The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5282, 28 February 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1878.

What is Mr. Larnach going to England for ? We hope it will turn out that lie is only going on his own private affairs, for if, as is rumored, it turns out that he is going on a public mission at the expense of the colony, Parliament will have something to say to the Government about the arrangement. The presence of Mr. Larnach in London will certainly not help the negotiation of the loan, which will be managed in a far more efficient and business-like manner by the Agent-General and the Crown Agents. If the Government really desires to conduct the business of the country with economy, what reason can they have for sending off at groat expense a supplementary agent who has no standing whatever in the London money market or in New Zealand politics? If the Government and Mr. Larnach wish to part company, they should find some cheaper way of doing it. 11l health,private business, and a hundred fair pretexts may be found without throwing on the colony an expense which could be avoided, and saddling it with an extra official whose interference, if not mischievous, must be absolutely useless. There is a further rumor afloat that Mr. Larnach is to supersede Sir J. Vogel as Agent-General. This appears incredible, but more incredible reports as to the proceedings'of the present Government have turned out to be true, and the appointment of Mr. Larnach as Agent-General would perhaps be quite as defensible as his temporary mission asspecial financial agent. Now, in all seriousness we must ask, What has Mr. Larnach dona in Parliament or out of it, either before or since he joined the Government, to justify such an appointment? There are few men in the House of Representatives who paid so little attention to business, or who occupied so insignificant a standing as Mr. Larnach, until he was asked by the Middle Party last session to move the vote of want of confidence in the late Government. He appears to have been selected on negative grounds, because fhe vacillating gentlemen who lived in the middle could not agree upon a leader. The result justified the choice which led directly to the ruin and final break up of the Middle Party. Mr. Larnach’s speeches, in moving his two votes of want of confidence, were so ludicrously weak that some surprise was expressed at his taking his position seriously and undertaking to form a Government. But the manner in which he set about the business of constructing a Cabinet again justified the choice of a representative of middlemen. It is not advisable that the country should in a hurry forget how the present Ministry came into beinghow lobby manoeuvres brought about a crisis—how the gentleman entrusted by his Excellency to form a Government put the business into the hands of a “caucus”—how the caucus broke up in a tumult of angry feeling—and how, although put forward to keep Sir George Grey out'of office, Mr. Larnach ended by becoming his Treasurer. As Treasurer he certainly did not distinguish himself ; not even the warmest adherents of the present Government have attempted to defend the reasoning or the figures of his very crude Financial Statement. Fortunately for himself he was too ill to attend to business for the rest of the session. It is said that the Public Accounts Committee wanted very much to puta few questions to him, which he would have found it hard to answer. Since the session Mr. Larnach has been occupied in making promises in Otago, and, with the help of his colleague, Mr. Macandrew, it is reported, has undertaken to spend in that province alone more than has been voted for the whole colony. Perhaps that is the reason his colleagues want him to go. At any rate it is very certain that he has no ambition to figure as Colonial Treasurer before the House next session. But this is no reason why the colony should be saddled with an unnecessary special mission to London, or why the able and zealous Agent-General, who is now most efficiently doing his work jin London, should, be superseded by a ; man who is going away because he is not efficient. When we send men Home to England, either as AgontsGeneral, or as representing the Government; on some special mission, it is important that they should bo representative men who will do credit to the colony in London. It has hitherto been the custom to select men known to the public for their services .and abilities, and only to send them Home under exceptional circumstances. We would fain hope that the reports current are not correct; but we have sufficiently good authority for them to justify us in raising

a warning voice., A Government that began its career by thrusting into , the public service Bakers and Graces at a time when so many old servants were being, or had, recently been, reduced, and which is engaged in barefaced negotiations with a member of Parliament • with a view of giving him such a reward as he himself may think adequate to his political services ;—such a Government would not shrink from sending Mr. Larnach Home as agent, either temporary or permanent, the more so as the Premier bitterly attacked the late Administration for appointing as Agent-General the distinguished gentleman who now holds the office with such credit to himself and advantage to the colony.