THE WELLINGTON COUNCIL AND LORD ONSLOW.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 282, 27 November 1891, Page 2

THE WELLINGTON COUNCIL AND LORD ONSLOW.

The Wellington City Councillors seem bant upon making themsolvos ridiculous in connection with Lady Onslow's undisguisod dislike of the Empire City. It is Wellington's misfortune tliat the narrow, ill-drained streets, shut in between a rango of barren inaccess-ible hills and tho sea, present fewer attractions than the beautiful cities of Auckland and Christchurch. As a matter of course, no one who is nob compelled by tho necessities of his business, would live in Wellington when ho had tho option of residing in oibhor of the other two cities. It is useless to geb angry aboub a fact for which Nature is largely responsible. The Wellington Councillors would show much groator common ficnse by setting to work in earnest to abate those evils which aro remediable. Sir William Jervois, who stood Wellington odorous broezt.i with soldierlike fortitude, and never flinched, gave the citizens this advice with his parting benediction, but they failed to profit by it, the burgestics repeatedly vetoing i- proposal to carry out a proper eystein of drainage. In the case of Lord Onslow, although he fullered severely in his own houaehold from tho conditions of life prevailing ub the capital, it cannot bo said that he ever shrank from the risks and discomforts of a residence in Wellington so long as duty demanded thab ho should remain there. Bub ho held tho very common-sense view that the other larger and more salubrious cities of Now Zealand were just as much entitled to havo the Governor of the colony residing amongst them .is Wellington had. In giving practical olfect to this view—which, by the way, has entailed considerable additional exponsoupon himself—ho issupported by public opinion in every part of the colony outside the head centre of officialism. Bub the ridiculous doctrine has been act up ab Wellington thab the Governor must for ever be immurod there. Neither in great cities like Sydney or Melbourno is such an absurd contention put forward, and in Groat Britain the Queen notoriously spends a considerable part of tho year at Balmoral and in the Isle of Wight. Luckily for the reputation of that city, a majority of the Wellington Councillors lasb nighb had sufficient intelligence left to prevent bhe official record of a vote which would have made bhe place a common laughingstock.