THE PREMIER AND HIS CRITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12429, 19 February 1901, Page 5

THE PREMIER AND HIS CRITICS.

MR SEDDON’S VINDICATION. [From Our Correspondent.] WELLINGTON, Feb. 18. It is said here that we have had too much holiday-making, too much Imperialism, and too much everything. Full information under this head, however, discloses the fact that the too much everything means everything that gives kudos to the Government. Another fact necessarily is that these facile critics are political opponents of the Ministry. In my walks abroad I hear much pleasant remembrances of the troops and 1 kindred matters. The pessimist faction hoped to make capital out of the Primate chaplaincy question. I learn, however, from returned Synodmen that the Primate never said anything of the kind. He was extremely foolishly reported, and was not misunderstood by the Synod. He simply said that as an old military chaplain he would like to hold a service in the presence of the representatives of the regiments, for the reason that he had served with them in two or three wars, and that the. Premier had offered him a passage to Auckland in -the Tutanekai in order to give him the opportunity of doing it at Auckland, and that as there was nothing important left to do, he hoped the Synod would excuse him if 1 he left before the end. This the Synod did with cheers, and that is the whole story. You can see how desperate was the attempt made to' gain out of these facts politically. Another desperate attempt was the angry criticism about the Premier’s sweeping remarks about the refusal to let the troops stay at Auckland. But the result of these remarks, no doubt duly cabled, was .Earl Roberts’s answer that the troops should stay a little longer. That killed two birds with one stone, for the idea had been industriously circulated that the Premier’s remarks about the inadequate pay of T. Atkins were regarded as subversive of discipline and an incentive to desertion, and that was why the troops were not to stay at Auckland beyond the time of the original programme. Tho sequel is another “knock.”