The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1878.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5474, 12 October 1878, Page 2

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1878 .

It is fitting that the opening of the railway to the Wairarapa should be made the occasion for a festival by the people of Wellington, It marks another stage in the progress of the policy of Immigration and Public Works inaugurated seven years ago. In some of the advantages of that policy this city has largely shared already, and it is the extension of these advantages to the country districts that is now about to be celebrated. Circumstances, have prevented the North Island from profiting so largely by that xiolicy as the South Island has done, but to the extent to which it has been possible fairly to apply it in the North, the result has demonstrated its soundness. We have only to look around. On an occasion such as this we feel assured that the name of Sir Julius Vogel will not be forgotten by the people of Wellington. The credit of an inventor or of a discoverer of some great truth is not claimed for him by the most ardent of his admirers. He had a clear Insight of the'needs of the hour when he attained to office ; he had the courage of his opinions, and the capacity and the power to impress these opinions upon the people, and to carry them with him in the great work which,, in the face of many obstacles, he set' on foot, and which his successors in office have not ceased to prosecute with more or less vigor up to this time. Settlement is the work of colonists ; the raw material of the land has to be turned into beef and mutton, wool, and “cereals,” and the men who do this by their capital and their labor are the men who make the country. A bridge or a mile of road which renders the land acceptable to the people is better than a volume of stump speeches, as the tangible benefit of a shipload of immigrants is worth all the visions of future ages and their countless millions which have illustrated stump oratory in New Zealand in all this year. To-day is the festival of work ; and the name of the workman will be loyally remembered in connection with what has been accomplished.