POLITICAL PORTRAITS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 3863, 4 July 1874, Page 6

POLITICAL PORTRAITS

Sill FKANC'I.S MTi-LOX BBLXr. In the history and 3-ecords of that mo&t ebeqnred of Corporations—tlie New Zealand Company—who3e name portended &o ranch, and whose end was so little, the nivuio of Sir Dillon, then Mr Dillon Bell, «crops np here and there, always in odd places ; always whore the surrounding 'events give a peculiar interest ; and always as the one in whom the Company ■» thoroughly believed as having the snefteas of their scheme at his heart of hearts ; %he one whom they trusted to keep their liable and prestige before the eyes of the >$>sople, for whose benefit they were earnestly though misguidedly attempting to provide, and the one whom they know Vonld and could work hard for their ends. It; was not strange either, that this should ha the case. Sir Dillon, as it is better to **a!l him throughout, though he had not then received the honour of knighthood, yr;\s connected with the Company from its infancy, and had grown with its ■growth ; at an age when his compeers "were at school he was Assistant-Secretary to the great Company : and for many ;years afterwards, both in England and in ISew Zealand, and between the two, in %he cause of immigration, he was labouring '• iVith characteristic energy and perseverance for the furtherance and establish■uiant of the Company's object. There i 3ia on one of the shelves of the general Assembly Library, at Wellington, some seven or eight volumes, in -which is comprised the brief existence x)f a newspaper which during its lifetime ' a sensation as great aud as transitory as its own influence. The New Zealand Journal was the orgau ot the powerful heads of the Company at home, and 'as 3\ich was of course laudatory of everything Zealaudian. la it we find many furious souvenirs of the old days when ■tiardly a newspaper press existed in the Colony., and white men were supposed to %-o out to New Zealand only to meet with -& slight modification of the Laureate's *ndof the six hundred—"iutothe jaws *b£ hell, into the month of heki;" and when $hs pros and cons of colonizing New Zealand were being argued with vigour and ■sran acrimony at home, seme of those. Whose names are ihere mentioned in the thickest of the fray seem at the present ilay, when they are to be seen walking like ordinary mortals, to have %liuost forgotten their former selves, and ■to have put off the old man so completely iliat no trace of him is left. Of those ■%arly Colonists who* figure in these pages, •tmd the story of whose life as there re"corded prefigured the sequel which the generation have seen, there have £»een few in the development of whose xiharacter more interest is excited than in the case of Sir F. D. Bell. There are few •Snen. better known—few names more Ttrideiy recognised, and we might say honoured — than his, in the Colony; •sad it is interesting to trace how 4his came about, and whether it is *ight3y so. As we have said, it is, 1m the annals of the New Zealand: that the name of Mr Dillon Bell first appears, and it was there he laid: %he foundation of those peculiar habits -and pursuits which still make him a nian in his own generation. With the advantages of a French education, a y politesse," which is not to be acquired, 'hat is inherent, and a pushing spirit, as ifvell as being an excellent musician, he t?as a sort of hidalgo amongst the kindred "spirits who grouped round the camp fire Jin those days, when a billy suspended "from three sticks was a far more common sight than a kettle on the hob. These, too, were qualities which served as well amongst %he Maoris as amongst the Europeans ; and, as events unrolled themselves, the tliree fates placed Mr Bell in such close juxtaposition with the Maoris that he required the exercise of all his undoubted i>owers to come out with credit from the -strange positions in which he as well as -others were often placed by the vagaries of Maori habits, aud the still more erratic temperaments of governors and officials. Indeed, although those days are past, so touch used to be said of Sir Dillon when he was Native Minister, and not vnly in that capacity, but generally, as to siis method of dealing with the aboriginals, that this stage of his public career ■necessarilyexcites attention. Wehavehad, ssiiiee the time when he ceased to interfere 3a Maori matters, wars and tumults of as serious a nature as ever occurred when the seatof Government was at Auckland; but the wars of Te Kooti and of Tito Kowaru were of quite a different nature to those which threatened the very existence of i&e Europeans in the days before them, &n3. their peculiar nature demanded a equally different. With the XJhatham Island rebels force was the one hadto be considered. In the, "other case, by the exercise of constant! tact, foree was often rendered only a frac-; iional eo-emeient of clever management,! •and Sir Dillon on many occasions exor-i ■feiseda. tact which prevented serious or; unpleasant consequences, and which; •Caused him to be respected and liked; by the race generally. "Te Pere,"; as they called him, was always considered a good sort of fellow, a friend to the Maori, and one who did not wish jfche Maori to be exterminated for the . jbenefit of the Pakeha, nor yet to see the 4Pakeha driven into the sea, aa Te 3Hauparaha threatened/but to see Maori &rul Pakeha, Pakeha and Maori, enjoying >s3ike the land of which there was a suffi° 'felency for both ; and there fe not a Hm* obit gmngheirinEngland who is more Occupied with the question of land than the Maori. The whole history of the might be written in one word, "A struggle of land;" the whole history of okt wars in the various aspects that leading feature took. Sir Dillon was •a good Lands Claims Commissioner. His name is even now -ex officio on the £©11, and though not so conspicuous "as those of other famous Land Commissioners, such as the present Native Minister, Mr Mantell, and others, his . same still lives in the Bell Block, and in tlie history of that piece of land which plunged ihe Colony into all sorts of diffi-*nHaes-H%e Waitara block. With his perfect command of the Maori language, and an intimate knowledge of their he was able to deal with them in so familiar a way that the difference of lace, so often a bar to amicable settlesnent, seemed to be to a great extent smoothed away, and the arrangement in hmd. to group its details together with ease and readiness. Much used to be said of his way of doing things witti the Natives in this respect; but time 'sias shown that Sir Dillon was not far; astray in his conception of the true groove into which the Native mind should be "guided thai; it might glide straight, swerving neitherto one side nor the other, and -the conclusion it would never have reached had it been suffered to remain ■open to the contradictory impressions which the remnants of savagery clinging about it made it heir to. But it wa3°not only in negotiation and in diplomacy with vhe Maoris that Sir Dillon had to exercise his powers of self-command and coolness. He, like most others of the early Colonists, was often so placed that his life was carried in his hands, and rested in the favourable interpretation of a word. In negotiation, the reponse smis replique was allowable, andinmany cases necessary, bu£ in the centre of a crowd of excited warriors beating' about the bush, was not the tac-: itC3 to pursue ; the reponse sans rfyliqw i Of the Maoris would have been that killing nvas no murder," and they would speedily nave carried it into execution. The "Wilier has heard a story of Sir Dillon being one day, whilst on his travels on government service in time of war, [seized by a number of Maoris, who, though Icnowing him well, were too infuriated to be respeetors of persons, placed in the •centre of the warxiors, and ordered to •S^salc for hi 3 life. He did so, in the Maori language, pM so eloquently that

his savage captora renounced their half-formed decision, and after honouring him with Maori honours allowed him to go free and pursue his journey unmolested. Those who know .him know also that his personal courage cannot be impugned ; and that in many a cnl dc sac in Maori matters his timely self-posses-sion has extricated himself audothersfrom threatened danger. In winding up a review of Sir Dillon as he has been mixed up in the Maori question, it should be mentioned that, like some other Europeans, he bears the name and wields the mere of chieftain of a Maori tribe. " Setting his sails to the passing breeze," used to be a favourite quotation of newspapers and Opposition members when speaking of the once Native Minister of Sir George Grey and his political principles, but there is a good deal of difference between accommodating oneself to the right and accommodating oneself to political exigencies ; and the one act is so liable to be mistaken for the other, that when the difference is once perceived its broadness is all the more apparent. Now Sir Dillon seems to have kept honestly to the dictates, of his own consc;ence in the matter of adherence to certain Governments and policies and opposition to others ; but his own conscience, not being perhaps quite void of offence towards God and man, like the Apostles, occasionally led him to look at matters in different lights at different times ; and so, while really acting in the direction which seemed to him the right one in politics, he was accused of " slipperiness" by those who did not discern the spring of his motives. His career in Parliament has been one loug exemplification of the danger a man I runs from being" one of those independent members, the very mention of whose name makes the Premier's gorge rise in his throat. Sir Dillon, or rather was, is not, perhaps, quite so defined a member of this objectionable body as to come within the scathing reach of the anathema maranatha pronounced by >the new Mahomet against all who are not his blind followers, or his wide-awake opponents, against those Laodicean members who like to see things done by hundreds and not by millions. But he has been, to agreat extent, a Trimmer in politics, andhe seems to have chosen the great Halifax as a guide. He has been in a great many Ministries, but he has never stood committed to any great policy; he has rather, if he was on the approving side, been a stem and unbending, though favourable, criticiser; or, if he has been in opposi tion, acted as a watchdog on his own party that they do not make too sweeping a condemnation. This course of action has often seemed incompatible with his otherwise impetuous temperament and vehement power of words ; but Sir Dillon is, in these matters, like the steam-boiler —the full amount of steam is all generated, but a good deal of it goes off by a valve, and has .no real object to perform in the working of the machinery. This is all greatly to his credit, and for this reason, that he has taken things on their merits, brought them before as impartial a tribunal of thought as he could muster amongst the members of his own mind, and passed judgment accordingly. Many would laugh if we were to say that Sir Dillon had been a strictly impartial politician, and decidedly question the veracity of it; and yet no one—though occasions have not been wanting in the House when he has stood Tip in fiery declamation or. in eloquent approbation of some important measure, seemingly carried away by the spirit of " our side must win," would feel quite justified in saying that Sir Dillon was bigotted on such-and-such a question, and narrowminded on another. There has been, in fact, a certain hums a non luccndo element about his political career which makes it one of the hardest to judge of in the long roll of New Zealand politicians. Perhaps it is at once flic explanation and the end of his previous career that the honourable member now occupies with grace, dignity, and ability, and to the satisfaction of all the members of the House, that honoured chair which stands in the centre of the two sides, which is the water shed of the land of debate, from either side of which spring the fountain heads that form the two rivers of the Government opinions and the Opposition opinions, and which looks calmly down upon the roar of the conflicting waters. Passing from the politician to the man, we go through no wide plain of separation. Almost everyone knows the careworn but genial face, and the high forehead and clear eyes which used to appear above the table of the well-known seat in the old House of Representatives, and the knowledge that Dillon Bell was to speak on some important subject was always sure rto bring a full audience to the. galleries, such an audience almost as always assembled, as if by instinct, to catch the real gems of oratory that never failed to fall froni the lips of James Edward Fitzgerald, the ■friend and companion of " one who was mightier even than he in the great fire which thatlittle member the tongue can kindle, John ißobertGodley. Sir Dillon had not the thrilling force and effect of these two born orators, but still he was himself' essentially a master of rhetoric. The fruits of a bountiful though somewhat narrow.education are conspicuous in his -speeches. He utters his rolling sentences as if ex ccethedra, when he is certain of his point; it is only in caseß of doubt or uncertainty that there is a twang of Lord Halifax or Mr Forster in his argument. Some of his speeches in the early days, on Native questions more especially, but also on subjects of general public policy, were admitted to be splendid, .efforts of oratory ; and equivocal as are the benefits of the irrepressible Hansard nowadays, one cannot but regret that somefchingmore than meagre newspaper reports has not been preserved of the words oi the speakers of those days in which, compared with the prosaic lengthiness of the present House, there were giants on the earth. There is a musical ring in Sir Dillon's voice that modulates the tone of his sentences ; and his hearers always find themselves listening attentively to him as to one whose word they know must have some meaning. It is only very seldom now., in an occasional Committee, that Sir JJillon, whose voice used to be heard fully as often as any other member, rises to address the House, and it is seldom that a committee question offers full scope for the expression of genius. Yet even since he took the scuils of the old "canoe"—ps the Speaker's dome-backed chair v.'&s called —his voice has been heard with effect on more than , one occasion ; and it is generally regretted that he finds the cares and responsibilities of his office of dignity hxcrease so much, aud demand so much of his time aud attention, that he is gradually assuming the position of the Speaker of our great model, the English House of Commons, and becoming solely the oracle, and not even an occasional worshipper at the shrine. Still, he has a right to repose. He has won his laurels after a hard-fought fight, in which he had the good and welfare of the Colony at his heart., and in which, through many difficulties and oppositions, he upheld its name and hunouz:. The culminating point of his efforts in behalf of his chosen land was the expedition to England in 1869, when he and Dr f eatherston, as New Zealand -Commissioners, effected so much 'benefit at a critical period, and did more than all the despatches of all the Governors from the foundatioa of the Colony to bring—nay, to force—New Zealand as a variable dependency not easily to be checked or thrown aside ; a dependency richer in resources than the Mother Country itself, aa enterprising in its young efforts as its long-civilised parents—upon, the attention of the Home authorities, and to bring us as it were face to face with those who had hitherto only, through

their own fault, seen us through a glass darkly. The beneficial effects of that mission of Sir Dillon and Dr Featherston, besides the more immediate results, have not yet passed away, and will be felt for some time to come. It showed Her Majesty's Government who and what we were, and through the pressing of the Commissioners, our real position, never before really appreciated, has been duly recognised, and the knowledge acted upon ; and the consequence is a much more satisfactory state ef our relations with the mother country. In the bringing about of all this Sir Dilon had an important hand ; and if the country did not fully recognise then the benefits its representatatives were slaving to gain for it, it is yet enjoying them ; and we hope will bo ready at some time to give more full recognition to them. It was on the successful conclusion of his mission that Sir Dillon deemed he had placed the keystone to his noble edifice of a life devoted in the battle front to the service and honour of the struggling young country he had helped from its very foundation ; over a great part of which he had been the first white man to set foot, and in which he has placed all his stake, determined to stick by it to the last. On his return from England he resigned the anxious and stormy watches at the helm for the more peaceful and welldeaerved honour of the chair, and became the mouth-piece and calmer of that house he had so often thrown into excitement by his single voice. Since his election he has filled that position with a dignity, an impartiality, and an ability, which have been subscribed to from alt sides of the House ; he had received from his sovereign the honour of knighthood as a recognition of his services, and he now rests deservedly on his laurels, though not yet by any means ceasing in his effort for the public good. However chequered may have been his political career, it is at all events a well-merited and dignified rest he now enjoys after a public life which may fairly have deserving of the epitaph— .D trice et decorum, esl pro patria morl. MAJOR KICHARDSON. The present Speaker of our House of Lords is a man perhaps better known in his own Province than to the Colony as a whole ; and his public career in New Zealand has not been one of those which make others marked men in the history of the Colony ; yet, as a politician, he has claim to notice, chiefly because he differs very widely in many respects from the general current of opinion. It was thought, when he was placed in the chair of the Legislative Council to preside over its debates, that he would make a thoroughly efficient and dignified Speaker, and it has turned out so. The Lords, who as a body are certainly not treated in public estimation with that respect which their title demands for them, are quite content with his control. Theyare an easy-going set of men —property aristocrats and others—who do not mind an easy guiding-rein, but would stop short if the iron rod were used to them. With all their placidity, and one might almost perhaps say their inanity, they require a delicti c hand sometimes ; and the gallant major finds his professional habit of keeping a thorough obedience has to be very much restrained in presiding over these undrilled Legislative Councillors. They are too much like Artemus Ward's army, where everyone was a Brigadier-General except the commander, who was a General Brigadier. Still they are amenable to the bit if a knowing hand holds the reins, and Major Richardson has sufficient experience and natural tact to keep his team pretty well in hand. There are some who are hardly colts in respect of age, but who exhibit all the friskiness of youngsters, and these will occasionally defy the traces ; but, taken altogether, that part of the state coach to which they are harnessed moves along smoothly enough. Perhaps it is as well that Major Richardson is in the position of Speaker in the Upper House, for those who know his provincial politics will not be slow to guess that he might prove "of all the friskiest" in that not over-gay assemblage if he were only an ordinary member. From Otago Major Richardson certainly deserves a meed of gratitude for his services in her behalf, and he is here universally held in great esteem, as all over the Colony ; but there are not wanting occasions when his desire for the progress of Otago has overcome his duty to the Colony as a whole, and has caused him to look at broad Colonial issues with a narrowed Provincial eye, which cannot fail to give a wrong colour to.events. Major Richardson would be an invaluable member in the present Ministry, and one who would be found a great relief after the dronings that proceed from the subordinate members who attend on Mr Vogel. He has not lost his old soldierly bluntness—that quality which foreigners are always the first to notice in the Engilish character, and on which we pride ourselves as one of the special belongings .of John Bull; there is the old Indian officer still in him, with the habitual tone of command, and only the word of command to get hi 3 wish, effected, without embellishing it with all sorts of verbiage. This habit, carried into private life, is rather enjoyed by his friends, all of whom —and they are many—cannot fail to like and honour the hearty, genial old soldier, who is as ready for any fun at three-score as the ever was when a youthful sub. One almost wishes he could be heard more in the debates, for to hear a man say just as much as Tie means, and say that well, is a pleasure which the pages of the New Zealand Bansard seldom have to record. If there is one thing which our members seem ito adore it is padding their speeches. It is, as one of the members remarked not long ago, a kind of savage pleasure with which they address the empty benches, as they can see by the turn of the head that the unfortunate Hansard reporter is trying hard to keep awake and follow them. They apeak to their constituencies through the pages of Hansard, and do not consider the valuable time and money of the Colony that, they are selfishly wasting. These men are the banes of the two Houses ; if it were not for them, whom it would be invidious to name, the sessions might rea!ly terminate after sitting only half the time they now extend over, as they are always predicted to be about to do ; and a great deal more work would be done in the six weeks if a muzzle were put upon irrepressible, garrulous legislators, and they were obliged to speak and vote upon a given subject, instead of glorifying themselves to their affectionate constituencies, than is now done in the orthodox three months and a little more. It is from contemplating Hansard-mem-bers, as they are beginning to be called, that we turn with relief to hear Major Richardson and the few others who, like him, say what they mean, and what the occasion demands, and send it in with a sharp point and the edge of truth, instead of feebly thrusting blunt commonplace \ for an hour. Such men are really a help and a relief to their colleagues, if they happen to be in a Ministry, and a great element in politics even if they are only in the position of ordinary members. The truth is, the two New Zealand Houses of Parliament are a great deal too clever ; they discuss plain questions which a show of abstruse reasoning and deep political wisdom only obscares, and which only need plain common sense for their being rendered at once manifest and intelligible. Major Richardson is always ready to come in with a hard fact to dispel a cloud of "ifs" and_"probablys"; he detests padding : and if his ideas do not range themselves with that methodical clearness which a logical mind can cause thqin to assume, there is always a chain of evidence plain and simple running through his sentences, even though they may seem

to be disjointed sometimes. It ia the old habit of the soldier. There are many words of command (and they are only single words, a fact some would do well to observe, who assume commanding positions without seeing the inside of a drillbook), some^ of which are quite the contrary of the others, and which, to an unmilitary mind, would often appear hopelessly contradictory ; and yet, these conflicting orders, if properly carried out and executed, result in a conclusion which shows how the various parts of the stratagem, though seemingly incongruous, all tended to the one end. We want a few more of this soldier class of politicians. They may be unpleasant speakers, and their unvarnished yeas and nays may be unpalatable to sensitive members, but they are worth two of the Hansard men. I Too many of us are Veneeringa, making i Hansard say, "he has risen to speak," | "he has sat down," "he has been applauded." There is something specially attractive about these fact speaking and plain speaking men. Apart from the fact that they are rapidly becoming anomalies among that strange class of beings, New Zealand politicians, they never fail to excite attention. When they get up to speak, or even unconsciously .when they are engaged in ordinary conversation, they aie listened to with that only true kind of attention, that the words are worth listening to because there is sure to be something in them ; their unalloyed facts often call a smile to the lips, but at the same time, while they , bring the laugh, they stir np the thought, and one statement of theirs will recur again and again to the memory until it actually forces itself upon it. When a Hansard man gets on his legs, everyone, by a sort of animal magnetism which is communicated to them, prepares for an intellectual, if not a corporeal, nap. There is no listening to them ; they carry a kind of chloroform in their words which acts most efficaciously on their hearers, and the drowsy influence of which the most ardent admirer cannot withstand. There is even a greater difference between those who give utterance to words than between words themselves, and that is giving a very broad comparison. ' Pitting Major Richardson, in a matter of speaking on an important question, with the lachrymose and quasi parsonical occasion of the term Hansard man, and there would be very little hesitation about the verdict. Nor is it only the things which such men as the Major can say that gives them their great force ; it id the manner of aaying it which carries the day. Any one can repeat a certain form of words if the trouble only be taken to get them by heart, but there is a good deal of difference in the effect of repetition. If one of Major Richardson' 3 sharp speeches were taken down, learnt by heart, and delivered by a Hansard man, the'effect would be even more intolerably drowsy than his proper role of three-quarters of an hour of inanities and vanities. The words and the manner of giving them utterance are equally the product of one character, and no amount of diligence could put the sharpness of a blunt character into the bluntness of an intellect which considers itself a sharp one. Young members could not feel any compunction in following the example of so veteran a leader, and at this time especially, when the debates, as pourtrayed with only too great faith in Hansard, are becoming a laughing stock, or at all events are read much in the same vein as the American humorists. No better example could be given of the class of speaking which does most good and has the greatest effect than that which is the natural outcome of the long training and need of quick decision which a soldier's life demands, but which can also be attained to somb extent by following a good example ; a habit of speaking to the point—brilliantly and oratorically if you will, but still never wandering from the point at issue. Concentration of fire has been the element of success in most political marksmen, but a general inclination to aim at anything but the target set before them, seems to be the prevailing eharactestic of most members. We have said that Major Richardson ia better known in his own Province than to the Colony as a whole, and certainly his Provincial career has more interest than his Colonial so far as politics are concerned. ' For a long time he was one of the most energetic members of the Provincial Council; and though not now holding a seat in it, there is no more watchful outside observer of the proceedings of our local Legislature. On Land and other materially Provincial subjects of interest, he was a vehement and generally reliable authority. Even he, however, was too often carried away by the spirit of party into extremes which bore no good fruit. He was sometimes alto gethertoo energetic and emphatic xipon people and things, and he is not the sort of man that would easily stand being told so. Provincial politics, which are a peculiarity of New Zealand, are, not likely to. be the medium through which the happy prophecy of the lion lying , down,, with the lamb shall come to pass. If the experiment were tried, the result would probably be a literal fulfilment of the prophecy in- the manner suggested by one of the wits/ that the lion should indeed lie down with the lamb, but that the one should be inside the other. When there is peace on earth and good will towards men Provincial Councils must have been abolished some time previously, or e'se New Zealand will be shut out of the millenium. In a Provincial Council Major Richardson is able to bring his peculiar forces of speech into full play, and he does so with a kind of concealed satisfaction at the results of it. Provincial Councillors are as a rule even more wrapped up in themselves and their own glorification.than General Assembly members, and it is terribly scorching to their dignity and self-importance to be told without any mincing of matters or Hansarding, that they are not the wise men of the age, meant to legislate with infallible correctness. Their self-imposed mission is to make a3 much of themselves and their Province as possible, without regarding the fitness of things, or how far their individual schemes fit in as an integral part of the policy of the whole Colony ; and it must be said they are most zealous missionaries in the propagation of this new gospel. We do not mean to say that Major Richardson is the man who, in Otago, for instance, is the unwelcome dispeller of these illusions, for he has often been found in the foremost rank of Provincialists ; but he has the unpleasant knack of telling people the truth when it is sought to be hid under a bushel, and it often happens that his voice is to be heard against some extravagant proposition which is the apple of the Provincial eye for the time being. There is an obstinacy, too, about his opinions, which there is no getting *ver. He takes very few into his counci'.s, and he does not decide hurriedly upon any matter ; but once his mind is made up, it will take a great deal to shake his convictions ; and convinced of their rectitude, he advances them sometimes with perhaps a little too much confidence : yet, if wrong in details, he is generally pretty correct in his opinion as a whole on considerable questions: a hard, shrewd way of looking at things, a cool and clear judgment, and a touch of very original humour which is inseparable from his character, combine to make up a moral conviction which will make itself heard, whether right or wrong, by its intrinsic value, and in the majority of cases it turns out to be right. Then the Major has that privilege to which a certain amount of acknowledgment is always due in the matter of judgment and opinion—the privilege of age. A better discipline is to be acquired under the old general than under the new-fangled ideas of a latelyelevated subaltern.

For his exertions in tlie cause of Echi

cation, Major Richardson deserves gratitude from his own Province; he has always been a hard-working and broad-principled educationist, and he has not confined himself merely to theories, but has put his ideas into practice in a way which other men of his standing and position would do well to imitate. In the High School of Otago, when, in its palmy days, it waa the premier Educational Institution in the Colony, he always took the deepest interest, and even in its decline and threatening fall he has not deserted it. Recognising fully that education does not mean only learning so much from books, or how to cram asj much as possible in as little time as possible, he ha 3 given as much attention to physical education as to mental; if our educationists would remember that these two kinds of education are as Siamese twins the one to the other, we should have less of those phantasmagoria! fights by which, as if by the stroke of a wand, they expect us to spring into a highly intellectual and polished community. In their desire to get to this pitch of education, the fact that people's minds must be educated up to it is forgotten. The subject of education is one, perhaps, of the very broadest significance in the long list of standing political and -social questions. It may as yet be said to be only in its infancy, but there is no doubt it will one day become as much a separate science as any one of those branches of it more generally designated by that name, and that it will be far more important than them. It is a subject which embraces the wh'de welfare of a man's life, and which seems to have limits only like the horizon ; the nearer you think you get, the advance is only apparent. What between the claims and clamourings of rival denominations of religionists, the varying position of the people, the constant improvements which may almost be said to be rampant, the subject of education is undoubtedly a difficult one, which should not be even approached without careful consideration of the pros and cons, for it is of that peculiar nature that if you take the pros, ihe solution is easy enough, and if you take the cons, equally so ; and if you weigh both together, as is the only proper course, it does not tend as usual to an elucidation of the subject, but rather plunges it into deeper mystery than before. . Philosophers and logicians have taken it in hand, and twisted and turned it to chime^ in with their peculiar views and theories, until it has been mangled almost out of recognition, and all this mauling tends to make its true nature only less discernible. Some day or another no doubt the mystery will be found out, and the true solution of the Education Question discovered. Until that time, we must content ourselves with acting up to the latest, and most reliable authority, and doing all in our power to make advance. Such being the aspect of the question, it is worthy, and more than worthy, of the considerttion of our public men; and so far as considering it goes, ample occasion has been offered, and as amply taken advantage of, in the introduction of numberless secular, denominational, and nothing-at-all Education Bills, not only in the General Parliament of the Colony, but also in the various sub-Parliaments. Each Province has its own Education System—some bad, some good, none perhaps the right thing ; and it would seem that a Coalition Education Act might come within a reasonable distance of hitting the mark ; but there is so much Provincial jealousy on the question that an attempt to bring it about would probably not be successful. Major Richardson himself belongs to a great extent to the Provincial class of Educationists. He has done an immense deal of good to the cause in Otago, it is true; and the state of the schools, the rewards offered in them, and the position of the Otago University,, show not a few signs of his intervention. As a steady supporter of the University of Otago, he has gained the approbation of many in the Province—whatever may be the intrinsic merit of such an adherence—but this fact has also caused his general views of education to be looked on with some little suspicion as being tainted with the Otagan essence, which is certainly more peculiar than that in other Provinces.' Still, the mere fact of Major Richardson's having bound himself up to a great extent in the question—one of the most important of the day—of the education of the rising generation, is a part of his character which, both as a public and private man, deserves notics and approbation. AbDXTIi.