MR PERCEVAL IN LONDON.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2311, 28 January 1892, Page 4

MR PERCEVAL IN LONDON.

The London correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, under date December 11th, says :Mr W. B. Perceval has arrived at last, after we had almost given him up. He came by the Victoria, which landed him at Plymouth on Saturday, and thence he proceeded to London. Most of us, being ill-informed of his movements (which was only natural, seeing that at the agency they knew precious little of them), were looking for him by a direct steamer. Mr Perceval, I may remark, has received considerable attention at the hands of the presß. I could not help contrasting the treatment he has received with the former neglect of matters colonial. A few years ago the arrival of the AgentGeneral of any colony would not have received any notice, save perhaps in the columns of the omnivorous Times, where it would have been dismissed in two lines. But we have changed all this, and Mr Perceval has been heralded in innumerable pars. It was an excellent peg to hang notices upon, that fact of descent from the Hon. Spencer Perceval, the assassinated Premier, and scribblers have taken advantage of it.

Mr Perceval yesterday assumed the direction of the omcfi in Victoria street; so he lias not lost much Umc He looks well and in good spirits after hifl voyago in the Victoria, ivhich, he tells me, made a splendid passage. As he was called to the Bar here in the "seventies," and has twice visited the mother country since, he feels quite at home here, and is evidently pleased at the prospect of residing again in London, which, he thinks, " looks smokier and duller than ever, but otherwise unchanged " since he ate his dinners at the Temple. The new Agent-General had not very much to say of Itis work, as ho has not j yet had time to get a grip of it, I fathered from his conversation, too, that Mr Kennaway, who has been in sole charge since Sir Dillon Bell's departure, was not altogether prepared to hand over ai&ira to his new chief. In answer to my inquiry wijetjjer. any changes were likely

to be made in the office, Mr Perceval said that he required a little time to think about that matter. He confessed, however, to being " not altogether pleased with the arrangement of the office." One thing he would like to do is to establish in connection with it, a library and reading room, where could be kept, beside the colonial papers, all books of reference and other works relating to New Zealand, and samples of representative products. In this way he thinks that much time and trouble would be spared the staff, who are continually appealed to for information on the subject, as applicants could be referred to the library to get for themselvea the particulars which at present have to be looked up by the clerks for each person who comes. Mr Perceval comes here with no special instructions from the Government, and certainly, as he says, without plenary powers. Indeed, I gathered from our converation that he is expected to keep in very close and intimate communication with headquarters, as he told me that he would have to get official sanction for any new departure that he might wish to make—even for his library. Until he can settle down, Mr Perceval is residing with his family at a private hotel in De Vere Gardens, Kensington. He appears to have all the energy and fertility of ideas usually associated with new brooms, and as I took leave expressed a wish that some of the colonists might pay a visit to the office and see the enormous number of callers that beseiged it, and the amount of correspondence that had to be dealt with. They would then, he thought, revise their impression that the Agentgeneral and his staff had a remarkably easy time of it.