The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, JAN. 11, 1894. FINE WEATHER FRIENDS.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 211, 11 January 1894, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, JAN. 11, 1894. FINE WEATHER FRIENDS.

TnE report of an interview with the Hon. Mr Waterhouse on his arrival in the colony from England contained the following : — -" With respect to your present Premier, Mr Seddon has succeeded, whether rightly or wrongly I do not profess to say, but he succeeded in getting the confidence of the English financial public ; and there is no doubt whatever in my mind that had the result of the elections been to put Mr Seddon out of office, it would, at any rate for a time, have had an unfavorable influence upon the colonial money market at Home. I h'nd that this is not only my opinion, but the opinion of nearly .all with whom I have been brought into contact. The real reason of his being popular as Premier, I believe, is that without borrowing the finances have shown a surplus. Of course that is due to other circumstances, but he has the whole credit of it ; it is something marvellous/" Of course this is very nice, but we venture to think that the good opinion of the " English financial public " at the present time is of exactly the same intrinsic value as their evil opinion was a couple or three years ago, it was the apparent duty — as well as pleasure — for their financial newspapers to roundly abuse New Zealand. Zew Zealanders are quite as sensitive as the Americans on the subject of " what they say of us at Home" — and, therefore, quite as foolish in that connection. We do not mean to say it is " not pleasant to be well spoken of " when praise is de served, but when the colony received undeserved contumely from people who were grossly ignorant of her resources, and the energetic character of her colonists, too much importance was attached to it altogether. The Colony had the same elements of success in her illimitable internal resources ten years ago that she has to-day, only the good folk in England did not think so, while observant New Zealanders knew it. Because the Colony has been made prosperous by the enterprise of the colonists, judicious " patting on the back" is the order of tho day in England. We can afford to be indifferent to that sort of nonsense, just as we could afford to be indifferent to th,e unjust condemnation of a few years ago