Our Wellington Letter.

Opunake Times, Volume VII, Issue 307, 17 August 1897, Page 2

Our Wellington Letter.

Wellington, August 10. LORD RANFURLY. Our new Governor landed this afternoon as the Post Office clock struck three, but he really arrived at 11.80 last night. Like all other things undertaken by our omniscient administration, the arrival was botched. The first impressions of L )rd Ranfurly and his family, in having to be at anchor until the best part of the day was gone, with nothing to look at but the barren hills of Worser's Bay, could not have impressed them in having arrived at an/thing sh >rt of a desolate wilderness, and it must have been a relief when the welcom? fleet of steamers, with a few thousands of people on boai\l, hove in sight to escort the Tucanekai to the Qaeon's wharf. Four Ministers had already made their graceful bows to him, and is we in the lending steamer ranged along ddo it was remarked what a wry Unking quartette they were. The Hon. H phenated Jones, as Minister of Marine, appeared to act the part of admiral for the few minutes we kept alongside, and he was very particular in obtaining minuto particulars aa to the course to be steered in berthing the Tutauekai. But when lie ventured to convey his orders tj that highly-seasoned veteran, Captain Fairchild, on the bridge as to the course he should steer to reach the allotted berth, he was met with a reception such as few sailors of the old school and no landsman could equal. Fairchild is a celebrity for the breadth *nd vigor of his language. Vogel tried to refine it, Atkinson expostulated with him in that connection, ministers of the gospel shun his company, but the old salt goes on the even tenor of his way, and there are students in ornamental language who listen to him with admiration but fail utterly to approach him. It will therefore be easily understood what sort of a reason there was tor the Minister of Mariue coining down the ladder way about three times as fast as he went ujj it, and gaspiug fur breath as if a blast from a furnace had struck him. The nnha; picst looking of the lot was the Acting-Premier—and no wonder, poor fellow. To-morrow morning judgment by c msent will be given in lavor of Sir Walter Buller in connection with the long fought oat dispute re the Horowhenua block. Mr John McKeuzie has used every weapon during the past two years to justify his assertion that Sir Walter Buller ought to be in jail, and that his purchase of the land the Leviu State Farm is on was a proper transaction when there was a caveat of the Supreme Court forbidding any dealing with it registered. Had Sir Walter been a poor man or a man deficient in the bulldog tenacity to fight for his rights, the Miuister for Bushy Park would have been able to add another laurel to his crown, and posed as a friend of the people who had crushed another monopolist. As it has turned out Sir Walter has won and wili be able to retain his twelve acres, and we, the taxpayers of NewZealand, must foot the bill for all the extravagance of time wasted in Parliament over two Bills to do away with toe validity of land transfer titles and the right- ol property, the huge cost of (lie Royal (J onini-siou appointed to biiog in a verdict of guiit.y against Sir Walter Buller, and a finding that he (the Minister) had acted justly and properly, and the c mutry will also have to pay all the costs of the defence, for after prevaricating aud dodging eve: since the last Act was passed, the Government, as-plaintiff in the case, has at last thrown up the sponge, and to-morrow counsel will have to char Sir Walter Buller from any suspicion of wrong doing and give him a clean title to his land. The other great sufferer, Major Kemp, will have his innings in the Native Laud Court afterwards. Between the attempt to seize freehold properties by Hoyal Commission and Act of Parliament forced down the throats of subservient members aud the Bushy Park transaction, is so wide a gap that one can hardly conceive that the same Minister promoted both of them. THE RECEPTION. But this is waudering a long way from L >rd Ranfurly. The weather was perfect, and the crowd bigger thau anything ever seen in Wellington before. That is my impression, and I judge it this way : There were eleven steamers, mostly packed with people ; the Queen's wharf, on their return, was one dense crowd ; the streets at the same time were fairly well filled, as I pushed my way through to a point of vantage in a window on Lambton Quay. There, as far as the eye could reach, the panorama below us was one mass of living heads, with a lane just sufficient for the carriages to drive through. The jubilee in London was, of course, an infinitely bigger sight, but so far as any porson in a fixed place could discriminate as to the number in a crowd, that in Lambton Quay this afternoon had quite as many to the acre as there were on commemoration day in England. Among the gossip about the new Governor the following is a story current in town :—There wore fifteen of his servants sent on ahead by the Gothic. They arrived here about a fortnight ago to make things tidy, and brought out an enormous freight of furniture, wines, &c. The Government, for the first time in history, charged duty on the liquor, &c. ; but that by the way. They must be excused on account of their necessities and the condition of the national cash-box. The Ranfurly footmen and housemaids found an extensive gang of co-operative painters, upholsterers, decorators, &c, furbishing the rooms up in accordance with modern democratic ideas ou such matters. The effete minions of the British aristocracy turned up their noses at the preparations being made. One pert minx asked a noble decorator " What

that room was for ? " He replied, " The lady's dressiug-room." " And what," asked she, " do you call that thing?" The co-operative informed her that it was the dressing-table. She looked horrified, and gasped : " Call that thing a table for her ladyship ! Throw it out at once ! " And the all powerful Trades Council are preparing an address to Premier Seddon denouncing the iniquity of a Governor having in his employ menials who have the impertinence to cheek supporters of che Government. And in connection with these same rulers of our rulers the addition now being made to the departmental buildings affords a lesion to any one who visits that great wooden pile. The carpenters, or rather the bipeds who are paid as carpenters, are the most deliberate creatures in their movements I have ever .seen, barring policemen on the Wellington footpaths. One will drive a nail half way, and theu turn round to discuss the political situation with auother, who stop 3 his saw half way through a cut to argue the questiou. The moving of a tectum of the back wall, 66 feet long, took front June Ist to Juiy27ch to accomplish, and there were nearly as many sliding ways and as much tackle used as in the launch of a battleship. The colony would have been in pocket if th<3 whole lot had been burned and a contract let tj .some one who knew how to work to erect a new wall. They have been a fortnight putting in studs in the gap. Apparently no man his a two-foot rule which corresponds with any other man's, for the studs all vary in length, and if such work had been put in a bridge during the days I was aeontractor the inspector would have condemned the lot. We used to mike splc-ndi 1 wages at fitting timber at 6s per 100 ft. lam prepared to wager a month's earnings that the work or) the timber now being misfitted on this building is costing £6 per 100 ft. In fact Wellington just now is a perfect hotbed of Socialism, promoted and fanned by the recent visit of Ben Tillet, whose passage was provided for by the Agent-General. He said on the platform that the New Zealand working men were fools. He privately told a fellow passenger they were better paid and worked shorter hours than auy men iu the world.