THE GOVERNOR'S FAREWELL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 886, 17 February 1879, Page 2

THE GOVERNOR'S FAREWELL.

(PF.K PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Wellington, February 15. About 100 gentlemen attended the Governor's farewell leve'e to-day. The City Council presented an address, to which his Excellency replied : —" Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, —I receive with pleasure your address, and the assurance you give me of your loyalty to Her Majesty the Queen. To one holding the office of representative of Her Majesty in one of her colonial possessions there can be nothing more gratifying than receiving, on the eve of his departure, an assurance of respect and esteem from the inhabitants of the Colony. I have always wherever I have had the honor of representing Her Majesty, endeavored to identify myself with the best interests of the country, and to promote as far as was in my power the happiness and prosperity of the people. Since I landed in Wellington I have seen your city nearly double in size. The character of the buildings is altering from day to day, and there can be m> doubt that in a few years this city will present a very different aspect from what it did on my landing ; and I doubt not that it will increase from year to year in importance, I hope in prosperity. Gentlemen, —I shall ever cherish in my memory the years I have spent among you. I shall over watch anxiously the progress of this groat Colony, and I doubt not that my anxious hopes for its advancement will not be disappointed. In wishing you farewell, I can only assure you that I do so with sincere regret. My appointment to Victoria was not sought by me; it was ottered unsolicited and unexpectedly, and I felt that it was my duty at once to accept, but I cannot but assure you that I leave New Zealand with sincere regret." An address was also presented from the Working Men's Club. In replying to it, His Excellency said he was always pleased to encourage anything tended to raise the status of the working men, and to create an esprit i.h corps amongst them. He advised the members of the Working Men's Club to be wholly independent of extraneous aid, and to depend only on themselves. He did not deprecate extraneous aid when coming involuntarily, as it should come, but the Club should be substantially self-supporting; and the more the members depended on themselves and their own efforts, the better it would be for the Club. His Excellency added, that in no part of the world could a working man have such a grand chance of winning independence as in this Colony ; for here it was not working men who had to seek employment, but it was capitalists who had to seek employe's. It must evidently be that under such circumstances any working man must be able, by living soberly and industriously, to put himself in a position of comparative independence.