Mr VOGEL’S TRIP TO ENGLAND

Globe, Volume I, Issue 89, 12 September 1874, Page 4

Mr VOGEL’S TRIP TO ENGLAND

[From the Press.']

It was reported at the close of the session that Mr Vogel intended during the recess to pay another visit to England. Subsequently the report was confirmed. Our telegrams from Wellington informed us that Mr Vogel meant to go to Sydney, on some matters connected with the submarine telegraph, and from thence to proceed to London, and that he would be accompanied by his family. We heard yesterday that he had left for Manukau, to catch the Sydney steamer. The visit to Sydney, so far as it is supposed to be undertaken for business reasons, is quite uncalled for. The colony is very efficiently represented there already. Mr Bussell has just gone, or is about to go thither, in order to arrange, if possible, for the renewal of the Californian mail service, and it would have been little additional trouble to him to take charge of the arrangements for the telegraph contract. There is scarcely anything to be done. The affair was thoroughly discussed at the last Intercolonial Conference, and all the details and conditions of the contract, as agreed upon by the representatives of the three colonies concerned, have been ratified by their respective Parliaments, Nothing remains but for the colonies to find a contractor. If for that purpose it was necessary to despatch an agent to Sydney, the obvious course was to entrust this business, as well as the other, to Mr Bussell. No one was better able to do what is requisite on behalf of New Zealand; and Mr Vogel’s freak of making the telegraph contract the subject of a special mission, simply puts the colony to a needless expense. However, if the trip to Sydney were all, we should raise no great objection. We dare say Mr Vogel is fatigued with the labours of the session, the full weight of which he has to sustain without assistance from his colleagues, and we would not grudge him a holiday. But we protest in the strongest terms against the visit to London. We denounce it as an expenditure of public money for the gratification of private and personal objects; as likely to involve the colony (as past experience proves) in serious embarrassments; and as an unwarrantable, we may almost say criminal, desertion of most important and urgent duties. In the first place, there is no reason why Mr Vogel is wanted in London, he goes, it is said, to raise a loan. But that is sheer pretence. The Crown Agents can negotiate whatever loan is to be raised without the aid of the Colonial Treasurer. They understand the business far better than he does, and the interests of the colony will be better attended to, and be far safer, in their charge. Nay, it is they who will negotiate the loan under any circumstances. The fact of his being on the spot will not assist the operation in any way whatever. Mr Vogel may pretend to put himself forward, and may take the credit of the transaction, but in reality he will simply place himself in the hands of the Crown Agents and will act as they advise ; or if he attempts to take any action on his own account, his interference will only land him in difficulties from which they will have to extricate him. Something of the sort happened, as we have been informed, when be was in London in 1871. Thus his journey home, while it may possibly lead to mischief, cannot do an iota of good. Mr Vogel may have private affairs in England which need his attention, and his visit may be both pleasant and profitable to himself ; but there is not the shadow of reason for supposing that the £4OOO or £SOOO which it will cost the Treasury will have been expended on any public grounds or be repaid by any public service.

In the second place, Mr Vogel is not to be trusted in England. He is a man who needs some powerful constraining influence to keep him within bounds. Directly he gels beyond the immediate range of public opinion he breaks loose altogether. His passion for contract-making takes possession of him, and hurries him to the maddest extremes. He forgets all legal and constitutional restraint, and ignores the authority of the Legislature. He has no hesitation in committing the colony to enormous liabilities, which, unauthorised as they are, the Assembly finds it has no alternative but repudiate at a damaging injury to the colonial credit, or to compromise at a heavy money sacrifice. Heaven only knows what Mr Vogel may bring back from London. He may return with articles of a grand South S a Company, with a guaranteed capital of five millions ; or a State Eorests Association, under contract to take over all the forests in New Zealand and three per cent of the waste land. A Minister who could perpetrate the Brogden contracts—who, without the knowledge or sanction of Parliament, and even without consulting his colleagues,

could of his own mere motion sffin contracts to the amount of £4,000,000, and -'rant away 8,000,000 acres of lend — is capable of anything. After such a lesson the colony acts very rashly in trusting him a second time out (V sight. Lastly, even if Air Vogel had bond fide business in England, this is not a time when he ought to leave the colony. His work lies emphatically at home. New Zealand is now about to enter on the largest and most radical scheme of constitutional reform. The institutions under which the country has been governed ever since it had any independent Government at all are to be abolished, and an entirely new set of institutions to be created in their stead. Air Vogel has initiated these changes, has obtained the consent of the Legislature to them, and it will be his duty as Premier to prepare the necessary measures for giving effect to them. This is by a very great deal the most important political undertaking that the country has ever engaged in ; one that needs the most painstaking consideration of details, the most minute examination of the requirements of every part of the colony, and the most finished efforts of constructive skill. To frame a constitution—not a mere paper scheme, but one adapted to the wants of the people, and that will have a fair promise of permanency —is a task to tax the capacities of the ablest statesman. But Mr Vogel seems to think it beneath his notice. His first proceeding i 6 to throw it all aside as a matter of no moment, and to start oft for a holiday tour round the world. The whole recess would scarcely afford time for adequate preparation; yet he chooses to waste months in totally unnecessary and useless visits to Australia and England. Mr Vogel’s departure from the colony in the present position of its affairs is simply monstrous. It argues an utter absence of principle, a deadness to any sense of responsibility, an indifference to public duty, and even a want of decency, which it is hard to characterise in fitting language. We are astonished that his Excellency has not thought proper to interpose. Sir J. Eergusson who understands constitutional usage, must recognise the flagrant impropriety of Mr Vogel’s conduct. We wonder therefore that he has countenanced it. As Governor of New Zealand he owes a duty to the people, and we are surprised that, at so important a crisis, he should have thought it consistent with the obligations of his office to allow the Premier leave of absence.