The New Governor

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 91, 30 January 1892, Page 3

The New Governor

» Nobody knows who is going to be Governor of New Zealand, but the n'r3t person mentioned, and still in the running, was a certain Sir Herbert Maxwell, M.P., whom nobody appears to know anything about. lamin a position to give a full, true, and particular mental description of him — and, on a pinch, physical as well. A fine fellow he is, too ; so fine that I devoutly wish he may succeed. I confess that I care little for your horse-racing, battery - building, after • dinner - speechmaking Governor. The " young peer " business does not suit me either. An old peer is bad enough, but a young one has the additional advantage of unripeness. Let New Zealand be the first colony to have a literary Governor — not a pressman ; God forbid ! — but a Governor with a fine mellow flavour of genuine letters about him. That we should get with Sir Herbert Maxwell. Let the reader turn to the October number of " Blackwood," and there he will find a delightfully written, pleasantly rambling article by our proposed Governor. A wise article, with a flavour of history, philosophy, a strong one of common sense, and just that touch of humor which mellows the whole. The subject is " Imagination," the value of which to the statesman, the writer, and, indeed, to the successful business man, few people have good sense enough to understand. Our new Governor (as I hope) does ; knows, too, the peculiar value of imagination to a ruler, whether a king of old or a latter-day statesman. Here is a sample from the article : — " The gift of imagination is the one which, of all those we are endowed with, brings us most near to the Divine. . . . . Charles 1., by nature gentle and considerate, would have shrunk from intentional oppression ; hut it required a stronger imagination than his to realise the hardships inflicted in his name — and he paid the penalty." A strong Liberal, too, is our new Governor — an instructed, historic Liberal, 1 mean ; not the New Zealand Brummagem Ballance-e«?» -Eeeve - c»»i-Stout article. Let the following bear witness :— " Who can trace the course of events leading up to the revolt of tho American colonies without Lord North's somnolence and bemoaning the obstinacy with which he re-enacted the blunders of the preceding century ?" I confess I like the word "somnolent." It implies a lot. I never heard it locally used but once. A good many years ago the late James Macandrew (for whom I had a great respect) was withm measureable distance of being Premier. "It would never do, my dear fellow," said a smart literary politician to me, " he's too somnolent." And so he was. Then, as a student of history, I like a man who can curse Lord North. And, in fact, it speaks well for the vigor as well as the sense of a Governor that (within proper bounds, of course) he can curse anything that's bad. — Dunedin Star's Oorresponen'' _______ — —