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Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 833, 14 December 1878, Page 2

It is high time that the Press of the Colony should endeavor to correct a. false impression that Captain Barry, the "lecturer," is about to proceed to Great Britain on a mission in the interests of, and under instructions from, tho Government of the Colony. It may be very good fun to listen to the old fellow recount in his peculiar manner—one preg- . nant with crudities and disregard of anything approaching grammatical expression —tho strange events of his life, or the imaginations of an undoubtedly active and creative brain ; especially in the case of an audience whose appreciation for " the captain's" wit has been rendered keen by an accompaniment of pipes and beer ; but there the matter should end. Captain Barry has not been appointed one of the accredited emigration agents of the Colon}'. Bo far as the majority of people are concornod, it is almost unnecessary to make this avowal, and if they did believe that Captain Bakry is to bo sent IJomo, it would be a very easy matter to disabuse their minds of such an impression. But it would not be so easy to undo the injury that would accrue to the Colony were Captain Babrt permitted to go to Great Britain, our silence giving consent to his statements that ho is, or is to bo, an emigration agent for the Colony. Up to the present time—although Captain Barry has made a tour of the Colony, and repeatedly asserted, probably as a means of adding prestige to his lectures and getting subscribers for his book, that he has received an introduction from Sir George Grey to Sir Jcxius Vogei,, the object of which is to install him in a position as lecturer and emigration agent in the interests of the Colony—he has been allowed to do so with impunity. But the joke is being carried too far, and it is time to put a stop to it. The truth of the matter is that Captain Barry has been favored by Sir George Grey with a second-class passage to England in a sailing vessel, wo believe, at the expense of the Colony, in order that he might be enabled to publish his book. Now, we have no objection to Captain Barry going Home, but we do object to public money being expended in order to enable a man to not only publish rubbish that will, if it is anything like his lectures, do the Colony more harm than good, but has encouraged him to 4Toast that he is going on a mission in thie*ihtcrests of the Colony. What will

the people of the Old Country think of us when Captain Barry loads them to believe—which from, his own statements he intends to do—that he has been employed by the Government of New Zealand to promote emigration to that Colony, accompanied by the statement, "in the choicest of English, that he has had the D.T.'s?" The good people of the OldCountry will have a poor opinion of ourmorality ; people that would make desirable emigrants will stop at Home, and we shall again be inundated with scum that have an appreciation for the life which Captain Barry depicts as that of a colonist. It is the duty of the Government to contradict Captain Barry's statement that he has been appointed by them in the [interests of emigration without delay.