WHAT THEY MAY THINK AT HOME.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5287, 6 March 1878, Page 3

WHAT THEY MAY THINK AT HOME.

Is it possible, asks the Argus, that the following opinions, placed by Punch in the mouths of Mr. Herbert and Lord Carnarvon, represent the real sentiments of the personages in question ? —“ Her.: But iu a despatch marked ‘ private and confidential’ lie (the Governor) describes the character and antecedents of his responsible advisers, explains their revolutionary aims, and points out with what busy malignity they are fermenting a war of classes, with a view to get the control of a revenue of five millions sterling into their own bands, and that there is the greatest danger of a state of things being brought about iu Victor! , compared w.th which the spoliation by the Tammany Ring in New York would be honest aud re putable. Car. : I cannot help that. As the people of Victoria have made their bed so they must lie in it. And, between ourselves, Herbert, the Cabinet agree with me that it would not be a bad thing for England to be afforded an opportunity of seeing how completely a country, overflowing with all the elements of prosperity, may be ruined and disgraced by entrusting the coudnotof its political affairs to the uuacrupulou; demagogues, lifted into office by unlimited suffrage. Gladstone, you know, is going in for a general levelling downwards, so as to throw the balance of power in this country into the hands of the ignorant aud the unthinking, just as has been done in Victoria;; and it will be well for us to have a shocking example, such as the state of that colony will afford, to point to as a warning of the calamitous consequences of entrusting ‘ the residuum’ with the franchise. Her,; But, in the meantime it will be rather hard upon the e moated and propertied classes in Victoria to be sacrificed for our instruction. Car.: There are the neighboring colonies, you know, which will eagerly welcome any accession of enterprise, intelligence, and capital from Victoria, and which will speedily rise in . wealth and numbers, in her political, social, and industrial ruin. But it is time I went to the Council. Get the despatch ready for the outgoing mail, and we will run it over together, aud forward it without delay.—(Exit)”