THE HON. JOHN HALL.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 24, 28 January 1880, Page 5

THE HON. JOHN HALL.

[Caristchurch "Prses."] Oh, 1. am &. cook and a captain bold, And the mate of the Nancy brig, And a bosun tight, and a mldshipmite, And the crew of the captian's gig. So sang ttief bero of Gilbert's famous ballad, and so, if he had a turn for vocal music, combined with apt simile, might sing the Hon. John Hall. The more public offices he holds,' the more he is willing to hold, and the very incongruity of his various positions only gives him a keener relish for them, and inspires him with a more ardent devotion to the minutest details of their duties. He is Premier, and Colonial Secretary, and Postmaster General, and Commissioner of Telegraphs, but this light occupation dues not preclude his being chairman of the Councilof the largest County in the Colony, chairman of an important. Road Board, member of a Harbor Board, chairman or membsr, trustee, or what not, of a host of minor institutions. Certainly, if personal experience of the internal machinery of popular Government is a prime qualification for the bead of a Ministry, the present Premier is supereminently fitted for that position. His predecessor, on the oontrary, had no qualification of the kind. We never hoard of Sir George Grey being chairman of anything. He never acted on a Board of any kind. Though loud in his advocacy of public education, he never assisted the useful deliberations of a school committee. He is not even a Justice of the Peace. He has, it is true, been patron qr president of a vast number of societies, clubs, and other associations ; but that is simply to say that he allowed his name to be used in a way which implied a certain amount of deferential respect for him, without entailing upon him any trouble, responsibility, or expense. He never was a citizen, in fact, in any sense of the word, and, with his peculiar notions of what is due to himself, never could submit to be one. He even went the length of almost entirely avoiding taxation, an abnegation of social privileges which is, to say the least, remarkable in one who avows extremely strong opinions upon the wholesomeness of an equal distribution of the public burdens. Mr McLean's celebrated notice of motion — " That in view of the hardening effect upon the human heart of exemption from all taxation, it is desirable that the island of Kawau be included in the County of Rodney," was intended, no doubt, for a little bit of " wut," but it contained, nevertheless, much plain trutb, and that it hit hard was evident from the wrathful seriousness with which Sir George Grey resented it. Now, if the late Premier had conducted the public affairs of the colony during his term of office with superlative precision, regularity, promptitude, smootbnese, economy, end success, he would have gone far to demonstrate the expediency of one in his position holding aloof from public works of a less dignified kind, and concentrating the whole of bis energies and influence on matters of State. In that case it would have been easy to maintain tint in muddling ' with Counties ani Road Boards , and "parochial" poliUca generally,,- Mr Hall is doing an injustice to the colony, t) his colleagues, and to his p*rty. Unfortunately for any such argument, however, Sir George Grey's two yeare' administration is a standing reproach for dilatoriness, confusion, squabbling, waste, and failure, „ The question, theiefore, remains an open one of whether it is good for the ptlblio or not, that the Premier should be so very public a man as the Honorable John Hall, is. No one who knows anything .of him, certainly; would accuse bim of knowingly sacrificing the interests committed to his care in one capacity, to those engaging his attention in janother. His power of work is enormons and versatile, and his conscientiousness as an administrator would be .an abiding terror to his subordinates if it were not. like all genuine enthusiasm, contagioußiy stimulative. He joins unflagging perseverance, and the very essence of method, to a good deal of dash and ingenui'y ; and his habit of doing everything himself arises not from haughty self-est^cu but rather from

an unresting love of affairs Whenever we observe a man thus itching at all times to be busy we are inclined * to suspect him of a guilty conscience. We find, ourselves wondering what awful crime he can have committed that he dare not take a spell and think things over. We ere oppressed by a blind sense of pity Tor the deep, unquenchable remorse which we fancy must be gnawing at his vitals. We cannot recall an instance, though, of a man burying the memory of a murder in a Road Board, or seeking asylum from the pangs of melancholy in the giddy whirl of a County Council. There is too, a chirpy cheeriness about Mr Hall, even I when fagging through she sub-sections of a Slaughterhouses Bill, for example, which scouts the theory of a sinblistered soul or a scathed and blighted being. To quote once more from the Bab ballads: — ' And I said, " 0, gentle pieman, why so very, very merry? Is it purity of conscience, or your one and seven sherry ? " But he answered, "I'm so happy — no profession could be dearer — If lam not humming, Tra ! la ! la !' I'm singing • Tirer, Hrer !' First I go and make the patties, and the puddings and the jellies ; Then I make a sugar bird cage, which upon a table swell is ; Then I polish all the silver, which a suppertable lacquers ; Then I write the pretty mottoes, which you find inside the crackers." That's juet it. No profession could be dearer. If he is not doing one kind of public work, be is doing another, and is equally in his element in all. There are occasions, however, when the most voracious public man must restrain his appetite and simplify his fare, for the sake of others if not for his own; and we cannot help thinking that the present recess is on a of then. The Ministry have undertaken an immense amount of work for the limited time at their disposal before the reassembling of Parliament; and if they intend the next session to be a short one, as it is desirable on all grounds that it should be, they will have all they they caa do to get that work in a due state of preparation. They have promised, or shadowed forth, a comprehensive system of local Government, a new insolvency law, a complete financial reform, several additional electoral measures, a redistribution of the representation, and Heaven only knows what besides. They have also already on their own hands the settlement of the Native difficulty, the administration of the Proparty Tax, the reduction of order out of chaos io public works, and many other weighty matters urgently demanding attention. How they are to wade through all this in four months and a half, if they spare even a single day for " local and personal 7 ' politics, we confess we cannot understand. The fear is not that they will do too little but that they will do too much, for want of leisure to discriminate between what is necessary to be done and what may just as well or better be left undone. We should like >to see all the Ministers, after such a vacation as is required to recuperate their health and morals after the late ses ion, shut their respective villages out from their hearts, end apply themselves uninterruptedly to the taak of contracting tbeir future programme within the narrowest possible limits. If they will only take up a few large questions and deal with them definitively, they will do a hundred times more good, aud gain more credit for themselves, than they will by wrestling with a tangled mass, of details, -and flooding the Legislature With' nasty, irritating little BHIb.