The Globe. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1875.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 391, 13 September 1875, Page 2

The Globe. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1875.

It is difficult to believe that the news which we publish elsewhere, on the authority of the Wellington Evening Fast, is a correct version of what took place at the interview between the Ministers and the leaders of the Opposition. If it is true, we can only come to the conclusion that Ministers are utterly unlit to occupy the position of leaders of the House. It either proves that the G-overnment have doubts of the position they have taken up on the question of Abolition, and are willing at the eleventh hour to retreat from their ground, or that they have been frightened into taking the steps they have done, by the bold front shown by the Opposition. In either case they will have shown the country that they can lay no claim to statesmanship. Or it may be that their followers are becoming insubordinate, and decline to carry on the contest. In that case they should have insisted on continuing the light till they suffered a defeat, and then appealed to the country. But they have no right, after the stand which they took up at the beginning of the session, to abandon the Bill now, when some opposition is being met with. A false issue will be placed before the constituencies at the next election, and the whole question will have to be debated over again in the new Parliament. They are going after all to appeal to the constituencies, in spite of their reiterated assertions that such a step is entirely unnecessary. Government have stated over and over again that the country is largely iu favor of immediate Abolition, and we believe their assertion is correct, and yet they are about to allow themselves to be dictated to by a small minority. Should Sir George Grey Mr Macandrew, and the rest be elected to the new Parliament, they will find themselves at the head of a still smaller minority than they lead at present, but they can still pursue the policy of’ obstruction which their exexperience of this session has proved to be so eminently successful. The country will be put to a great expense; another session will he wasted in fruitless and angry discussion, and the course of forcing the measures through the House will have to be adopted after all. The whole colony will have to discuss over again the dreary subject of Abolition, on which it has already pronounced a very decided opinion. We shall have a new House elected on this cry, when other and perhaps more important questions should have guided the electors in their choice of representatives. For all those evils we will have to thank the incompetency of the Government who, with an overwhelming majority at their back at the beginning of the session,.have either alienated that support through mismanagement, or are willing, notwithstanding their majority, to be dictated to by a small but determined and noisy Opposition. We hope that when the new Parliament meets there will be found men in the House able and willing to form

a Ministry in whom the country can trusty and that the present occupants of the Treasury benches will have to give way to men who know how to carry a measure, supported by the country and the House, to a successful issue.