Wellington Independent SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3115, 4 February 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1871.

Wellington electors will do well before Tuesday to refer to the newspapers just to hand from the Middle Island. They will discover two remarkable features in the electoral contests there. The first is that nearly all who are returned as opponents to the Government are ardent separationists. The second is that those who are not out-and-out !separationists go against the Government because their policy is too favorable to the North Island in general, and Wellington in particular. It would be endless to quote extracts from the speeches of the opposition candidates, showing their views on both these points. Take up any report of a Middle Island contested election, and it will be seen that the question raised by opponents to the Government is either " shall we return a member pledged to a policy which will render separation impossible ; or shall we elect one who supports a policy which will bepefit the North Island at the expense of the South?" It is in fact another aspect of the land question that crops up. Thje extreme provincialists of Otago and Canterbury, for instance, do not secy their way to support a Government that contemplates colonial works, of which they persist in regarding their land revenue as the only security. They are afraid, as some of them have naively expressed it, " that Wellington gets the lion's share of the benefit." "We can make our own railways ; leave us alone to make them when and how we will." Mr Reid, whom the Hon. J, C. Richmond devoutly wishes to beelected Superintendent of Otago, heads a party whose policy may be summarised thus : " We do not regard the Assembly held in Wellington as the supreme legislature of the colony ; we will not abide by the votes of our representatives there ; and as we have hitherto successfully defied the Colonial Government on the Hundreds Act, because a majority of our members in the Provincial Council are opposed to it, so we say, the Colonial Parliament, having no right to go on with their financial scheme until the constituencies had been appealed to, we shall oppose it to the utmost extent of our power. The colony must give way to the province." Now, the grand characteristic of the Government policy is that the work of colonisation shall be energetically resumed throughout the wholo colony, and if any existing political organisation, be it that of provinces or counties, stand in the way, the progress engine must not be retarded, but drive everything before it! With this great object in view, the most ardent provincialists, who look only at all forms of Government as but means to an end cordially support the Government, and their views are admirably expressed in that emphatic sentence of Mr Macandrew who contests the Superintendent's election with Mr Richmond's friend (Mr Reid). " Perish Provincialism if it hinders colonisation." For this truly colonial principle he lost his election at the Clutha. No greater impetus we believe has ever been given to political progress, than by the publication of the financial statement. No better illustration could be given than it affords of the superior claims to practical usefulness of the Pox over the Stafford Ministry. The latter when not giving their " entire attention to native affairs," kept up an irritating agitation between the colony and the provinces, which howsoever settled, amounted to nothing but the substitution of a greater number of small wheels in the political machine which would only increase the friction without adding to its velocity. The Fox "Ministry, on the other hand, recognising existing provincial organisations, boldly puts before them a scheme in which it asks their co-operation ; but at the same time plainly tells them that unless they fulfil the great functions for which they were called into being, they will not be suffered to retard the progress of the colony. In this opposition to the Government we need hardly say we do not include, though Middle Island members, the Hon. Mr Stafford, and the Hon. MiHall. They take a wider view than that. The "Press," and we suppose the "Post," by its quoting from it, claim that " the success of the Government scheme is due to them and others of the so-called opposition," and it is specially noteworthy thut the Hon. J. C. Richmond is here at variance with them. He is out and out a member of the Opposition. If he succeed in being elected (which we think is every day becoming more and more doubtful) this is the party to which alone he can attach himself. He cannot, with his former Ministerial colleagues support the measures they helped so earnestly to pass, and he must join these extreme provincialists and separationists in opposing all action with regard to them until " this great land question " is settled. There is no tertium quid; unless, indeed he consents to hang like Mahomet's coffin in mid air, and have all his political influence suspended with him, We need not say that either prospect is sufficiently appalling to the electors of Wellington — to send in a member who must cither confederate with sepurationists, or must remain a political nonentity in the House. In the one case he must help to deprive Wellington of the Seat of Government j in the other, he must render her representation a nullity in the Assembly. He has impudently boasted of bringing the Seat of Government here. If we elect him on his present professions he must, if there is truth in the adage, " birds of a feather flock together, 1 ' join the party of separationists. But if, like Noah's dove, ho finds no rest for the sole of his foot amid the waters of separation, he must for a season betake himself disconsolate to the shelter of the " Ark." In any caso Wellington will suffer. The fact that he is a candidate for Nelson, and ready

to throw Wellington overboard, is a sufficient indication of his great regard for us; and when the capital of the colony is thus made a convenience to a mere place-hunter, who has no material iuterest in her property or advancement, it is plain to every elactor who will think for a moment that it would be at once a folly almost amounting to a crime to vote for him. His pretext that having been nominated he could not withdraw, is of a piece with many of his assertions here. The Regulation of Elections Act points out the course he ought to have followed, and had be been in earnest, he has had an opportunity of formally notifying his declinature. It will surprise us not a little to learn that the electors of Nelson j will consent to elect a member who will j discard them for this city if he should happen to be elected, Nous verrons.