Wellington Independent TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3321, 17 October 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent TUESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1871.

Retrenchment is " a good word." To advocate it is to be popular. It is, par excellence, tie Opposition cry. When a party is organised against a Government, retrenchment is always assumed to be one of its distinctive principles. Hence when this is the only watchword, it is a virtual admission that the policy of the Government is unassailable. That an Opposition, having this object exclusively in view, may not do good service to the country, we should be the last to deny. On the contrary, the announcement of its formal organisation on this platform by Mr Stafford, we hailed with great satisfaction. It has an important mission before it. No Government, we care not of whom composed, but should have a constant watch kept on its expenditure. Continued exercise of power and patronage, subject to no check, would demoralise any Ministry consisting of men. As we have maintained that the present occupants of the Government benches are not so wholly reprobate as they have been represented, so we are equally ready to admit any charge of extravagance or corruption reasonably brought against them. The case of Mr Buller, for instance, is one which requires a far more satisfactory explanation than has yet been given. We trust the representatives of the people — the guardians of the public purse — will demand this explanation from the Government before they vote the items yet standing against his name. The fact that this affair has attracted most attention on the part of the supporters of the Government, while it deprives the Opposition of any credit and bids them look to their laurels lest they be outstripped in the race for retrenchment to which, with a grand flourish, their leader challenged the Government — this very fact should make the Government pause, and either remove any erroneous impressions existing or repair the error into which an undue partiality for a valued civil servant has led them. Members on both 6ides of the House will acquit them of any corrupt motive. Their favoritism, if proved, secured no vote, removed no troublesome opponent, and procured no political advantage. Mr Gisborne may have, and probably has, over-estimated Mr Buller's past and prospective services to the colony, but he cannot be charged with anything worse. " What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba ?" It is particularly gratifying to us to note on this same subject of retrenchment that the views we expressed in a series of articles, during the recess, comparing the expenditure of New Zealand with that of the adjacent colonies, have been strikingly corroborated by the debates on the estimates. The conclusions wp then came to were, that except in the department of Law and Justice there were no supernumerary or overpaid officials, and that retrenchment was only to be effected by the abolition of provincial charges and by the fusion of offices thereby facilitated. It is yery noticeable that retrenchment in these directions has not received assistance from the retrenchment Opposition. The Government have propounded the abolition of the system of provincial charges, and two of the staunchest Government supporters — Messrs Macandrew and Reeves — have retrenchment motions on the order paper, bearing on the department of law and justice, and the fusion of offices. The word retrenchment with the Opposition seems a lucus a 11011 lucendo. What retrenchment have they proposed, or in what direction have they shown it to be possible ? What is still more remarkable is the fact that every motion for retrenchment they have hitherto steadily opposed, from the first motion of Mr Macandrew, in the direction of reducing high salaries, down to the Government bill, brought in for the purpose of cheapening and simplifying provincial institutions! When is this party going to show that they believe in their professed policy and in each other? Mr Stafford, with Mr Rolleaton and his following on one hand, and Mr Gillies and his following on the other, seems as incapable of doing anything in opposition as when he was in office. He is particularly unfortunate in his political associates. As in office he was bothered (we use the term both in its primary and secondary sense) by a Richmond and a Hall, so is he now in Opposition by a Gillies and a Rolleston. His position would be pitiable if it were not so ludicrous. He is the leader of a party whose oue watchword is retrenchment, a term sufficiently indefinite, but as we have just 6een, requiring a new definition before it can apply to a following which, even on this point, may be described, like the late Ministry, as "a bundle of weak wills." On constitutional questions, too, they differ irreconcileably, as the debates on the Macandrew resolutions showed ; while on every other question really before the country, their views are as wide as the poles asunder. With these opposing forces Mr Stafford can make no progress. As in his late cabinet he had Free Trade on one seat and Protection on another ; Self-reliance " always believed in" by one colleague.and always disbelieved in by another ; he could propound no colonising policy, and secure neither peace nor progress, bo at the head of a party of retrenchment he stands again in a state of political equilibrium which he must be careful not to disturb by any action. His only policy now, as then,

is a policy of no-action. His position, in short, is in every sense false and humiliating. His opinions and his sympathies must be with. the Ministry, for he says they have filched from him their policy, and he must, on his own showing be opposing (and with what associates ?) that which, after much anxious study, he has decided is the best for the country. An Opposition so constituted, and so led, can effect nothing — not even retrenchment, the raison d'etre of its existence !