MINISTERIAL EMIGRATION.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 919, 17 January 1871, Page 2

MINISTERIAL EMIGRATION.

[nelson examinee.] Dr. Featherstou and Mr JMllon Bell are returning to tbe colony just in time to exchange greetings with Mr Vogel, who, we hear, has actually decided on accepting from himself the post of General Colonial Agent (at .£2,000 per annum, we believe, with travelling expenses). We would venture to suggest a fuller development of the recently introduced system of Tourist Ministers, combining with it greater regularity. A Minister should leave the colony with each home? ward mail, or at. least by all mails via San Francisco, unless indeed he preferred to visit India, Egypt, or the Holy Land, when he might go by Suez. It may be objected, however, that this would necessitate an enormous increase in the number of Ministers. The present Government has by its numerous accessions amply demonstrated the fallaciousness of any such objection. Some will say that a Minister, when he finds himself at home on a roving commission, embracing Great Britain and Ireland, Sweden and Norway, Spain, Italy, and indeed all parts of the European or any other continent where touring is safe and agreeable, with a salary of J 22,000 a-year and all his expenses paid, might be unlikely to return to a too generous " adopted country." This objection also is of merely secondary importance, as the raw material of which, Ministers are now made js plentiful throughout the colony. Jndeed, the result of our beneficient Provincial Institutions is such, that a great part of the material, although wholly uneducated, can scarcely be called raw. Possessing as we do inexhaustible crops of potential statesmen, it is hard to see why we shoulq not export a paltry dozen specimens in the year. If at any time it should prove desirable to recall them, which we much question, nothing would be simpler than to cut off supplies, when they would without doubt immediately return to take their part in our political warfare. We hope ere long in the English notices of New Zealand imports, to see one Minister at least quoted as a regular monthly item. It will give the old folks at home a new idea of the respect paid to polititical ability in tliis country, when they see gentlemen the most moderately endowed with it so splendidly and even, delicately treated. Who will haggle about lending us money, when, it is seen, on what objects we can afford to spend it ? Will the most ignorant hesitate to emigrate, when he sees with his own eyes that even he, if he keep his native unsophisticated wits about him, may hope in a few years to return from his antipodal exile an Honourable, with nothing to do, <£2,000 a-year to spend, and all travel* ling expenses paid. No doubt the stimulus that such a spectacle would lend tq immigration must have occurred to Mr Voget's fertile mind in its. full force when he resolved to immolate himself upon the altar of patriotism (best colonial), and accept from himself the little mission he has undertaken. Of him, as of some early emigrant to Sydney or Vau Dieman's Land, it may be said, or sung, " True patriot he, for, be it understood He leaves his country for his country's good." We would suggest Mr Sewell as the next Minister for exportation, Here he is butt what the French call the fifth coach wheel. At home, he might possibly shed lustre on New Zealand. Probably, however, Mr Fox's indisposition may at an early date urgently require the waters of the German baths, or of that sacred| stream with whose name he has so inseparably united his own. Indeed, we have already heard many sensible people, not regular practitioners alone, express a, wish that the whole Fox-cuui-Vogel Ministry might be sent to Jericho—a convenient station, probably, for bathing in the healing waters of the Jordan. We are not aware, however, whether this wish was expressed in the sauitary in? terests of the Ministry, or {.he political interests of the colony.