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Lyttelton Times, Volume LXV, Issue 7792, 24 February 1886, Page 4

We are exceedingly glad that a certain little gathering of gentlemen finally bid farewell to Mr Back on Monday, at the rooms of the Agricultural and Pastoral Association. Previous comment in these columns relieves us from the charge of saying that because there is any possibility that we are delighted he is going; our sentiments run very much to the contrary extreme. Nor is it because of those same gentlemen’s queer little joke in bric-a-brac ; nor because that “ sturdy old beggar,” Mr John Ollivier, threatened in a Bismarckian way, just to make his value on such occasions felt the more, that he would never appear again in his celebrated and successful impersonation. The extreme pleasure which we personally drew from the pleasing little ceremony came from the strong, courageous words spoken by the guest of the day himself. If self-reliance in the individual man is a thing to be respected, how much more is it not a quality to admire in the State itself, the largest possible aggregation of human characters and qualities, with their collective virtues and vices ! And self-confidence and reliance on our past labours was just the sermon—a very pithy and short sermon it was, too —that Mr Back took occasion to deliver. It is one that we may well take to heart at the present juncture, when a bad fit of “ the dismals ” is hanging over most even of our firmest minded.

Want of enterprise, or lack of courage in the active work of colonisation, can hardly be charged against the public men of New Zealand. They have warred against the savage and the wilderness, and have subdued both now pretty effectually. It is when they come to talk of their own works that they become faint-hearted. “We have squandered our borrowed millions,” they say ; “ our telegraphs are not profitable, and our railways are a burthen.” Now if there is one man more than another in the Colony who has an insight into the value of our railways, it is Mr Back. Does his testimony justify such lugubrious utterances? We trow not. On the other hand, with the local experience of years to guide his words, and a lately-acquired knowledge of railway affairs in England to give them point, he declares emphatically that our railways are the most valuable asset a young nation could possibly possess. They pay, as it is, with our sparse and scattered population, some three per cent, upon the cost of construction. ' At present everything is against them—the general depression, the want of a thick and thriving population, and careful management on commercial principles. There’s where the shoe pinches, and the Government may take the hint from a faithful and trusted public servant, as they have so long refused t® take it from laymen. We have not squandered our borrowings altogether and wholly; we have not thrown away our dearly-bought patrimony ; but we have invested it in population and reproductive works. Nothing could return better interest in time; but the latter of the two, like everything else invested, needs watching and managing. The moral of Mr Back’s little homily is “Work with care and wait with calmyou have prepared for the future, but you have mismanaged for the present. Best contentedly upon your good and reform your evil deeds. It is a moral we may take to heart in more ways than one.