THE SPEECHES OF SIR HERCULES ROBINSON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5494, 26 June 1879, Page 6

THE SPEECHES OF SIR HERCULES ROBINSON.

The Australasian, in its review of Sir H. Robinson's speeches, says :—Sir Hercules Robinson ia one of those colonial Governors whose selection for the post does honour to the judgment and discrimation of his Imperial patrons, confers a substantial advantage upon the community over which he exercises authority, and tends to draw more closely together the light, elastic, but at the same time enduring ties which bind the extremities to the heart of the empire. The motto of his armorial bearings aptly characterises his public conduct. He is Legi tt regi fidtis. He combines loyalty to the Crown with unswerving fidelity to the constitution of the colony in which he represents the wearer of that Crown; and hie administration has "been everywhere marked by a practical good soDae, a warm and genuine sympathy with the institutions, interests, occupations, wishes, feelings, and even amusements of the country, and by an earnest desire to promote its moral, intellectual, and material welfare and progress, which have justly won for him the respect and esteem of men of all parties and of all classes. He has nowhere been a roi faineant, neither has he, on the other hand, exceeded the limits imposed upon his power by the charter of the colony's freedom, but has been duly mindful of the fact that if the political authority of a Governor is rigidly circumscribed by Imperial Btatute and Colonial Office regulation, his personal influence arising from character and capacity, from tact and temper, from manner and lavoir faire, is virtually unlimited. In hie own case this influence has been very considerable, and it has been exerted moat beneficially for his fellow-subjects. His popularity and success are all the more honourable to him, because the part which a eolonial Governor has to play is a really arduous one, if he is conecions in its capacity, and feels the desire to render service to the community. Where representative institutions have been established, party warfare becomes first vehement and then virulent. Political strife soon degenerates into personal malevolence. Power falls into the hands of men who, if not_ unqualified, are certainly unprepared for its exercise. They have never acquired in that nursery for statesmen, a great public school, those habits of self-

control and that mental discipline which would fit them for the government of others, i A colonial Governor has to hold the scales : * equally between the ins and the outs ; to receive with respect and oourtesy the advice of whatever set of men may form hia Cabinet for the time being, and to act upon it whenever it does not clash with his duty to his sovereign and to the constitution of the country. He has to exhibit the utmost courtesy to them, while displaying an unbending firmess in resisting encroachments on the law and the royal prerogative. He must be the associate, in turn, of all the prominent politicians of the country, but the ally of none. Hβ must be prepared to find many of his public acts misconstrued, and to ; run the gauntlet of newspaper and popular • criticism, and yet to maintain a dignified silence under miscanstruction and in the face oE possibly unjust and probably precipitate, censure. To occupy such a position with credit is much, with distinction is more, and with the general acclaim is most of all. But Lord Dufferin in Canada and Sir Hercules Robinson in New South Wales have ehown the practicability of achieving the utmost popularity by combining the faithful and zealous performance of their duty to their sovereign and ihe empire with sincere and earnest devotion to the interests of the country committed to their charge. Like the brilliant Irishman who represented Her Majesty at Ottawa, Sir Hercules Robinson actively identified himself with every intellectual, industrial, and social movement which could promote the mental elevation aud material prosperity of the community among which he lived. At University commemorations, agricultural meetings, charitable gatherings, school prize-distributions, regattas, cricket matches, races, rifle competitions, railway openings, and so forth, His Excellency's presence could always be calculated upon, and his speech was eagerly looked forward to and long remembered. For it was not the conventional harangue of the ordinary after-dinner speaker, made up ot sonorous platitudes aud scraps of hackneyed poetry, culled for the occasion from a well-thumbed common-place book. It waa weighty with thought, well-expressed, and well-delivered.