Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, SEPT. 5, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 388, 5 September 1874, Page 2

Tuapeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, SEPT. 5, 1874. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

The speech of his- Excellency Sir James Fergusson on the occasion of the public dinner given to him by both Houses of the Legislature in Wellington, on the 28th ult., is worthy of perusal. It bears the mark of honest utterance. Hi 3 Excellency said, we believe with truth, that he " scorned to flatter." Alive to the excellencies of our colonial institutions, he has not been blind to our deficiencies. -:Bein<j more intent to acquit himself .with integrity than to plaaso «p fl«*-fc-z~, Oir James has not always been appreciated by those whose maxim is "ca me and I will ca thee ; " or those who have thought more of the glare and tinael of officialdom than of honest speech, and the real and practical qualifications of a constitutional Governor. His Excellency possesses those sterling features of character which, though not usually appreciated at once, do not fail in the r end to command general esteem. On this account Sir Jame3 has been rising in the esteem of the thoughtful in the community. He is evidently an observer of men and institutions, and uses both hia eyes while observing. He does not merely look at what is excellent in our institions, and tells us of that ; but he looks on what may be our deficiencies, and tells us also what these are. Ho thus encourages by a proper recognition of excellencies attained, and bespeaks our sympathetic - attention when he would correct what is wrong or improve what is defective. He hag likewise the sagacity to lay hold of points which warrant hops where others see nothing but forebodings of ruin. Of this his views of the position of the North Island is a striking example. He sees in their present state the elements of a prosperity that may one day equal, if not surpass, the prosperity of the Middle Island, and " what for no." The hopeful view which he takes of the immigrants which have been landed on our shores, and against whom the Press has done so much to prejudice the public mind, is also noticeable. In this respect we hold his Excellency to be in the right. When it is recollected that many of those who have landed lately on our shores have been perhaps the victims of the social inequalities • that unusually result •frpm the overcrowding of cities, and the consequent contrasts, amounting almost to antagonism, existing in the society from which they have come, and that here they are at once placed in circumstances altogether new, much may be said for his Excellency's view of the case. Emancipated from class distinction to a larger extent than is possible in the old country, the immigrant who has been crushed by anxieties and penury is here possessed of facilities to improve his condition, unknown to him previously. The semiserfdom which crushed him to the earth is here annulled, and he begins to hold his head erect, and say — "Am not I. too, a man 1 " It is a common failing of human nature to abuse similar advantages at first, and Sir James wisely admonishes us not to scrutinise! this too narrowly. The advantages supplied by the numerous openings which a new country offors to the persevering, will nob fail to awaken dormantenergies and spur on lagging resolutions in the course of honorable ambition. In the criticism which has been freely made on tho A'^ent-Croneral fov the looae way ha has managed theemi^ra tion business— remarks not over ho«tpit•able^ or kindly have been passed on recent arrivals in the country, which the well-timed and sagacious observations of his Excellency may serve to neutralise, ft 'would bo well for us to hive only the vigorous and the strong — the very pick of the old country as colonists. Let us have them if they can be got ; but let us not grumble too deeply if, along with them, there may be ,a per centage of average humanity in the shipments. Mistakes, -no doubt, have been committed ; but let us not make more of them than they warrant, The license in which same of our immigrants indulged qn landing may thus also b,e judged with