The Press. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1871.

Press, Volume XVIII, Issue 2668, 17 November 1871, Page 2

The Press. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1871.

The speech put into the Governor's juoutfi oa Ids proroguing the General Assembly is a good specimen of the j art of penny-a-lining. We commend it to the notice of any one who wishes to learn how to wrap up a modicum of matter in the utmost possible number of words. Ministers evidently think the Governor, ought not to speak like an ordinary mortal. The Queen's English is not good enough for him. He must have a style suited to his position. The sentiments he has to express may be of the dreariest commonplace, tufc they must be given to the world with an air. They must be dimly apprehended through a cloud of courtly periphrases and dignified circumlocutions. The ipeeeh before Uβ is compoeed with careful attention to these requisites. l<; abounds with long-toiled words and ettriouslf verbose phrases. Word* ending in "ation" are

no member proposed that, as Mr Travers once suggested, the speech should be sun«» to the House to the tune of the " Groves of Blarney." And the Governor is never allowed to fall into a lower strain. In one paracrapb of his address, for instance, His Excellency has to speak of farmers. But '• farmer" is too common, too plebeian a wori t>» issue from Viceregal lips or to be used on State occasions; and so the class of settlers in question are delicately referred to as " those who follow agricultural pursuits." Perhaps "not wholly unconnected with " would bave rounded the sentence better, and been more in the true penny-a-liner style. His Excellency is plainly not considered as one to whom it is permissible to call a spade a spade. He must designate a useful agricultural implement by its appropriate appellation. The truth is that Government were in a difficulty. A prorogation speech ia by custom a brief laudatory review of the session from the Ministerial standpoint;—-a kind of parting crow over the Opposition. But in this instance Ministers have mighty little to crow about. That they have kept their places, which is doubtless in their opinion the summum lonum of politics, could hardly be made the subject of a long address from the Governor to the Assembly; and they have no other achievement to boast of. Having nothto say, therefore, their only resource was to hide the nothingness under a pile of verbiage. The miserable quality of the staple matter could only be disguised by a profusion of tinsel. A speech in glorification of the session was compelled to make up for the poverty of its material by a double pomposity of language. It was necessarily composed on the model of an hidalgo's dinner, which, a Spanish proverb ways, consists of a little meat and a great deal of table cloth. Supposinp that the alleged cus--1 tomary practice was followed of every Minister in turn contributing hi* quota to the speech, we have no hesitation in assigning the first paragraph to Mr Gisborne. It smacks of that elaborate twaddle about immigration and public works which appears to him the concentrated essence of political wisdom, and which he repeat* so conscientiously in all his Ministerial statements. The rest of the paragraph, too, is chararterislic. The Governor hopes, he tells us, that immigrants will arrive regularly aud in eufficit-nt numbers ; but he hopes also that they will not overstock the labor market or over-tax the means for settling them. A Minister who knew what he was about could have assured the Assembly that such unfortunate results would be provided against. But how exactly the above passage depicts Mr G-isborne'a mental condition—utterly in the dark as to the issue of the schemes into which Mr Vogel has dragged him ; partly aware of the possibility of a frightful collapse ; but still following his leader in blind confidence, earnestly hoping that somehow or other all will end well. It is Mr Vogel, of course, who rubs his hands over the grant for the Californian mail service; who refers so cheerily to the improvement in the gold produce; and who, we may add, is so discreetly silent on the continued deficiency in the Customs duties. Mr Fox is probably the author of the next paragraph in praise of Dr Featherston, as an old colonist and influential member of the Legislature; whose presence in London will aid the colony in the construction of public works and in immigration, and will perpetuate friendly relations between the Imperial and Colonial Governments. "We congratulate the Premier on his change of opinion. At the beginning of the session he did not think the appointment of Dr Featherston as Agent - General for New Zelaand " a subject of such prominent importance, or attended with such immediate and important consequences as to render it necessary to call the attention of the House to it." The public may judge how unfruitful the session has-:i)ee„. from the fact that Ministers, at its clnse, were so hard pressed for matter to fill up the Governor's speech, as to devote a whole paragraph to a subject which, at the commencement of the session, they did not think worth mentioning. The Native Minister is made to bring up the rear—rather shabbily, considering how much the Government owes to him. But he has not much to say. He reports indications of a growing disposition among the malcontent Natives to return to their allegiance and resume friendly relations with the Europeans. That announcement has been made at short intf-nals ever since th<=* present Government took office. Wo should have liked, by way of a change, to have heard something about the telegraph at Ohinemuri, or some other practical proof of the friendly inclination of the quondam insurgents. However, in Native affairs no news is in one sense good news. The speech contains two or three other sentences which need no particular remark. But we notice cne omission. There is no allusion to the Bills enumerated in the opening address, .or those embodying the Government Scheme of constitutional reform. A few lines might have been added in praise of the policy so ruthlessly nipped in the bud, or of the docility with which Ministers withdrew their measures at the bidding of their supporters. A comparison between what was promised and what has been performed, would have been both interesting and instructive. To make the scene complete, a Minister should have been in attendance on his Excellency, bearingin his handsa basket filled with torn and crumpled Bills, to which the Governor, pointing, should have exclaimed in the word- of Beau Brummell — " These, gentlemen, are our fail urea."

We learn that in the province of Hawke's Bay the sales of land by the natives since the passing of the _7ative Lands Act are 820,000 acres, whiek were sold for £87,012, ibcut 8s an acre,