THE AGENT GENERALSHIP.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 223, 11 September 1876, Page 4

THE AGENT GENERALSHIP.

'•*"■** ? (.N.Z, Times, September 6.) Mr Andrew moved, — That this House does not approve of the office of ' Agent General ot New Zealand being ' offered to Sir Julius Yogel. He ex- ; plained that his action was not taken ! from any want of personal sympathy j and personal friendship for the hoo. j member for Wanganui, but he had j taken the course be had adopted from a | sense of duty, and in opposition to j personal regard for that hon meniber. • The hon member no doubt possessed j many noble qualities, and be (Mr! Andrew) appreciated those qualities;! no one did so more thoroughly perhaps; | ' but stilt the hon member did not pos- j sees qualities fitting him for the office ; of Agent General any more eminently j than did many other gentlemen. He! believed that both in the House and j Out of tbe House men were to be found j who were fully equal to Sir Julius I Yogel, if not superior; and holding! that opinion, he should deal with this) " question purely upon its merits, with-i put any regard to ulterior consequences. : There was a point to be touched upon! first which he willingly would have! omitted touching upon, if he could! conveniently have done so, and that, was the ill health of Sir Julius Yogel.; For a long time past Sir Julius Yogel i , had been suffering from ill health; .he; bad told them so; there were medioal ! certificates tp that effect on the table of: the House; his friends could see it;) and yet it was proposed to translate; him' from the Government benches to; perform arduous duties at a great dis- 1 tance from the colony at a most critical " time in the colony's history,— duties; which he possibly, even probably, might break down under, — duties which - last year, according to his * own statement, had aggravated his illness, and! which, according to his physicians, is. very dangerous for him to oontinue performing. It was painful to refer to c these matters; but it was necessary., It was pleasant to study personal feel-; ing; but it was the duty of the House . to study tbe interests of the country, audit was his deliberate opinion that it was not for the interests of the country to appoint to the responsible j and hardly-worked office of Agent j General a gentleman who was in bucli astute of health that he might break down under it; neither was it fair to expect him to undertake the work. Ou tbis point no more need be said. It had been stated that Sir Julius Vogelj from bis abilities and good qualities, 1 was eminently fitted for the position of Agent General. He (Mr Andrew) held no such opioion of Sir Julius Yogel. As be bad stated before, tbere were within those walls and without those walis persons quite as capable. As the king in olden time was related to have said, " I trußt I have within my realm five hundred good as be," and what had been true then was quite as true in New Zealand now. The hon member for WaDganui had in many ways shown himself to be a most capable man; but there were men io the colony as capable as he was, and if necessary, man even more capable could be mentioned. Tbere were political reasons why tbe hon member sboulJ not be appointed; but before proceeding to state what these reasons were, he (Mr Andrew) desired to clear himself from any changes of inconsistency which might bd brought against him, though he could not recognise that charges of inconsistency should be allowed r to io. validate argument. True, he had since he had been in Parliament giveu Sir Julius Yogel a general support^ and had at critical times backed bim with his vote when a vote was of value; but on many occasions he had not shrunk from disagreeing with the way in which the political 'affairs of the country were being managed. To go no further back, he had , done so last session, wben he expressed ' his opinion in Committee pf Supply, ' upon the conduct of Sir Julius Yogel in reference to his trip to England. And here he would add be was sorry, both for the sake of the boo, gentleman and for the sake of the credit of the country, that Sir Julius Yogel had not on his return cleared away -.the clouds which hung about that matter, It would have been well if these clouds had been dissipated and left behind a brightened sky and pure atmosphere. That had not been done; and be witb many others had been disappointed. It seemed to him that it would be a bad thing for the interests of the coun-*> try if Sir Julius Yogel were taken out* of it, and from the Ministerial benches, where he should be responsible to public opinion, and placed uncontrolled io London as the Agent-General of the Colony. An Agent-General must be possessed of several qualifications: heought to be able of aoting in a subordinate position, be ought to be economical, aod he ought to be a man who could work readily with others. He was not one of those who recognised that Sir Juliuß Yogel possessed these peculiar excellences. As to his being economical, no one could claim that ior him. As premier of the colony, he had ordered on behalf of the colony, £300 worth of Mr Barraud's pictures, for which the House bad made an appronation. Many other instances of the 5 kind might be adduced; but it was not necessary to go on, as Sir Julius Yogel bad himself placed it on record, within the present year, tbat he did not pretend to be economical. As to his inclinations to work amicably witb other people, tbey were not visible in the bank correspondence, in tha correspondence with the Crown Agents, nor in the correspondence with the late Dr

Featherston. In all thesa instances Sir Julias Yogel had not shown himself possessed of facilities for agreeing with those with whom he was officially connected. Neither did he show any <-ptiiude for acting in a subordinate capacity. There was at least one instance in which this was proved— he . had acted io a kind of subordinate capacity in the Ministry under Mr 1 Waterhonsa, bat be bad not so acted very long, for in fact he ousted Mr; Waterhouse from the Premiership. He had again been in a subordinate posi- : tion when Premier, so far as the House was. concerned. It was supposed a Premier should act in submission to the representatives of the people; but what! had been the fact ? The House had not been master of the Ministry, the, Ministry had been master of the House, and very sorry he (Mr Andrew) had been to see the House set at defiance. In illustration of this portion of bis remarks, the bon. member referred to the mail service, and Sir Julius Yogel's visit to England. In the first case the hon. member for Wanganui had, the day after the session, authorised MrRussell to make what contract he pleased, irrespective of the decision of Parliament, and in the other case he had, after leading the House to believe he had no intention of going Home, called a Cabinet meeting the day after the session closed, and got himself appointed to go first to Sydney and tben to England. One who had shewn so little respect for the will iof the House was not the.m>nfor the subordinate position of Agent-General. He believed he had shown that the hon. member for Wanganui did not possess the requisite qualifications for the office; but there were other reasons why he should not be allowed tohold the position. It was not desirable in a young country like this to train up a class of professional politicians; and he recognised this promotion to the Agent-General-ship as a step by means of which Sir Julius Yogel would secure the promotion of his own private intereets— a twelve months' engagement to enable him to cattle in London. He was not going to say that the country could not do- without Sir Julius Yogel; but he would say this, that; the hon. gentleman should have stayed to see the end of hia Public Works policy. In conclusion, he hoped hon members would vote upon the question without regard to personal feelings, because if be were to vote on personal grounds he should vote for the hon member for Wanganui getting the appointment. Members came to tbat House to do the best they could for the country; and in tbis connection he wonld ask whether it was for the good of the country that to secure the services of the hon member for Wanganui for twelve months they should cast a slur upon and possibly lose tbe services of the gentlemen who had served the country for years past -^the Crown Agents. He referred to the correspondence to show that Sir Julius Yogel and the Crown Agents could never work together, and asked if the two million loan were sanctioned who ws to float it? Either the Agent-General or the Crown Agents must be passed over, and unless the Crown Agents could be shown to have been wrong in the late quarrel, tbey must be upheld, and Sir Julius Yogel not consulted in the negotiation of the loan. That alone should be sufficient to prevent this appointment beiog made. Ha believed the Crown Agents were right, and he appealed to th^ dead as well as to the living, and asked tbe House to read what the late Dr Featherston had written. He hoped hon members would record their vote^ without fear of ulterior results— he had occasionally voted with a fear of ulterior results, but be had been sorry for it. Let each one vote honestly according to his manner of thinking, and not fear what might, come after. * He had no personal antipathy against the hon member; on the contrary, he had every sympathy for him; but he objected to his appointment. He would prefer to see the course followed when old officers retired repeated in this case — h9 would give the hnn member a gratuity of £3000 or £5000, but notthe* Agent-Generalship. (Opposition cheers.) ■*•**■