INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4494, 14 August 1875, Page 1 (Supplement)

INTELLIGENT VAGRANT.

(From the New Zealand Mail.)

Quis scit an adjiciant hodiern® crastina surama) Tempora Di Supcri.—Horace.

My deal- Councillor Gillon, it is quite a long time since I addressed you, and partial friends have not hesitated to say in consequence that I have forgotten you. But that I have neither forgotten you, nor the immense powers you can at times exercise for the public good, will be apparent from what I am about to write. Sir, I desire to invite your attention to a somewhat nauseous subject concerning which I have previously offered remarks to you. Ido not know how to “wrap up,” as the saying is, what I want to tell, and therefore perhaps I had better just he plain at once. That nightman of yours, sir, who pursues his lucrative hut loathsome occupation under your appropriate protection, cannot overtake his work. He may be in a position to do so in time, hut at present he is unable. Some people blame him, but Ido not; and I therefore offer you a kindly suggestion. Go in and help him. It will be a business presenting perhaps many attractions for you, one for which you will not be altogether unfitted, and it will be attended by an additional recommendation i it will not involve quite so much danger as certain recent tasks of yours incurred, such a task, for instance, as that of telling a gentleman that he did not speak the truth—a task by no means toothsome.

One hundred and nine pounds does not seem much for the conversion of a whole school, does it ? At least it does not seem much to me. But then my experience of conversions has been limited to the Exeter Hall society for the conversion of the poor ignorant Irish Catholics, a costly process, amounting to £25,000 per head per conversion, or thereabouts. And yet I notice that the members of the Wellington Education Board have boggled over paying £lO9 for the conversion of a whole school. A tender was put in at their last meeting for the conversion of the Johnsonville school, at the utterly insignificant' price I have named, and instead of jumping at the offer, they referred it to the Finance Committee. It is evident that conversions are at a discount, which I am sorry to hear, for I have had several offers in that way myself. Some gentlemen lately have been wanting to convert me to abolition at the price of a billet under the new Bill. Some others have been anxious to convert me to provincialism at the price of a place under a perpetuated system of, corruption. Ignorant of the value of conversions, I have hitherto held out for heavy terms but I fear I shall have to come down. In reference to which last point it is noticeable that public opinion has not the safeguard of reliability. A telegram from Taranaki this week said that the feeling among the country people there on Saturday was strongly in favor of abolition. That is all very well, but I want to know what was the feeling of the country people on Friday, and what was it on Monday, and what will it be next week. And upon my honor, I think my want is a difficult one to satisfy. There has been such an interesting paragraph published in many papers lately about eggs as food, and especially as the best food for those who are deficient in brains. It is perhaps this paragraph that has prompted Mr. McGillivray, M.H.8., to the step he is about to take. He proposes moving shortly—“ That it be an instruction to the House Committee to take steps for the importation of ostrich eggs, and their supply in Bellamy’s at a fixed tariff.” In the midst of the telegraphic din which is now resonant everywhere of public meetings and private agitation about abolition, a certain time-honored and somewhat hackneyed quotation, though ancient, is apposite :

Justum ac fenacem propositi virum [Non civium ardor prava jubentium, Jlente qnatit solida. Si fractus illabatur orbis, Impavidum tenant rulnae. But how many of our legislators will “unshaken hear the crowd’s tumultuous cries ?” I could count them on the fingers of a hand from which all but the thumb had been cut off.

I am gradually getting into politics, a sphere from which I had made a resolution carefully to exclude myself. But I cannot help breaking through my resolution, and pointing out to Ministers that if they decide upon going to the country upon their measures, and not pushing them through this session, they will get themselves in a mess. Sir, they have no one who can talk. This does not affect them in the House, where talking has not the slightest influence on the voting, and where, indeed, it would largely serve the convenience of the country if the members voted on a question first and talked about it afterwards. But in an appeal to the constituencies the power of talking can do much, and in that respect Ministers are powerless. The word is a vulgar one, and I do not care to use it, but its force of expression compels me to adopt it—“ Stumping" will be their ruin. In Auckland Sir George Grey and his following ; in Wellington Mr. Fitzherbert and his following ; and in Otago Mr. Pawky Macandrew and his following, will tear Ministers and their measures to tatters. Ido not say they will do this with justice on their side ; I merely point out that they will do it. Therefore, the sooner Ministers appreciate when they are best off the better. I have heard of a frightful revolution in high political life. A gentleman whose name has become such a synonym for smooth, even slippery, dignity, that people have not hesitated to call him “soapy,” contemplated entertaining all that was distinguished in the world of Parliament and fashion this week. But on the day whose evening was to see the entertainment a fearful incident occurred. The servants struck ! The cause of their recalcitrancy is unimportant (in the case of the females it was a question of cap ribbons, I believe), but the results were tremendous. The honorable gentleman, the giver of the “ feed ” and the “hop” (I use technical terms current amongst the aristocracy), was left on Thursday morning with uncooked poultry, raw vegetables, hams that had not seen hot water, fish that required cleaning, _ joints raw, entrees and entremets in a primitive condition. In this state of affairs I am happy to relate that a number of noble ladies came to his assistance, and I believe that, in parliamentary language, the Ministry were saved by fair hands which, descending for the first time from lofty occupations, made all things ready for the feast. It they could only do as much for the Abolition Bill.

Some people say that Mr. Travera was splendid at the meeting on Wednesday night, and some people say that he was quite the reverse. The difference of opinion, unfortunately, is founded less on an estimate of the merits of Mr. Travers than on a political view of the question Mr. Travers discussed. Well, now,' I am not going to look at the affair in this way. To my mind it is easy to form an opinion of the value of Mr. Travers’s speech. He said that Mr. Vogel had asked him to get information with the view of drafting an Abolition Bill. Mr. Vogel therefore looked at the situation like a statesman. Eut the present Ministry employed someone else, and they were not statesmen, and their measures were nonsense. The thing is plain enough. Those who employ Mr. Travera are statesmen ; those who do not employ him are but bunglers. To hypercritical minds it might seem as if it would have been better had Mr. Travers estimated the merits of the Ministry and their measures from a somewhat less personal standpoint. I am in a position to state, as paragraph writers say, that there is no truth certain

rumors which have been current regarding Sir George Grey. He denies positively having asserted in his place in the House that the Governor was a nincompoop and the Chief Justice a bush lawyer. There is no truth whatever in the report that he is in ill-health. He is at present merely suffering from a slight comminuted fracture of the left eyebrow, brought on from long effort to understand the Financial Statement and the Abolition and Local Government Bills. I may say that he is the only man who has made such an attempt, and he deserves sympathy under the circumstances.