OUR PUBLIC MEN.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XV, Issue 275, 2 November 1880, Page 4

OUR PUBLIC MEN.

A> very written illusfcratpd .paper;, called The Observer has > been lately published in Auckland, in no specialjiDtprest, and in one of its num-~ bers appears " a pen and ink portrait * of the; leader of the Northern "rats,'' which' ;inay possibly be read by Sir George 1 Grey and hisJfriends' with interest. The biography in question is that of, Mr. Reader Wood M.\H.B. a gentlenjan|the writer says, "everything by turns and nothing long/ And feierringCto Longfellow's lines about the footprints * : ; . ; That perhaps another Sailing o'er life's ■olemn main, &c, we arpitold fcbafc Mr Reader Woodh'as" footprints as large as any m>n that ever l-'li^ed,* but not the kind of footprints LoDJgfellow means. Further on we find- that Mr. Wood's efforts as an architect and engineer had only the effect ipf somewhat, disfigurinor Auckland. " His eccentricities of genius have passed into a proverb and have made him the architectural genius of the .age. When'the Pfp>incij»l Cdiifitcil bbambers, al two storey house, had blen completed by him, it wai discovered* th^t; no means of- access ha^d been pp - oyided to gefc up stairs^' But Mr^ood surmounted the difficulty, haying, stimulated the latest resources of his genius, by erecting a staircase outside the. jniilding." — a case of daring originality, indeed ! n Then about qurtriend's engineering abilities, .we ■ are 1 ''grayely assured that whilst in the Public Workß Department, r Mr Reader. Wood: was entrusted with the construction of - a aWer. Some years ' after the sewer Was found too 'deep for L the leVels of the undertaking. And, urges the writer, "this main 'sewer will remain, bb a lasting; monument of Mr. Wood'i genius, as its odoun will continually revive the memory of its founder ; sweet.is the memory of the just;" We now dive mto Mir Wood's political life, and are told to believe "that as a money lender Mr. Wood had devoted himself assiduously to the study of political economy and the knowledge which he had acquired, he placed at the service of the colony, for a consideration," with the following results. After having been Colonial Treasarer in a variety of Ministries, he was entrusted in 1863, when our debt was only half a million, to negotiate a three million loan in London. This he raised at 80, thus paying 15 per' cent to the bndholders, while countries like Rou mania! Cuba and iEg^pt were paying respectively •.7j'^^nd;2 ! "New Zealand ! h o we vety.was^ j^jmp^- to eho y? the buoyancy b : i;h^ ; irelp^rceri; M :.►: When out of office, -^ft .are told that. Mr. ' Reader Wood became " sharebrpfeer to; the Dute of Edioburgli" vtbo was here

on a visit, and for whom he secured handsome) dividends from mining stock. Summing up this eventful career, the Auckland paper relates how during the session of ; 1879 ♦* Mr Wood, hoped; to) secure half * million of .money for Aucklarid by going over to the HbII party, arid he did so He was accused " rafctirigy" was caricatured in the comic periodicals and burnt in effigy.. " ; But, J> worae luck, 'ithe only weak point in his programme.is that Auckland has not got the half jnini,op,,and never will."— And this, is the stuffiof which bur. present public men are supposed to be made ! No wonder that things colonial are so much at sixes and sevens.