COMMISSIONERS TO ENGLAND. (From the "Nelson Examiner.")

North Otago Times, Volume XV, Issue 597, 7 February 1871, Page 4

COMMISSIONERS TO ENGLAND. (From the "Nelson Examiner.")

Dr Featherston and Mr Dillon Bell returned to the Colony just in time to exchange greetings •with Mr Vogel, who hnd actually decided on accepting from himself the post of General Colonial Agent, at L2000 per annum, we believe, with travelling expenses. We would venture to suggest a fuller development of the recently introduced system of Tourist Ministers, combining with it greater regularity. A Minister should leave the Colony with each homeward mail, or at least by all mails via San Francisco, unlrss, indeed, he prefeired to visit India, Egypt, or the Holy Land, when he might go by Suez. It may be objected, however, that this would necessitate aa enormous increase in the number of Ministers. The present Government has by its numerous accessions amply demonstrated the fallaciousness of any such objection. Some will say that a Minister, when he finds himself at home on a roving commission, embracing Great Britain and Ireland, Sweden and Norway, Spain, Italy, and indeed all parts of the European or any other continent where touring is safe and agreeable, with a salary of L2000 a-year, and all his expenses paid, might be unlikely to return to a too generous " adopted country." This objection also is of merely 6econr!;n-y importance, na the raw material of which Ministers are now made is plentiful throughout the Colony. Indeed, the result of our Beneficient Provincial Institutions is such, that a great part of the material, although wholly uneducated, can scarcely be called raw. Possessing as we do inexhaustible crops of potential statesmen, it is hard to see why we should not export a paltry dozen specimens in the year. If at any time it should prove desirable to recall them, which we much question, nothing would be simpler than to cut off supplies, when they would without doubt immediately return to take their part in our political warfare. We hope ere long in the English notices of New Zealand imports, to see one Ministeratleast quoted as a regular monthly item. It will give the old folks at home a new idea of the respect paid to political ability in this country, when they see gentlemen most moderately endowed with it bo splend'dly and even delicately treated. Who will haggle about lending us money, when it is seen on what objects we can afiord to spend it ? Will tbe most ignorant hesitate to emigrate, when he sees with his own ej'es that even he, if he keep his native unsophisticated wits about him may hope hi a few years to return from his antipodal exile an Honoiable, with nothing to do, L2C00 a-year to spend, and all travelling expenses paid. No doubt tne stimulus that such a spectacle Avould lend to immigration must have occurred to Mr Vogel's fertile mind in its full force when he resolved to immolate himself upon the altar of patriotism (best colonial), and accept for himself the little mission he has undertaken.

Vaccination. — A curious, and withal interesting, table is published in tho " New Zealand Gazette," being an extract from a circular by Earl Kimberley, with reference to the Vaccination Act. It gives the pero n utage of deaths among persons attacked by smallpox in six different classes, as follows, viz :— Class 1., persons unvaccinatud, 35£ per cent ; Class II., vaccinated but having i>o vaccine scar, 21J per cent; Class III., having one vaccine scar, 7£ per cent ; Class IV., having two vaccine scars, 4J por cent ; Class V., having three raccine scars, \$ per cent ; and Cl»ss VI., having jfour or more icars, j per cent.