THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY). WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1893.

New Zealand Times, Volume LIV, Issue 9840, 22 February 1893, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY).

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1893.

With which are incorporated the Wellington Independent, established 1845, and the New Zcalander.

Sm Geoeoe Dibbs, we are glad to see, is keeping up the colonial side of the agitation in the matter of the Governorship. It ia long aince the right of a colony to be informed of the selection of bs Governor was mooted, and not a short time ago many of the foremost statesmen of Great Britain were disposed to concede the colonial demand. Amongst them was the late Lord Carnarvon, who went so far as to express approval of a mode of election by the colonial Legislatures. The question ought to present no difficulty at all. The Governor does a good deal fof Mb colony and very little for the Imperial Government. What he does for the latter need not be detailed. In the colony he is the head of the Executive and a branch of the Legislature whose concurrence is necessary to legislation. Socially, he is the head of society, and he draws hie allowance from the Colonial Exchequer. He is everything to . the colony by comparison with what he is to the Colonial Office. The polony ia fhe best judge of the kind of man it requires and will best got on with, and ought to have at least a consultative voice in his selection. As the Sydney Morning Herald very properly remarks, nothing but ‘ sundry constitutional pedantries 1 prevents the colonies from acquiring tips right. It is time to forget the' precedents of a time when Governors ruled under the direct orders of Downing street. What is more important, it ia necessary to make concessions favourable to the permanence of the Imperial connection. The colonial selection of colonial Governors is destined to be one the links in the federal chain of the luturd.

We agree with the Mayor that thef? 18 * veiy real sense among the citizens of Wellington of the services which the Volunt-ers are doing for the country. It ia noble work, and one day may be most useful ; but even it it never is required, it will keep up a patriotic tradition from gene:ation to generation. A champion who has joined his comrades of the force to do that work, and done it with all his might, rising at last to the position of highest skill in it, is especially worthy of all honour a thing which, by the way, Mr Ballinger has not received in any special form at the hands of his public. The very beat form which the honour could take, a form which would best commend itself to a man of Mr Ballinger's modest, earnest nature, was indicated by the Minister for Defence in the happy reply he made to the Mayor’s pleasant remarks. Mr Seddon virtually said that it the youth of the nation were trained to arms, and if on coming to man’s estate they joined the Volunteers, to retire in middle life into Rifle Clubs, we shou'd have the cheapest and best-defensive system in the world. By following Mr Ballinger’s example in that way the manhood of New Zealand will show that real sense of his work which will please him best. The present difficulty is, as the Minister said, the want of means. But a people with the best real sense of the dignity and value of Volunteer work having at their head a Premier who, as the Mayor so gracefully reminded his hearers the other night,’ bad on a former occasion shown the utmost readiness to do the right thing for the defence of the Colony, ought to find no difficulty about the money question.

The Rev Me 000, in the Presbyterian Assembly the other night, committed one of those faults which the recording angels are apt to regard as virtues. Disrespect to the chair is an infirmity, in Mr Ogg’s case—the noble infirmity of a noble mind. But though wroug to say it, what Mr Ogg said was right. In the court of pub-, lie opinion his single ‘No ’ will be more influential than all the ‘ Ayes ' against which he protested. He withdrew, his words and apologised as became a man. But his protest stands out grandly from the darkness of the proceedings and will stand for all time to his great credit. The principle of religious equality ia hot ia danger on account of the Magdala grant. There is nothing in that principle to prevent us from aiding those who help.their fallen neighbour, nothing to warn us off ‘ the platform of our common humanity,’ nothing to forbid us from helping ‘ to restore peace to broken hearts and blasted lives. ’ ' We repeat the words after Mr Ogg, for they are the fittest; jjipble they are, and stirringly put together p instinct with generous emotion, arid vibrating \?itb most honourable courage. Thu ads ice he gave his reverend brethren wa_s as good as the reproof he administered to their narrowness .of spjrit. If they accept that reproof in the magnificent Christian spirit in which it was conceived, th>-y will leave off making emphatic protests against helping those who do good to all without distinction of creed, and take to doing similar., good., work themselves, and asking the State to help hjiojapity by helping them.