OUR NEW MINISTER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1013, 30 November 1883, Page 2

OUR NEW MINISTER.

The New Zealand Hetald mentioned the other day in an article justifying the appointment ot Mr Mitchelson as Minister of Public Works, that that rising young statesman had been apprenticed in early life as a carpenter, and that the colony would now get the benefit of his “ mechanical training.” It seems, however, that the Government did not consider Mr Mitcheison’s juvenile acquaintance with the carpentering a sufficient qualification for the post of Minister of Public Works ; for they have now apprenticed him to Mr C. Y. O’Connor, C. E., the Undersecretary for Public Works; and he is immediately to enter o.i a course of study in the outlines of engineering. Mr Mitchelson, we are informed, lias not yet seen a railway, except toys like the Auckland and Drury and the Wellington and Hutt lines; and with his mechanical turn of mind, it will no doubt be a great treat to him to be shown the real thing, and to ride in a fast train and have the principle of the locomotive explained to him. He is just now starting, we observe, on a fortnight’s tour of instruction on the Southern railways. We hope care will be taken to have him accompanied in his travels by some trustworthy subordinate, until he gets accustomed to the motion. It would be a sad finale to his brilliant career, if he were to share the fate of the Maori who, never having travelled by rail before and wishing to get down for something, stepped off the train whilst it was running at full speed, and was surprised to find the earth jump up aid hit him at the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, killing him instantly. Mr Mitchelson, we are grieved to see, has rather put his foot in it by his first feat of administration, He caused a telegram to be sent on Saturday last to Mr Blair, the Engineer-in-Chief for the Middle Island, acting on which that officer at once dismissed too men from the works in progress on the Otago Central Railway, and gave notice to the rest. This clean sweep of the new broom naturally made a terrible dust in Otago, and there is no

saying what the consequences might have been, had not Mr Mitchelson telegraphed to the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce at Dunedin, throwing the blame on Mr Blair, who he said had evidently misunderstood his instructions. At the same time the Minister “insisted”—these young fellows always “ insist ” —on the necessity for discharging the men, though he said he might take some of them on again on the reletting of another contract. His explanation, in fact, was rather more bewildering and exasperating than the instructions which it was intended to explain. Poor Mr Blair, He has had things pretty well his own way with Middle Island Railway works for the last ten years or so, and all he does not know about them is not worth learning. It must be rather trying to him, therefore, first to be ordered about by Mr Mitchelson—who has never been in the Middle Island—and then to be made a fool of by having it published abroad that he has “ misunderstood his instructions. On the other hand, it must be a novel and pleasing sensation to the Dunedin Chamber of Commerce to find the Minister of Public Works accounting to them for his actions, and throwing over the highest officers of his department in order to avert their righteous indignation— 7imaru Hetald.