of a people's notions or persuasions is probably realized when an intelligent journalism patiently selects from the entire literature of a free nation, the British for instance, a faithful summary fof the sayings, doings, and writings of the average population. No outbreak of resentment,—no acclamations of gratification can be properly accounted opinion; as well might we deem the flashes of rockets to be the appropriate gas works and illumination of a city. Public opinion is the fitly trained lighting up of the general understanding.

Statesmen, such as the late Sir Robert Peel? rejoice to be in the wake of national views ; they let the brain of the body politic act on the extremities, snake-fashion, and then they move legislation accordingly. So with many fashionable publications affecting to lead, they still only follow, as'bolder fish do a vessel. Men of this stamp are sometimes clever, clever exceedingly. Knowing too and trustworthy may they be; but they ever lack the higher qualities of wisdom and virtue and genius, that enabled men like Wellington, or Washington, to endure in order to- achieve; or, like Napoleon, to illuminate the calamity of a Moscow, to shew public opinion the desired path; to guild the proud monument of dead heroes on purpose to win admiration, and to create new armies.

But performances of this kind are not for every day or every age. They stand high in the firmament of events, and shine widely apart. Ordinary mortals like ourselves must be content to hint to others. rather than dictate,—to report progress rather than guide by a species of foreknowledge. If then our columns can sustain, moderate, arid cherish public opinion, in a healthy manner, we shall consider that our little telegrams of tidings or information will not be useless. If at any time we have led on, or stimulated, ideas, —or ilj_ in future, we can conduct our readers to what will entertain or profit them, by pleasing representations, or just considerations, we shall rest in anticipation of beneficial results. , .

From our remote situation, during the last, eight months, many smaller errors have crept into our leaders which would not have been there had we enjoyed a closer inspection of their proof sheets. Our local intelligence too has not by any means equalled our desire. But we hope several improvements, particularly with regard to provincial topics, will henceforth commence. The gentleman to whom the conduct of this journal will now be confided, having a familiar acquaintance with the various duties of his vocation, and. being-always resident in Nelson, will possess advantages not possessed by its first editor, who retires, as he has long desired to do, that the present steadily increasing circulation of the Colonist, may, as it is earnestly hoped, spread a wider and more improving influence. '