SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1894. THE LATE MR HENRY BLUNDELL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4732, 29 May 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878.] TUESDAY, MAY 29, 1894. THE LATE MR HENRY BLUNDELL.

' Pot meu liavo exercised greater influence on journalism in this Colony than the lateMr Henry Blumlcll, I and yet lie could hardly be called a journalist. His special talent was a business rather than a literary capacity, but those who have been ■ familiar with the growth and expansion of the Wellington •' vming Poit can best appreciate the value of eminent managerial talent in the promotion of newspaper enterprise. Of late Mr Henry Blumlcll, owing to failing health, took little part in the conduct of the journal with which he has been asstfeiated from his youth up, but we rcmomber well the time when he was Alpha and Omega of its staff, and with what success and skill he wielded his authority. '• It was lie who engaged the best available editorial service, and the choice he made some tenor a dozen years ago of Mr E. T. Gillon has been a proof of his sagacity and foresight. It was he, who, in a great measure, determined the lines upon which tho journal was to be conducted, and these lines liaye stood the test of so great a number of years that the practical wisdom of them is unquestioned. He was supreme, too, as a commercial manager, and undoubtedly he succeeded in making the Evening I'ott oue of tho best paying journalistic properties in New Zealand. In some respects he was specially fortunate'. , He, in conjunction with two brothers, who always worked harmoniously with him, inherited from his father it well-established business, but its growth and extension devolved upon the sons, and, if the father, whom we once had the pleasure of meeting —we believo In tlwyouy '6s—had an idea of ivhat his paper would become in the future, it probably fell short of the present reality. Looking back over the period covered by the late Mr Henry Blundell's journalistic career, wo cannot but recall the numerous wrecks of newspaper enterprise in tho Colony generally, and Wellington in particular, Paper after paper lins started in the Empire city-going up like a rocket ami coming down like a stick—but not oiio has come into serious rivalry with the Evening o?<, There has been no want of literary talent in some, and there has occasionally been ample .financial resources, but the misfortune has been that such ventures Lave not had a sagacious man like Honry Bluudell on their staffs, Few men have workod harder, more persistently, more intelligently, and more successfully in the journalistic i field than the Into Mr Henry Blundell, and he retires from the scene of : his labours at a time wbon the journal he has built up exercises a more [ marked influence as a political organ : than possibly any. other newspaper in the Colony,