CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS.

Colonist, Volume VIII, Issue 758, 27 January 1865, Page 3

CONTEMPORARY OPINIONS.

THE SEPAEATIOJf MOVEMENT,

(From t7ie Canterbury Press.)

The Separation movement was originally got up by the Olayo Dailg Times as a cry to aid in the establishment of that journal. The spirited proprietor came down from Melbourne to teach the benighted inhabitants of New Zealand a thing or two in politics, and the cry of Separation paid exceedingly well. Having done its work it was laid on the shelf. It is now going in for another innings; but we cannot see that it is put upon any new or better position than before. It was Gillies and Vogel then, and it is Yogel and Grillies now. To make any great movement succeed, there must be a substratum of truth at the bottom of it. It is impossible that any cause can succeed with the masses which can only bo advocated by misrepresentation palbable and absurd. Eor example, Mr. Harris, the Superintendent of Otago, who took the chair at the meeting, tells the people— By reference to the financial returns published by the General Government for the year ending the 30th June, 1863, it will be found that the total Customs Revenue of New Zealand amounted to £488,749 15s. 6d., of which sum Otago alone contributed £215,222 Bs. 2d., being only £50,000 less than was contributed by the whole of the rest of the colony taken together. The same thing is repeated, only in a rather worse form, in the year ending June, 1864, when the contribution of this province from Customs Revenue was £243,173 125.; thus showing that the Customs Revenue of the province, if we had the whole command of it, would put us in possession of something like a quarter of a million sterling yearly with which to meet the expense of Government, without considering the other sources of revenue we have to look to. Now is this true ? or is it a mere assertion by Mr. Hyde Harris ? If he wished to deal honestly by his hearers why did he not say, "Gentlemen, of that £2i5,000 which we paid to the General Government for Custom's, nearly £104,000 was returned to us as Provincial Revenue, and was spent by the Provincial Council of Otago. And more than £42,000 was expended in Otago by the General Government in defraying the cost of the departments of Government amongst us ; so that out of the £215,000 £146,000 was spent in Otago itself." Why did not Mr. Harris say this—-just because it suits him better to try to gull the people of Otago into the belief that they would get a quarter of a million more of their own revenue if they had Separation than they do at present. The truth is, Otago is in horrible financial difficulties, and when we hear the head of its local Government talking to a public meeting stuff which shows that he must be either very silly or very dishonest, the key is at once supplied to all the troubles which Otago is suffering under. Again, Mr. Harris states that the proportional part of the revenue paid by Otago was greater in 1864 than in 1863. " The same thing" he says, " was repeated in a worse form." Is this true, or an entire invention ? In the year ending June 30, 1863, the Customs duties were £488,000, of which Otago paid £215,000, or 44 per cent; in the year ending June 30, 1864, Otago paid £243,000 Customs out of £603,000 paid by the whole colony—that is to say, only 40 per cent; and for the year ending June 30 next, out of £703,000 Otago is estimated to pay only £190,000, or only 27 per cent. Why then should Mr. Harris tell the people that the proportion paid by Otago is increasing, when the fact is it is rapidly decreasing. However, to do Mr. Harris justice, he is less sanguine about Separation than the VogelGillies set. He thinks Otago had better go in for herself, and set up as a separate colony with Southland. That is not only sensible but generous: for Southland would not be a very good speculation as a partner just at present. Why Southland should like to join Ofcago as a colony, when it has recently emancipated itself from her as a province, we do not exactly perceive. At all events Mr. Harris gives up the idea of a Separation of the two islands as hopeless. Not so the Vogel-Gillies section. They go the entire animal for a separate colony, with the Seat of Government at Dunedin. Of course; any baby must have seen that all along. What on earth does the Dunedin public care for Separation if the Seat of Government is to be at Christchurch ? But these gentlemen do not tell us what we, or Marlborough, or Nelson, are to get by Separation. We have published their speeches in order to stop the whole cry; for they will do so. Over and over again we have pointed out that certain questions must be answered to induce Canterbury to join the cry. The Daily Times kept on saying the same things over and over again; they must actually—if their manager had any sense of economy—have kept whole para-

graphs standing in type for occasional use ; but not once did they deal with the real difficulties of the ease; and Messrs. Vogel and Gillies do not deal with them now. Let the Canterbury people say whether they wish to see their Provincial Government put an end to, a Government at Dunedin managing all their affairs, and their Land Eund thrown into hotchpotch with Otago and Southland. That is the proposal and nothing else. For our parts we have no more ambition to subsidise the Dunedin merchants than the Auckland merchants. Canterbury is standing in a sound financial position, and Mr. Harris has sense enough to see that we are not likely to be such fools as to sacrifice it. The recent step taken by the Otago Government is one by which her lands are being sacrificed to her financial necessities. Why should we share this state of ruin ? Of Mr. Vogel's speech we need not say much. It was not much to the purpose, aa his hearers seemed to think- His argument is in fact as follows: —We have ruined our own province by the most stupid mismanagement, so let us assert our claim to manage the affairs of all the provinces in the Middle Island. That is what it comes to. The whole of his speech teems with confessions of the mismanagement of the Otago Government, but he does not seem to see which way the argument really tells. The most curious speech of the lot, however, was that of Mr. Gillies, the late Post-master-General. Mr. Gillies is a gentleman ,of very much less importance now than he was a year or two ago; his acceptance of office ruined him, aa it has many men, by displaying their real weakness. The peculiar feature in Mr. Gillies is his want of perception of the decencies, so to speak, of political life. For example, he could not perceive the impropriety of keeping up an overwhelming majority of the House till three o'clock on Sunday, by perpetually moving adjournments. Ministers, and men who are fit for Ministers, do not do such things. Again he was incapable of perceiving that having promised in the House that he would carry out its policy of changing the Seat of Government to Wellington, it was any violation of that promise to attend a public meeting at Dunedin and help it to try and reverse that policy. He could not see the gross impropriety of such an action. At the late meeting he took even a more extraordinary course. Indeed it leaves a very unfavorable impression on one's mind as to the intelligence of a Dunedin audience, when such a speech as Mr. Gillies's could be made without being instantly exposed. Is it credible that Mr. Gillies used as an argument for Separation the enormous expense of the war in the North? He, one of the authors of that war! he who was charged with the public expenditure—who has been for the past year playing into the hands of the Auckland people, and sanctioning, and helping them to sack the money of the South!—he, who as one of the late Ministry was a prime party to an expenditure profligate and unprincipled beyond anything that the southern seas has yet seen> — as will appear when investigated, as it will be, by a committee next session. This gentleman, who has himself been doing all this, has the audacity to come before the very audience whom he has permitted to be plundered, and use the expenditure in the North as an ai*gument in favor of Separation ; and the odd thing is that Mr. Gillies does not in the least perceive the public indecency of such a course. In any other man it would be an evidence of flagrant want of principle, in Mr. Gillies it is only ignorance of what all educated men have agreed to respect in public life. Then Mr. Gillies complains bitterly that the time of the Assembly is so taken up with native affairs that there is no time for legislation on other subjects. Did Mr. Gillies draft any of the Bills he says were so necessary, and bring them before the House ? What right has he, so lately a Minister, to tell an Otago audience that the Assembly will not attend to their wants, when he, as a Minister, never made one attempt to get these Bills passed which he now says were so necessary? When he brings these charges against the Assembly he must give us leave to tell his constituents what his own conduct was as a Minister. He helped to bring tho colony to the verge of ruin ; and then, at the most critical moment, when the affairs of the country demanded the utmost attention from the public servants —when any man with the slightest sense of public duty would have given night and day to the task—Mr. Gillies left the Seat of Government, went down to Dunedin, and whilst still receiving public pay for his time and services, re-com-menced his private practice as a lawyer in the Supreme Court at Dunedin. Why did he not tell the people at Dunedin that such conduct —such a mode of viewing their public duties on the part of the lafce Ministers, may have accounted in some measure, for that wanton extravagance in the North, and that neglect of the interests of the South, which they have now the impudence to plead as good reasons for Separation.

"We do not dread this Separation question. It is will take a great deal better speaking, much stronger facts, more public spirit, lesa of obvious trading in politics, to effect such a revolution. Canterbury, Marlborough, and Nelson, are acting, and have acted throughout, for the colony at large—asking and seeking nothing for themselves. Ofcago is looking entirely to its own interests—or rather—we beg Otago's pardon, we will not bring such a charge, but rather say —the public orators of Otago are trying to persuade the province to act simply for its own interests. We do not think they will persuade it. We look to time and good management to answer these separatists. Now that the Whitakers and Gillieses are swept away, we confidently expect that the North will cease to be any burden on the colony at all. With the departure of the troops will depart "war and war expenditure. The Government at Wellington, and a telegraph to the Bluff will begin slowly to operate on the question. Otago will find some better exponents than the Vogels and Q-illieses, and such like. The instinct of our race, the love of belonging to a great country instead of a small republic, will outlive Mr. VogePs sneers at it. We are quite content to see these gentlemen lose their time and study political agitation on this subject. They might have taken up some much more mischievous hobby. As it is they can only break their skulls against time and facts.