SADDLING THE RIGHT HORSE.

Wellington Independent, Volume XV, Issue 1401, 27 January 1860, Page 3

SADDLING THE RIGHT HORSE.

The Wanganui Chronicle of the 19fch, having taken the trouble to set the Spectator right on a point of no little importance — nothing less than on whose back the responsibility of, the agitation for Separation rests — we are happy to give it the publicity it deserves. " Wo received by the overland mail yesterday oar usual files of newspapers, north and south. The New Zealand Spectator, in its issue «f Saturday last, has, in its leading article, alluded to the movement in Wauganui on Separation, in terms that we canuot allow to pass without comment. It " sincerely c >ngratulates the promoters of the movement on the success which has attended their efforts against the Combined influence of the Featkerston party," &c, &o We maintain, on the other hand, that during, the whole of the agitation upon this question, its promoters and supporters imye never uttered one, sentence that wool.d admit of such an interpretation ; on the contrary., the question of Separation has been forced upon us, bythe Radical parly in the Provincial Council to the measures and policy of the Superintendent and his Executive." There are very many other questions in dispute between the Spectator and ourselves, which it is much to be re-, gretted cannot as readily be referred to> a fitting umpire. Who is responsible for the present stagnation in Wellington being ,one of tl en. Every well-wisher of the Province must be sadly grieved to find that tho unprecedentedly fino weather, we have had this summer, is obliged to be lost, so far as the prosecution of public works is concerned. The reclamation of the beach would have gone on as merrily a3 a marriage bell, and, by it 3 consequently,, ireduced cost, a very nlrfch'/rarge^jpro^ than was anticipated would have been the result of its sale. . Whatever preliminary operations might have ' been requisite for the erection of that universally admitted necessity — a public wharf, could have been undertaken to advantage during the fineness of the present season, and at a proportionate gain to the province. Who is responsible for this ? The Government who introduced Bills to carry on these public improvements or the Council w!io factiously rejected them.; who rejected t.iein not because the Rowdy majority could gainsay their benefit, but simply because the Superintendent had foresight enough to see that Wakefield and Allen were not the. men .most fitted to monopolise, between them, such oflbes as Secretary, Treasurer, and Auditor. The province is thus brought to a deadlock ' by these men — several thousand pounds, which might bo turned over every year in remunerative public works on Wellington Beach alone, are forced to remain unproductive, because either Wakefield and Allen must have the spending of it, or they wont allow it to be spent at alk Labor may stagnate ; but what do they care — the one goes to his " stud " at Canterbury ; the other take 3 himself off to Hapier, Auckland, " his Mother Country ;" no one knows exactly where. Could a' reference be made to the legitam/ite un^i.-e, the " Wakefield deadlock, a.nd stagnation" order of things would soon be reversed. The^Wy cQiisti^ tional umpire is the Electorate, and when the time conies they will as completely saddle the responsibility of the present state of affairs on the Rowdy horse, as the Wanganui Chronicle has done in reference of Separation*