THE CANDIDATE FOR MR FOX'S SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.

Wellington Independent, Volume XX, Issue 2228, 6 July 1865, Page 5

THE CANDIDATE FOR MR FOX'S SEAT IN PARLIAMENT.

(From the Nelson Colonist of the 30fcli ult.) Mr Robert Pharazyn is a candidate for the seat in., the House of Representatives Tacant by the resignation of Mr Fox. As the probable successor of a man of mark in the Parliament, the opinions of Mr Pharazy a will be looked to with some interest. These we gather from his address to tho electors. He thinks Mr Weld's policy good because it is the nearest approach to the policy of 1863, and he concurs in the policy of withdrawing the troops. He urges self-reliance. He tliinks England lias not acted generously to the Colony, or even with bare justice. Ho affirms that the Imperial Government is responsible for the past, and therefore he is " strongly opposed to the Colony paying any part of the expences of a war, in the conduct of which it has had no effective influence. The past according to Mr Pharazyn should •teach us to adopt " a policy of selt-rehance for the future. He belongs "neither to a war, nor a peace party, but to the Colonial Party," and while insisting on the necessity of enforcing law and order, he does not approve;of any attempt to do more than is necessary to " render life and property secure" ; and he advocates measures which will practically place natives and Europeans on the same footing." . . , . On the subject of our provincial institutions, a part of our constitution which had ever a warm and consistent supporter in Mr Fox, the gentleman who proposes to succeed him as the representative of Rangitikei, says : Though I fully recognise tho necessity of preserving the unity of the colony, yet I am convinced that local institutions are quite compatible with a strong central Government. Provincialism, though opposed to centralisation in name, is in fact the surest guarantee for that impartial legislation which alone can reconcile conflicting interests. If provincialism has not always succeeded it is because the principle upon which it rests has not been fully applied, and practical convenience has been sacrificed to theoretical symmetry. Mr Pharazyn might have gone further than this. The opponents of provincialism are of two kinds : those who have mismanaged the Eowers which provincialism bestows, and aveby that means injured the provinces which they have mismanaged; and those who love central government because of their opposition to local government ; and who have advocated an unwise creation of new provinces sometimes with a most unjust and exceptional boundary, to the lasting detriment of the parent province without being for tho benefit of its offshoot. This method / of dealing was advocated by the enemies of provincialism, in the hope that the process would be a means of causing it to run more quickly to seed, and thereby sooner destroy the tree root" and branch. But what they propose planting in its stead we have never been able to discover. Certainly "theoretical symmetry," whatever the rather vague phrase may mean, these anti-provincialists have never advanced as their ground of action, while, as no doubt Mr Pharazyn knows, some of them have been hypocritical enough to pretend that the reason of their advocacy of the establishment of new prorinces was that provincial rights might be more widely extended, although they know that such an extension was merely hastening what they secretly desired, the extinction of these rights. Mr Pharazyn's address appears to be that of a practical business man ; and £he seeks the good of the Colony, and that alone, opposing mere party politics, and setting his face against that official reward seeking and bestowing, and the pernicious influence and nepotism of family aggrandisement, which threaten to become more and more rampant in the Councils of the Ministry. Mr Pharazyn's concluding remarks are as follows :— I have no private interests to serve, though 1 have sufficient stake in tho country to make me anxious for its prosperity. lam ambitious of the Jjxmor I ask you to confer upon me only because it affopds me an opportunity of being useful to jny fellow colonists. If you elect me, though I pannot pretend even to approach your late member in aoility, I may in earnestness, and shall at uny rate do my best to prove that your confidence is not misplaced. Whether I am permitted to Jend my aid or not, I am sure that the Colonial J?4^TT must at length be triumphant, and that New Zealand before long will grow frow a colony into a nation. These are opinions which we read with pleasure. What this Colony wants in its Representatives are able and honest men, unselfish men, who seek to serve their fellow coloniatß, and do not look forward to legislative functions as a means of enabling them to gink into well paid sinecurists. The providing for oneself and friends has been so much the colonial practice, that the patent result is that we have now a perfect army of highly-paid officials whose work in most cases is an Elysium of Lotos-eating as compared with the Government officers at home, yrho themselves are in a lazy easy land — "A land where it seems always afternoon." #nd where the business is simple enough, .and thfl hours sufficiently few, as to make the iGroverninenf; official a standing mark for the jests of those who know practically what fvoxk and business mean. So prevalent is jbhia practice here, and so quietly is it borne by a too easy public, that retrenchment-yin the direction of allowing none but working bftea to eat the honey of the public hive— is scarcely possible. If an opportunity occurs for the abolition of an unnecessary office, or an arrangement by which a sinecure salary may be saved, Bundry hungry applicants tweome eager for the office, and each can exert some " interest " in his favor, and get £ frien4 or two in high places to apply " pressure in the proper quarter ;" and so the advocate of economy is often checked in the performance of his necessary function. The Assembly itself winks at these things, and fails in its duty. It is true if Ministers, Wither general or provincial, set their jnindg on carrying » salary for an office newly abated, or an old one that is next to useless, they can as a rule bring forward guch a show of argument as to defeat oppouition, for in general public assemblies are far too willing to be generous to individuals with the public money. The sentiments expressed by Mr Pharazyn in the paragraph last quoted, are those we still hope to^ee animating the vast majority of our legislators ; as they ought to be the true springs of with every administrator. Amidstjfesjfc disappointment which Mr Fox takes home with him, he at least will have no compunctious feelings on this head. He did nis best for the colony, jhonestly and unselfishly, although we think fie erred in first taking office with men from .whom he so widely differed, and then in alJowing them to bring him greatly round to

their opinions. But though twice in high office, with many opportunities for benefiting himself, he neither created nor reserved any permanent office for himself nor his friends, and never used Ms position as a means of profit or as a stepping-stone to a comfortable competency. He can go home and say with truth, " these hands are clean." Would that all New Zealand politicians could do the same ! Mr Pharazyn seeks to follow Mr Fox's steps in this respect. Hitherto economists in the House of Representatives have been listened to with impatience. Let us hope that the influences of ■ a new place of meeting will prove more faI vorable to retrenchment of all kinds than the ' latitude of Auckland has been; and that Mr Pharazyn, if he be elected, will make one ) of a resolute forlorn hope in an attack upon the well-armed citadel of a lavish and burdensome public expenditure.