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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 8951, 16 January 1888, Page 4

The present Agent-General, Sir Francis Dillon Bell ia bo often retiring that people are warranted any time in discussing his probable or possible successor. It is pro< bable, therefore, that the Wellington Post has raised the question in the ab« sence of anything better. There are always occurring at home, just at the inopportune time, questions that are regarded by Sir Francis as peculiarly requiring his personal solution of them, so that one can never be sure when the time for his retirement may come. But the recidiviste question, for which he considers he had a specialty, having been now disposed of ; and the New Hebrides question, on which he held views gene« rally divergent from the other Agents* General and from the majority of colonists, no longer requiring his presence in Lon« don, or diplomatic visits to Paris, it is probable that at last he may consider the time come at which his oversight of the affaire of the colony may no longer necessitate his staying in London, to his own great personal discomfort and inconvenience. In view of such a contingency the Wellington Post, whether from intuition or suggestion, throws out a feeler with reepect to the Premier himself as a possible ißuccossor. Without going so far as saying that " there will be only one in the running for the appointment, and that is the Premier, Mtvjor Atkinson himself," as the Post does, in mentioning for the first time a candidate whose name has not been usually associated with the appointment, we believe that such a fixture would be generally acceptable; and if, as is alleged, the Premier is desirous of occupying the poeition, there would be nothing either unprecedented or improper in his being appointed by the Cabinet of which he ie the head. Butassuming, of course, with our contempo* rary, hie " surviving next session Minis* terially,"—though others might be found to fill the Agency-General, it would not be so easy to find one to exactly fill Major Atkinson's place in the Government, without an entire reconstruction of its elements. Although moulded in nearly all respects differently from Sir F. V. Bell, Major Atkinson would be admirably fitted to fill the position of Agent-General with honour to himself and with credit to the colony, but to say that of all the statesmen and politicians who have " passed the ohair" of Ministerial office, he is the only one in New Zealand fitted to succeed to Sir Francis Dillon Bell is rather overstepping the bounds of legib* mate eulogy.