THE AGENT-GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT.

Evening Star, Issue 3730, 5 February 1875, Page 3

THE AGENT-GENERAL’S DEPARTMENT.

{From the Bruce Hertdd.) We have just had brought under our notice certain circumstances, about which there can be no doubt whatever, and which all go to prove that the Agent-General’s department is in a state of perfect chaos. Some time ago, Mr White, of the Milton Pottery Works, wrote to a gentleman connected with a Staffordshire newspaper in reference to an advertisement of his, offering good terms to pottery people to come to New Zealand. Not long since, Mr White received an answer, in which, after certain details as to the local difficulties in procuring the labor required, the writer went on to say, “ Perhaps the greatest trouble, and that which has delayed the embarkation a month or six weeks, .Jras been the matter of passage money. I wrote to the Emigration AgentGeneral for New Zealand, and it was weeks before I could get the matter arranged anything like straightforwardly, and, indeed, I am not certain that the difficulties are even now overcome.” This discloses a pretty state of affairs, but is quite unimportant as compared with the next muddle made by the Agent-General, or his’subordinates, in this matter. The Staffordshire gentleman concluded his letter to Mr White by saying':— “ One man named Samuel Lowe, a hollow-ware presser, will sail in about a week.” Now, what does Mr White receive yesterday but a letter (from this same Samuel Lowe, who has been sent out to Auckland, and who, naturally enough, has not money sufficient to pay the passage of himself and family to Tokomairiro. This man has actually been put on board a ship bound for Auckland, in order that he may reach Tokomairiro without difficulty.” That a blunder like this should be made in the office which is supposed to represent New Zealand itself, is something beyond the merely ludicrous—it argues carelessness, neglect, and incapacity.