"SENDING HOME."

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2467, 3 December 1886, Page 2

"SENDING HOME."

The old country or the new— which Is it to be? Judging from what tve boo on all skies, the old bears pay. the palm. We keep to the old land and its institutions. Well, Englishmen, jutfj' 1 after all : such we are, .on our ; heads with refereiSfe 'tolhe . good peopl® in th? Fatherland, are eminently. ■Vative.,. Wei. don't; and during the process of changing look and. feel as.uncomfortable as a nog in amour, and with this strongly marked characteristic about us, it is natural that we should go to the. old land for .what ..we- want. Wautcd a professor or a.head master, ™? wo send our requisition to tKe;. Agent®* General or Bome other agent, and.we have him forwarded " This side up with care." Wanted a parson . for anything worth having, and a similar is gone through—aoineone is., selected, and sent out done up in a bandbox. .'Now, of course, for certain thingß - and. particular appointmonta this process may, l«-,the beat. Wo can derive from th«W institutions of the Old Country, have passed through a training quite unobtainable 'in a" new country. But there is another side to the. question. A grave wrong'is done to the m'eriibers of •any profession out here, as scion. w it is oloarly shown that for them thero is no hops of promotion, or at any rate of promotion worth the namo. .The high efficiency of Napoleon's array wis due to the fact that each man felt he- carried ft possible marshal's baton in '-his knap*, saok. Let hilti but distinguish himself and anything ,-wasah his grasp,. What was the result?; That Napo« leon had at his command the wont; magnificent fighting engine the worldJwd over seen. Out here we. adopt a pR: directly opposed to this; in the Church, for instance, we train up a few yonng parsons, we scatter them over.-the bush districts, where they , can obtain soant experience and scantier pay, but whenever a town parish falls vacant, we get a man from the old country to enjoy the dignity. Teachers are trained and masters sent out, but in a vast number of cases tho best appointments are transferred homo. Of course in the earlior days of tho colony there was some reason for such a procedure; then, competent men jwere not so common, But now we submit that a distinct Injury is done to all professions when tniß mode of filling ua vacancies obtains, Take away a pswj hopo of promotion and you havo .roMbed the man of one of the great spurs and In* oentives to high action, it is; the hope of reward that always Bweeteni service, and thus wjmt dt corps, popularity, and efficiency alike suffer. But there is another point which de« serves consideration. Our colonial ways and manners are different from the wam and manners whiob obtain in thfjid •oouutry, and it man lias to undentasß tain process of seasoning before he quits realises what and wherein the differences is, _ Until tJbat. seasoning is -completed he is, as it were, half-baked, and is not fit to cope with the difficulties which face him there. ' Of> 'osurse,' in the teso of men of the world, who' hare ' travelled muoh and keen, other cities and men, thore is a certain adaptability whioh enables them with-less difficulty to . fit themselves in their new surroundings, but as a rule such taot and knowledge are tare; men display tho most lamentable want of it, They abuse and run down all things colouial, simply becauio they are colonial, and speedily find thomtSn out of touch with their it is the, truer wisdom for us in these matters to take the best w&.cah- find out here aftor all the seasoning difficulty has been gone through, and thiis giving an impetus to colonial methods Qf training ? and professional skill. Notliing will do this more than for a man to feql that he is not debarred from promotion merely because he has not' been summbned from across the sea.—-Auckland Star, ,) v L