The Evening Mail. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1878.

Oamaru Mail, Volume II, Issue 555, 11 February 1878, Page 2

The Evening Mail. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1878.

The enthusiastic manner in which Sir George Grey and Mr. Sheehan have been received during their trip round the North Island must go a long way to convince even their most rabid opponents that the measures proposed to be introduced by the Ministry next session are in accordance with the wishes of the great mass of the people. Nothing could have bec*n more enthusiastic than the receptions given to the Premier and the Native Minister, especially at Napier and New Plymouth—two of the supposed strongholds of the Atkinson adherents, Tn the one we find Mr. Ormond, the most bitter of all Sit Geoese Grey's maligners, sitting under his own fig-tree: while in the other, the town which is blessed to the extent of being the home of the late Premier, Major Atkinson, that gentleman had not the courage to put in an appearance. Few would probably have believed that within so short a time Sir George Grey and his Ministry would have succeeded in so firmly popularising themselves with the people. But the truth is that so heartily 3ick had the country become of the late Ministry that any body of men whose principles were liberal, and who possessed the necessary ability to properly administer the affairs of the Colony, would hare had no difficulty in gaining favour, though perhaps not to the same extent as have Sir George Gsey and his colleagues. How bitter must have been the feelings of Major Atkinson when the tidings of the hearty welcome given to the Ministerial party at New Plymouth—that town in which the discomfited Major has hitherto occupied somewhat the position of a petty king—reached his ears. The people of Taranaki, in their Arcadian simplicity, hare looked upon Major Atkinson as the one bright star in the political firmament of New Zealand ; they have listened with childlike humility to the honeyed words as they fell from his lips, and deemed themselves a favoured people in possessing so great an orator and so able a politician. A greater and more liberal-minded man has arisen. Major Atkinson and his Ministry have been well tried, and displayed the utmost incompetency to conduct the affairs of the Colony, while throughout they showed a strong disposition to favour the squatting and wealthy classes to the utter detriment of the interests of those who form the backbone of the Colon}' and the bulwarks of its future growth and prosperity. W hat wonder, then, that a revolution of popular feeling should have taken place even in Taranaki 1 We can easily imagine that Major Atkinson and his relatives were maddened by the reception given at New Plymouth to the Premier and Native Minister ; but we must certainly express our surprise that they should have displayed their feelings of irritation to the extent they have done. It can scarcely be conceived that persons laying any claim to respectability could have been guilty of perpetrating so gross an outrage on public decency as that recorded in our last issue by our special correspondent. The veriest larrikin in the country would hardly have dared to go the length of pulling down a triumphal arch raised spontaneously by the people in honor

of those entrusted with the control of public affairs. The conduct of the Atkinson-Hub,sthouse mob of £i hoodlums " was disgraceful in the ex-

treme, and goes to prove that the late Premier (for we believe he was cognisantof the affair) and his friends will stick at nothing. It is only to be hoped that the matter will not be allowed to drop, but that the ringleaders will be fittingly punished, including Mr. Richmond Hcrsthouse, the member for Motueka, who, from liis elevated position astride the triumphal arch, announced to a policeman that he was a member of the House of Representatives. He thus proclaimed the fulness of his degradation, and if he should, through the leniency .of those against whom he has sinned, escape condign punishment, his name will ever live ingloriously in the memory of the people as that of a man who, being entrusted with a high position by the people of Motueka, was not sufficiently respectable to maintain it. But what

shall be said of the conduct of Mr. Wilson - Huksthouse f That worthy is a public servant in receipt of a salary of LSOO a-year, and as such should hold himself aloof from anything bearing the'semblance of partizanship. His position demands of hint the strictest neutrality in regard to all matters political. In actively assisting in the disgraceful proceedings under notice, he has been guilty of offering an unwarrantable and unpardonable insult alike to Sir Geobge Grey and the public —his employers. For this he should unquestionably be dismissed the public service. If anything like purity and impartiality is to be maintained in public departments, no other course can possibly be pursued ihftQ io at once cause the

retirement of such men to spheres where- j in they may, without violating the trust reposed in them, eiercise their penchants for rowdyism. Once allow it to be thought that displays like these of active partisanship on the part of public servants will be lightly passed over, and there will speedily be an end to every particle of respect amongst public servants for their superiors, and of necessity the public service must suffer. The Civil Service of New Zealand has become sufficiently demoralised already; but surely it has not sunk so low as to count for nothing the blackguardism practised the other night by Mr. "Wilson Hursthouse, Engineer of the Taranaki railways, his Brother, and other Atkinson myrmidons.