The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1879.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3138, 3 June 1879, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. PUBLISHED DAILY. TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1879.

We tliink a wise discretion was exercised in confining the meeting on Saturday as nearly as was possible to the Justices of the district, as they are as a body constituted for, and authorised to, conserve the peace of the district. A deliberate expression of opinion from such a body of men given after a careful consideration of the whole of the circumstances connected with the difficulty by which we are confronted, is calculated to have great weight with the Government and the outside public. At a crisis such as this, cairn deliberation is of the utmost consequence. Declamation or passionate oratory would be strangely out of place, being calculated to lead to false conclusions aud unwise resolves. It is not frothy words we want on such an occasion, but a cool calculation of all the odds, aud then a deliberate resolve on a definite course of action. We think the resolution passed by the Justices expresses in a few words the general feeling. It rejoices that the Government feels it is strong enough to deal with auy possible difficulty, but regrets that when the difficulty has arisen there is so little of the strength of the Government shown when it ought to be palpable and apparent. It expresses disbelief in the potency of a civil suit to cure an act of rebellion in process of development. It shadows forth the possibility of peox)le acting individually to suppress such acts of lawlessness, if the Government does not promptly exercise its functions as the executive of the people in preserving the peace, and it relies on the Government acting with prudence while it acts with fearlessness in suppressing disorder. We earnestly hops that after such a plain and deliberate expression of opinion, we shall hear no more of such feeble proposals as a civil action to check an evil of such severe magnitude, and one that requires a strong hand and a determined ' will to deal with on the moment of its occurrence. Though Te Whiti is a fanatic, he is not utterly deranged. Even on him an exhibition of power will not be lost. We think even the most deluded of his followers would prefer to hold their ploughing matches on a

secluded farm far from the busy liauuts of man, rather than in the immediate vaciuity of an armed camp. We therefore think and believe that an ample armed force will probably prevent anything again arising which will lead to collison. And it is evidently on all accounts better by bold and energetic action to prevent disaster, than having as it were invited it by a show of weakness, in vain afterwards to struggle to recover lost ground.

A Very Startling- Programme for the Government has been sketched out by a paper published in one of the small settlements North of Auckland. We have no doubt that the Ministry would be perfectly satisfied if it could only secure but half what this paper so glibely settles as being all but accomplished. The Northern Advocate says — '•'We were the first paper in the Colony to intimate that Government would go in for another loan next Session, and we are now in a position to indicate on reliable authority the purposes to which the loan will be applied. Government propose borrowing either £8,000,000 or £10,000,000. The precise sum has not yet been fixed, as the whole of the works to be constructed out of the loan have not bien definitely agreed upon. The following, however, are the principal lines of new railway to be made : — North Auckland, about 120 miles; Waikato, Taranaki, Taurania. Taupo, Waipukurau ; the two last connecting Taupo with the Waikato, and Napier by way of Taupo. Nelson-Hokitika ; Hokitika-Am-berley ; Amberley-Blenheim, and the Canterbury and Otago Central. Of cour.se some smaller lines will bs included in the programme, but the chief aim of the Government is to bring down a proposal for the completion of the railway system throughout New Zealand. The loan will be floated in one sum, the Government believing that by so doing the money will be obtained more cheaply. One of the principal arguments the Government will use in favour of the loan is the fact of the railways having proved so successful that they now nearly pay the interest on the capital cost, and the Colony is not really responsible for the interest on more than one million, which virtually relieves the Colony of six millions of its indebtedness. The ministry propose borrowing slightly in excess of this amount." The Advocate further states that the Government will propose the introduction of immigrants from England by steamships instead of sailing vessels, Government believing this will conduce to the introduction of a better class of people, while such means of transit will prove an attraction which the system of other Culonies do not afford." It is very satisfactory to know that Jha Government has chosen such an influential and widely circulated newspaper in which to disseminate the policy it intends to lay before the House when it meets in July.