SIE GEORGE BOWEN AND COMMODORE LAMBERT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 224, 23 September 1869, Page 2

SIE GEORGE BOWEN AND COMMODORE LAMBERT.

(From the Evening Post.) Sir George Bowen is about to leave us, and to seek a pleasant retirement from the cares of state iv the " bosom of his family," whence he will doubtless emerge when the shooting season comes round, to wage war on the pheasants in the pleasant woods of Auckland. His departure will not cause any very poignant regrets, nor will his absence create a blank ; and were he even going to return no more, there are few of the inhabitants of Wellington who would shed tears when he leaves the wharf. The last of his official acts which has come before the public is a fitting one to remember him by, showing far more forcibly than words could express, what a broken reed he proves to those who lean on him. We mentioned yesterday that Commodore Lambert had incurred the censure of the Admiralty for ordering away the Himalaya without the troops she came to remove, and that this censure was bestowed principally because the Commodore had acted on his own responsibility, without consultation with the Governor or principal military authority of the Colony, Sir George having most carefully pointed out that he had nothing whatever to do with the matter. Is it possible to conceive a meaner course than has been adopted by the Governor ? It is well known that at the time he entirely concurred in the course adopted by the Commodore, and there is little reason to doubt that he was consulted on the subject, and that Mr. Stafford would not have allowed the troops to go away if it could by any possibility have heen prevented. Their retention was — or ought to hnve been — a matter of far greater moment to Sir George than to Commodore Lambert, and yet, when that gentleman nobly took the responsibility on himself, with no other object than the utter unselfish one of saving the Colony, our model ruler, who should have supported him through thick and thin, makes him a scape-goat, aud, afraid of a wigging from the Colonial Office, goes out of his way to assure the Imperial authorities that he had nothing to do with the Commodore's proceedings.