The Globe. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1878.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1512, 20 December 1878, Page 2

The Globe. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1878.

Our readers were informed yesterday by telegram from Wellington that “G. M. Reed ■wont overland to Napier on his way to England.” So far as the traveller is individually concerned this is a fact that possesses but little interest, but as an illustration of the peculiar economy that is a characteristic of the administration of the Grey Government it may servo to “ point a moral,” if it fails to “ adorn a talo ” so greatly in need of ornamentation as the history of the present Ministry. That this gentleman’s mission to England will cost the people of New Zealand at least two thousand pounds, without effecting for them two thousand pennyworth of benefit, should add also to its interest at least from a pecuniary point of view. Mr G. M. Reed is a writer of some ability, whoso colonial career is principally marked by the steadfast, absolute, and servile support he has over accorded to the party in power. No pill manufactured in the political dispensary was sufficiently bitter to prevent Mr. Reed attempting to make it palatable to the public by the sugar coating of his sophistry, no job too clearly blameworthy to induce him to keep silence when something could be said—or written—to smooth the rough outline of the work, and make it pleasing. To effect this praiseworthy task in the most thorough manner, at the beginning of last session this journalist left the editorial chair of the Otayo Daily Times, and took up his abode in Wellington, so that reports of any little unpleasantness that occurred in the House might bo accompanied by leading articles, wired to prove that the Ministry were on the right side, or at least if they had been guilty of slight indiscretions, “all things else were equal,” and the country would not suffer by the mistake. In this way the letting of a largo and expensive railway contract without tender or authority, because a friend of a Minister happened to have a few trucks in the neighborhood, was toned down. The Roll stuffing at the Bay of Islands was made light of, and the purchase of the votes of the six Nelson members at ten thousand pounds apiece—to be spent in the construction of an utterly useless railway—was made to appear a frivolous aud inconsequential affair, not at all out of the correct course of Government having for its end the happiness of the governed. The foregoing instances are a few chosen at random from the tasks that Mr Reed performed faithfully and well, aud now this bold aud fearless writer has his reward. Ho has been appointed an emigration agent for two years at a salary of six hundred pounds per annum aud travelling expenses, at a time too when Sir Julius Vogel has strict orders to reduce expenses aud dispense with the services of branch agents throughout the United Kingdom. Who will assort after this striking proof of gratitude that the Ministry are thankless for aud unmindful of favors received ? Of course, just one other motive beside that of an earnest desire to reward valuable service might be found to have prompted the Government in this matter, an inducement best explained by the citation of a fact from history. A certain Emperor once pardoned a slave, not from any feeling of compassion ho cherished for the poor wretch, but because he entertained an idea that the least glimmer of hope induced the froed-m&u’a follow slaves to work the harder. There will be several journalists left in the colony even after Mr. Reed has departed for his two years’ holiday at the public cost, whoso tasks will be similar to those which have elicited this outburst of generosity. and the hope of a like reward may servo to sweeten their labor, and prevent weariness and lukewarmness in the performance of a duty that is apt t<? become monotonous and irksome oven to writers for journals specially subsidised to deceive their readers in reference to matters! political,

If mental visions of Mr. Reed enjoying liis trip throughout England, Ireland, and Scotland tend to cheer his fellow laborers in the colony engaged in whitewashing the shady transactions of Her Majesty’s responsible advisers, this “last little job” of the party in power will not bo an absolute failure, but if, on the other hand, it does not achieve this, then a more complete and unwarranted waste of the poor man’s money by the soi disant poor man’s friends it is almost impossible to conceive.