MAKING THE WORST OF IT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 935, 31 January 1890, Page 28

MAKING THE WORST OF IT.

If there is one giain of truth in the scriptural aphorism “ Blessed are

the peacemakers,” the Auckland Herald is in peril of being cursed for tho discredit it bas attempted to cast upon, and the discord it has striven to create in connection with Wellington’s Jubilee. It has poured out a vial of bitterness, magnified every trifling incident to Wellington’s disadvantage, it has dealt freely in half-truths to belittle the efforts of the Wellington people ; who, so far as their claim by the. right of individual efforts to the Jubilee date is concerned, are simply everywhere, while Auckland is nowhere. The Herald, in its issue of the 24th inst, has some free-hand accounts of the Jubilee anniversary here, and among other distortions states, through its correspondent, that the proceedings were marred by the dust, which was “ horrible,” and the heat. And this is so craftily put that only very close attention would detect that the dust and heat were meant to apply to the second day. As for the first day, the success of it and the state of the weather are left to tho reader’s conjecture. The Herald also twits Wellington with official indifference to the occasion, aud that the rnen-of-war in port were cleaning ships instead of taking part in the proceedings. There is a covert sneer levelled at everything that was done, and an attempt is made to manufacture capital out of the address o the Queen that was presented to his Excellency the Governor for transmission to Her Maj <->•«' y. That the address was a duvet one to Her Majesty is a fad, and that it was properly so can bo affirmed by precedent. It was not the Governor’s Jubilee that Was being celebrated, but the Jubilee of the arrival, of tho first New Zealand colonists; and those that were left of them, aided by their descendants and went

direct to the Throne with loyal con- I gratulations on an exceedingly auspicious occasion. They went direct, but at the same time through Her Majesty’s representative. This was? quite in order ; there was no breach of etiquette ; no outrage of any propriety. For it is a fact that any subject has a right to petition the Throne, and in the case of a colonist such petition must be forwarded through the Governor. It would be out of rule and a gross broach of etiquette if the gubernatorial medium were in any way alluded to m the address, its subject matter must bo applicable only to the power addressed. An address from a colonist, or a number of colonists, to the Queen should be handed open to the Governor with a prayer that he would forward it to its destination. Of course, the Governor has discretionary power to deal with the address another way if it contains ob-

jectionable matter. We can cite a case of a presentation of an address to the Queen by the Parliament o! New Zealand as far back ns 1851, when Parliament approached in duteous, loyal guise on the occasion of the war with Russia. Mr J. E. Fitz Gerald, now Controller, was then Premier. The incident is embalmed in Hansard, and therein is set forth how the Address,- having been read, was approved by the House, and it was further resolved to send it to the Governor with a prayer that lie would transmit it to Her Majesty, the prayer in that case being equivalent to the request of his Worship the Mayor, representing the city on Jubilee Day. Surely the Governor did not expect an address himself from the people of Wellington on Jubilee Day, and yet the hints and inuendoes in the Herald might be so construed. If the Herald is posing as the friend of the Governor, the latter may well pray to be preserved from if. There was- really no mistake made in the matter at all. The Jubilee Committee who prepared and presented the address were in keeping with all the proprieties made and provided* Wellington has, however, very great cause to resent the arrant slight put upon it. In the first place the Govern ment allowed the official celebration of a general Anniversary Day for the Colony to fall into disusefor three-and-forty years. The last proclamation—prior to this year—so far as we can ascertain,' was gazetted in 1847. Since then the various sections of the Colony have been left to their own sweet wills in keeping anniversaries, and the spirit of the in tensest localism found the freest scope for the exercise of its idiosyncrasies. Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland had their days, and the individual efforts were really creditable, but so powerful was the repulsion between those colonial atoms that a collective endeavour to establish colonial unanimity was never once thought of. The Jubilee year presented the very opportunity to bring this about, but, unfortunately, it has been allowed to pass by unattended to. How to keep the Jubilee should have been settled last year. And if, when the bickerings between Wellington and Auckland as to the day commenced, the Government had stepped in as mediator and given official sanction to one day, calling upon all loyal colonists to support it in the matter, we feel sure that the appeal would have met with ready response, and an anniversary day common to every part of the Colony would have been established for all time. But instead of this sensible course the matter was permitted to drift until the day after Wellington had held its Jubiiee celebration, when in the Gazette of that day, the 23rd, appeared the proclamation about celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Colony on the 29th. It was clearly an afterthought, or else a premeditated slight. upon Wellington, to publish it, and it was done in the interest of no other main centre than Auckland. Surely after this the Auckland members will be thick and thin supporters of the present Ministry. Ah ! the pity of the loss of the opportunity to reconcile differences of such magnitude, and now the heartburnings are bitterer than ever, and are being fomented bv a journal whose position should have made it a mediator instead of on aggravator. And the official Jubilee of the Colony to-day will be observed by perhaps half a dozen places, great and small, while the rest of the Colony will look on with indifference. No, not indifference, but sullen dissatisfaction at tho impediments thrown in the way of busi-

ness by the closing of public offices and banks. The Jubilee celebration has been a muddle indeed.