RECEPTION OF THE GOVENOR AT AUCKLAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1091, 10 April 1883, Page 3

RECEPTION OF THE GOVENOR AT AUCKLAND.

His Excellency the Governor and suite accompanied by the Hon the Premier and the Native Minister, arrived from Onehunga by special trpin on Friday, when the A Battery fired a salute of 17 guns. The shipping and streets were decorated with flags. His Excellency was received by the Mayor and Councillors and a number of the leading citizens at a platform adjacent to the station which had been erected and decorated for the occasion. The Mayor, Mr J. M. Clark, welcomed His Excellency to Auckland in a brief speech, and the Town Clerk read an addreßS from the Council, in which a hope was expressed that His Excellency, Lady Jervois and family would frequently honor Auckland with their presence.

His Excellency, after remarking that as the sun was rather hot, he thought they might all venture to put on their hats, said :—"Mr Mayor and Gentlemen, —I thank you most heartily for the address with which you have just now presented me. Owing to some accident, I only received a copy of your address a few minutes ago, and therefore trust you will kindly excuse any shortcoming on my part in replying to it. In travelling ahout as I have been for some time in different parts of Zealand, it has been my good fortune to receive many addresses, so many indeed that I find very often one's vocabulary almost exhausted in varying the expressions that are suitable. In that I am reminded of an address that was once, I am told, presented by a distinguished major of a Scotch regiment to the colonel, who was about to leave the corps, They were neither of them gifted in speecI', 1 ', and on the occasion of the departure of the colonel, who was to be presented with a fine piece of plate, it was the majnr who was deputed to present it. Not being an orator, however, ho stood up and said, ' Colonel, there's the pig ;' upon which the colonel said, with an equally diffuse oratory, ' Aye, major, and is that the pig V (Laughter.') I Bhould myself much like to adopt that language

of brevity on some occasions, bat on an occasion like this, gentlemen, my first appearance in Auckland, I feel that I cannot treat an aldress of the sort which you have presented to mo as a mere matter of conventional sentiment. I look upon it as coming from a body of gentlemen representing the city ; that I see before me au address that breathes loyalty to Her Majesty ; loyalty to a Queen who reigns over the greatest empire the world has ever seen; loyalty to a Queen who lives in the devotion of her subjects, and who is the symbol of a constitutional monarch such as the world has never seen equalled, and one under winch you, gentlemen, as New Zealanders, are able with perfect freedom to develop your resources and manage your affairs. (Hear, hear.) Gentlemen, I will not detain you any looger here, for I see that the crowd is waiting. On behalf, thei., of Lady Jervois and myself, 1 beg to thank you for the very kind and flattering welcome that you have given me, and 1 can assure you that it will be a great pleasure to me, during the time I am in New Zealand, to visit the splendid city of Auckland." (Loud cheers.)