THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1878.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2982, 5 September 1878, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1878.

The citizens of Auckland met on Tuesday and resolved to send a congatulatory message to Earl- Beaconsfield and his colleague at the Berlin Conference, the Marquis of Salisbury, on the result of:their labors in averting war. Some of the citizens were averse to sending the message—not because they disapproved the propriety of the step, but, on account of its being so long delayed. One gentleman, however, made himself conspicuous and ridiculous by sending a leiter to the Chairman of the meeting protesting against forwardingany congratulatory message, on the ground that many citizens were opposed to it,'and anything like unanimity was out of the question. >. The reading of this letter (the writer was Mr Joseph Newman, to whose name. ■• we have heard, there attaches an odour t>f sanctity) is reported to have been followed by derisive ; cheering arid laughter, and the meeting proceeded to do the business for which it bad been called, Mr Newman's protest notwithstanding. Subsequently, as we learn from the N. Z. Herald, " In the course of a conversation with his Worship the M ayor, the chairman of the public meeting, Mr Joseph . Newman asked whether it was intended to forward the telegram at the expense ot the city. His Worship replied in the affirmative, upon which Mr Newman protested against having the rales expended in this manner, and intimated his intention of instituting legal proceedings against the Mayor if this was done. He further insisted that not only was it unfair to expend the city rates for such a purpose, but that the Mayor had no power,to expend any money at all without the consent of the City Council; His Worship, however, stopped the latter objection by saying that he would forward the message at his own expense, and leave it to the Council to recoup him." Mr Newman, like some gentlemen in a sister Colony and in this community, perhaps '.thinks that the aversion of a European war was not a matter" for congratulation. Possibly he and others who have offered opposition to the proposals for sending these congratulatory messages are unable to discriminate between expressing pleasure at one distinguished act of diplomacy averting consequences of a most serious character and an unqualified approval of the policy of the Conservative .Government.; Other people see things in a different light, and cannot discover any incongruity in the -most advanced liberals joining in the general congratulations to the Premier of England for his firmness at a most critical time, and a course of action which most people believe saved England from a great war, and the colonies from those consequences which their connection with Englaud would have involved.