The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1870.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2106, 4 February 1870, Page 2

The Evening Star FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1870.

Little Pedlington has been in hysterics through mixed delight and mortification. Our village metropolis has been visited by a real British fleet, and has feasted real British naval officers, in whose presence its inhabitants put on their best manners. From contemporaneous correspondence we are permitted to peep behind the scones, and to gather from what is told, an idea of the varied emotions that agitated their minds. First they viewed the visit of the fleet to Lyttelton with envy. The tradesmen of Wellington had been busy manufacturing gewgaws and baubles for display, and they considered that every day spent at Lyttelton by the Fleet was so much taken off their value. Then in anticipation of entertaining a few British tars, the hotels had been extra stocked with drinkables—for what we know they had been decorated with red, white, and blue and the floors fresh scoured, and as Navy pay is not over and above liberal, every penny spent at Lyttelton was diverted from Little Pedlington. What wonder that they complained of the unauthorised visit of Admiral Hornby to Lyttelton? If he delayed much longer, the paint would lose its freshness, the floors their whiteness, and there would be grog midrank when the fleet left the harbour. What other entertainments lacked customers we know not, but it is easily imagined where so much is expressed. At last the fleet did arrive, and then our metropolitans were wild with joy, but even that was tempered with alloy. They had not all they wished. The regatta was over when the vessels anchored, so they had to entertain the officers at a very thinly - attended aristocratic ball, rendered over select by the exclusion of persons not willing to pay two pounds per ticket, in addition to the necessary cost of finery. But there were one or two ornaments lacking that the Wellington elite could not forget. They were able to show off a tee-total Prime Minister, another Executive Minister, a Judge, and one or two ex-military officers; but the Governor and his lady were not there. Little Pedlington apparently had no charms for them. So the aristocracy drank the health of the Queen and her family, most of whom they had not seen ; of the Admiral and his officers, whom they did see, but did not know, with cheers of welcome ; but the Governor, who liked Auckland better than Wellington, was not worth a cheer. The honor due to his position, his efforts to oblige the timid and the interested by attempting to retain the troops, and his perfect right to select a residence in any part of the Colony he chose, were not admitted. Little Pedlington was in the sulks, and some of its most sulky citizens, it is said, were ill-mannered enough to hiss, although reproved by the loyal feelings of the British officers, who very properly payed that respect to his Excellency’s office that was due. Various other attempts to do the tiling in style at Wellington appear to have utterly failed ; and altogether, Admiral Hornby and his officers must have felt amused at the reception they met with in the metropolis. But Wellington’s mortifications were not complete. The aristocratic assumption of its leading citizens was doomed to further humiliation than the absence of the Governor and the preference of Admiral Hornby for the agreeable company of two ladies, to the ill-mannered demonstrations of a half-famished crowd in a marquee, who drank his health in claret of <£ abominable quality,” and -‘hock which was “ drinkable.” Mr Vogel has become a hde noir, because, in a true business spirit, he has made Auckland the point of departure and arrival for the new postal line of steamers. Its position in relation to Sydney, its commercial im-

portance as tho second city in the Colony, and the large trade with New So utK Wales, naturally pointed to the adoption of this place. So far as the Southern Provinces are concerned, no doubt Wellington would have suited better; but we have sufficient confidence in Mr Vogel, and know him sufficiently well to believe that he lias done the best that could be done. He did not go to the Intercolonial Conference as a dictator, -and those with whom he bad to arrange, had views and interests irrespective altogether of New Zealand. Any one glancing at tho terms of the contract may at once see that to insist on calling at Wellington instead of Auckland would have been equivalent to an addition of several thousands of pounds a year to the cost of the service, or, as is most probable, would have put an end to the negociations altogether. The commercial intercourse between Wellington and Sydney is not, nor is it likely to be, great. There are natural obstacles to the importance of Wellington as a place of trade, that cannot at least for years, be overcome. It is evident that by the contractor, Auckland is treated as a convenient port of call between Honolulu and New South Wales, and the Mail Service is an accident adding to the probabilities of profit. In the face of the very decided advantages that will result to the Colony from the arrangement, it is very much like a following of Little Pedlington to find fault that this and that interest have been overlooked ; or that this or that port might have been better off had other routes been adopted. Dunedin had no reason to be satisfied with the Wellington route during the existence of the Panama Service. Even at that time the Suez mail was frequently received in advance of the Panama. Whatever agreements tho Postmaster-General may have entered into, they are much in advance of anything advocated by Little Pedlington and its followers ; and although they may find opponents in the House of Representatives, they promise such advantages to the Colony that the constituencies, wherever well informed, will endorse Mr Vogel’s action.