THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2631, 14 June 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 1877.

The Hon. the Attorney General received two deputations from local bodies yesterday. To both he listened attentively, tickled their ears with fair promises, and then bowed them out without committing himself in any way that can be used against him hereafter. In fact the hon. gentleman comported himself as became a Minister of the Crown out for a holiday, and who might have felt bored by deputations but that his suave temperament prevented the faintest show of anything ! like ennui. We regret exceedingly that> owing to a misapprehension regarding.the time the deputations were to be received, we had no representative present, as we are informed that the interviews were managed by the Attorney General with such diplomatic skill that the interviewers were at times fairly embarrassed, the geniality— not to say jocularity—of the Minister disconcerting those who had come to fight every point with an astute lawyer and politician. It has become so much the practice for all sorts of people having a grievance to get up deputations /whenever a Minister of the Crown visits \ the district, that the practice has passed into a precedent. It was understood that the Hon. Mr Whitaker had come down here on private business, and for one day it seemed as if such were the case, he having successfully evaded any approaches on the part.of local bodies to pester him with their grievances. But, possibly owing' to the importunity of some, he felt that he would have to surrender; hence the deputations yesterday. It happened, however, that the visiting Minister had fortified himself against attack by a show of good humour—real or assumed—under which he might be able to parry what was intended as home thrusts, and turn them on his interviewers, thereby disarming and putting them Jiors de combat. He was wily enough to know that had he listened to presentments made to him with the same sententious gravity with which they were opened out, some ex officio utterance would have been required in reply of a definite character. He therefore treated the matters brought before him in a mood which may be characterised as " chaffy." He certainly did tickle the ears of the deputations with fair promises, and as far as he is concerned wo have no doubt that the promises will be redeemed; but as for committing the Government of which he is a member to any defined course of action, we believe he will be absolved of anything of the kind. In the case of the Harbor Board deputation the promises of the Attorney General were conditional; while it is said that the deputation of the Borough Council re borough endowments received what some people would call a | genteel snubbing, but administered in such a "ministerial" way that the deputation could scarcely feel its full force. The Attorney General, no doubt, feels conscious of having done his duty in listening to the grievances of his interviewers ; while the latter can place their hands upon their bosoms and say that they have done all that was demanded of them in the interests of those whom they represented ; but we may wait for results before pronouncing upon the good effected by these deputations.