SIR GEORGE BOWEN AND COMMODORE LAMBERT.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 198, 9 October 1869, Page 6

SIR GEORGE BOWEN AND COMMODORE LAMBERT.

(From the Evening Post. Sir George Bowen is about to leave us, and to seek a pleasant retiremeat from the cares of statein the “bosom ofhis family,” whence he will doubtless emerge when the shooting season comes round, to wage war on the pheasants in the pleasant woods of Auckland. His departure will not cause any very poignant regrets, nor will his absence create a blank ; and were he even going to return no more, there are few of the inhabitants of Wellington who would shed tears when he leaves the wharf. The last of his official acta which has come before the public is a fitting one to remember him by, showing far more forcibly than words could express, what a broken reed he proves to those who lean on him. We mentioned yesterday that Commodore Lambert had incurred the censure of the Admiralty for ordering away the Himalaya without the troops she came to remove, and that this censure was bestowed principally because the Commodore had acted on his own responsibility, without consultation with the Governor or principal military authority of the Colony, SirGeorge having most carefully pointed out that be had nothing whatever to do with the matter. Is it possible to conceive a meaner course than has been adopted by the Governor ? It is well known that at the time he entirely concurred in the course adopted bv the Commodore, and there is little reason to doubt that he was consulted on the subject, and that Mr. Stafford would not have allowed the troops to go away if it could by any possibility have been prevented. Their retention was or ought to have been—a matter of far greater moment to Sir George than

to Commodore Lambert, and yet, when that gentleman nobly took the responsibility on himself’, with hb ' other object than the utter unselfish one of saving the Colony, our model ruler, who should have supported him through thick and thin, makes a scape-goat, and, afraid of a wigging fn>ni the Colonial Office, goes out of way to assure the Imperial authorities that he had nothing to do with the Commodore’s proceedings.