IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1201, 8 March 1895, Page 19

IMPERIAL INSTITUTE.

SIR WALTER 3ULLER AND SIR SOMERS VINE.

THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES ARTICLE. From Our Special Correspondent. London, January 12. i The New Zealand Times of November 19, containing an incisive leading article on the differences between Sir W. Buller and Sir Somers Vine, reached here by the San Francisco mail, and has been read with interest by the friends and allies of the former. These are numerous, as Sir Walter is always ready to do Anglo-New Zealanders a good turn, and, despite Sir Somers’ sneer anent a frugal mind, much given to hospitality. It did not seem to me that there would be a great deal gained by going to Sir Somers Vine again on the subject. One could predicate with tolerable certainty the sort of things he would say. But Sir Frederick Abel as a mutual friend of both parties might be worth seeing, and to the inventor of cordite I betook myself. Sir Frederick was amiability personified, and treated me to a rich assortment of smiles. But on the subject of my mission he declined to be drawn. “ Yes,” he would admit he had heard from Sir W. Buller, and should reply officially. The nature of the said reply he could not of course indicate, but he might say he thought it would be quite satisfactory to the New Zealand Commissioner. The dif-fei-ences between Sir Somers and Sir Walter were lamentable, but he hoped and believed they would be healed when the latter came to England. I pressed for an opinion on the New Zealand Times’ article, but Sir Frederick was not to be entrapped into one. Surely he would say whether the statements therein were, so far as his knowledge went, accurate ? Sir Frederick, after much worrying, thought that in the main the Times’ allegations were correct, but some of the minor facts seemed erroneous. Which ? Really he must decline to say. And there my “ drawing ” powers ended. Sir Frederick was resolved not to be decoyed into the dispute on any consideration. The differences between Sir Walter and Sir Somers will no doubt arrange themselves when the former comes home, if the New Zealand Commissioner is satisfied the colonial side of the Institute is getting fair play. That, however, I fear, is just what Sir Walter won’t be. A “ cock and hen club ” made up of social second-raters is all right in its proper place, but the Imperial Institute is not the proper place for such a thing. The colonists from Battersea Park, Claphara, and Peckham Rye, who are the principal colonists one meets there, must considerably surprise the genuine article. But the truth is that so hard up are the Institute authorities that they welcome effusively as a member any and every man who has not been in gaol and can pay a subscription.