OUR PRESENT GOVERNOR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5632, 18 April 1879, Page 3

OUR PRESENT GOVERNOR.

(From the Australasian.) • ■-j It is not po-sible to imagine a more satisfactory, termination to a term of , office as Governor than that which has brought to a Close the viceroyalty of Sir - Hercules Robinsou in New South Wales. , Sir Hercules in quitting the colony, leaves its political, condition sound and peaceful, the long feud between' two prominent leaders which long troubled, and- hindered ,legislative• progress staunched ■ and' harmonised , the country firm in its adherence' to' free trade, and highly prosperous under the blessings of ■ that system. Personally the late Governoi does not leave an enemy in the colony he has departed from, but receives from the unanimous voice of a grateful community the expression of a general sense of obligation. To those who maintain that a perfect Governor must be a mere volitibnless dummy in the hands of his advisers, the career of Sir Hercules Robinson offers the fittest reply, and shows ho w Bauch of power for good, and, how potent anupfluence oh the side of progress and harmony, a Governor may exert if competent and desirous to dp go. We do not maintain that Sir Hercules Robinson has made no mistakes, a contention he. would himself scorn. But a man is not judged, by ; his mistakes, but by the general tenor.of his work, and, above all, by the character of the motives' which have directed it. Ih .summing up, as far as it is.possible to separate the effects of Sir Hercules Robinsons m-. fluehce °oh the’ policy and public life of thecolony,- w© should say that they are a stronger seats of the value of the Imperial connexion,

the recognition of federation as an object always to be kept in view, the enlarged spirit of enterprise shown in railway construction, and in undertaking the International Exhibition, the firmer and more general conviction of the advantages of free trade, and the strengthened feeling of the necessity of morals ns the ruling principle of public life in a self-gov-rning community. The consciousness of having forwarded in ever so slight a degree such ends as these is a sufficient reward to the most devoted labor, and if more were wanting it is accorded in the demonstration of respect and regret from a unanimous community which accompanied Sir Hercules Robinson’s departure. His Excellency now goes to New Zealand, to encounter possibly fresh difficulties and trials, but strengthened by the experience of the past and the appreciation he has earned, and also by the assurance that he is working for and in view of an enlightened English community, which is not likely to he wanting in a sense of recognition of statesmanlike ability, patriotism, honor, and high public spirit on the part of the representative of the Queen.