WELLINGTON.

Evening Star, Issue 4102, 20 April 1876, Page 4

WELLINGTON.

{From our own Correspondent)

April 15. The general opinion here is that Mr Macandrew occupies a more dignified position as the last of the Superintendents than Sir George Grey. But why should he persist in Wasting labour and keeping up a fret and a fume against the Inevitable ? Does he not recognise the wisdom of the Scotch saying—- “ Better a finger aff than aye wagging”— better good amputation than continuous annoyance! “ The policy that annexes Fiji tolls the knell of the Polynesian race,” so writes a yachting author in an account of a cruise in the South Seas. Some of us, however, may be permitted to doubt the oracular announcement. Many, at least, will he glad to learn that the newly inaugurated Fijian Government takes a lively interest in the castigation of the natives. Among other proofs of the fact, I may mention that a gentleman in Wellington has nearly completed a machine for the manufacture of a fibre equivalent to flax from the stem of a machine expressly designed for use in Fiji, where the banana grows profusely. The idea is not quite new, the industry being already practised in a rude Way in the Phillipine Islands, but this, so far as I am aware, is the first systematic attempt to give it really commercial importance. The machine is intended to be worked by hand, and if it comes up to the expectations of its inventbr, as 1 see no reason to doubt that it will; the Fijian Government proposes to introduce' several of the same kind into every native village in the islands under its sway. Owing to the high winds which sweep over the Fijis, cotton will not grow profitably there, but the banana, from its fibrous, fleshy character, bends before the fiercest blast, but never breaks, and an industry founded upon its growth, would have all the elements of permanency about it. Those who take an interest in the civilisation of this territory will therefore watch the progress of this experiment very closely. The man who interposes in other people’s quarrels, we are told. upon the authority of Gay, the poet, will most likely have to purify his nose by tersion. And yet one cannot well help himself. When a man has absolutely no friends, he should have a word said for him. Mr J. G. S. Grant appears to be regarded as an eminently obnoxious individual in Dunedin, and totally unacquainted with him as your correspondent is, I cannot possibly have the remotest interest in the offender. Still you will perhaps pardon a general remark. It would be lost labor to speculate curiously on what might have been; but assuming that Grant is a soured and disappointed man, what seems most likely, and granting that he writes what is very incorrect aboxxt the Colony, which I have no wish to deny and far less to depend, still the question arises—Might not worldly wisdom, if not a feeling of kindliness, have prompted some of the 1 unediu people occasionally to have given a word of cheer if not a helping hand to this forlorn brother ? The king does sometimes come in the cadger’s way, and Graxxt, whatever may be his faults and misdeeds, is sufficiently clever to do mischief. There is no manner of doubt that his description of the Colony is untrue, but he himself has not succeeded and he speaks as he feels. It is human nature. And, after all, we have not always got the immigrants we need, Numbers of ill-condi-tioned, lazy people, have foixnd their way to New Zealand lately ; it is most likely they are not the happiest of our population ; and their doleful stories prevent better mexx from following them. Grant is the interpreter of this discontent, and it is neither a pleasant nor a paying business, I am sorry to say that your Dunedin Steam Company are beginning Sunday labor in connection with their steamers. 1 notice by the papers here that theHawea is to bed ischarged atthe Wellington wharf to morrow (Sunday) It is a pity, for all the extra profit it will bring, that working men should be deprived of the weekly rest they so much need, when there is not a particle of necessity for the exaction.