The Specialists of the New Ministry.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5081, 15 August 1884, Page 3

The Specialists of the New Ministry.

I ♦ [From TflE "Canterbury Times."] The Ministry, as given forth to the Colony on Wednesday; is the strongest I New Zealand has seen for ten years. It : contains four specialists, and of these three * have shown qualifications for office, outside jof and in addition to their specialities. As ! a financier Sir Julius Yogel has a position recognised outside New Zealand ; and even ' if he were not a financier, Sir Julius would .be the ablest party politician in the ! General Assembly. Mr Stout takes the ' first place at the New Zealand Bar, and as a lawyer is something more than a clever pleader, for he is one who has walked successfully in the thorny and troublesome I paths of law reform. Yet if Mr Stout were nobody as a lawyer, his reputation as I a Parliamentary debater, a thoughtful ! Liberal, and an honest politician, would be i enough to entitle him to a portfolio. Mr | Montgomery's name has been so long ! identified with the cause of State education, free, secular, and compulsory, that it is needless here to say more than that he ■■ has during these years given to that im- : portant branch of the public service an ■ amount of time and trouble gratis which not many Colonists would devote even to a profitable private business. Beyond this, Mr Montgomery's services in exposing the corruption and extravagance of the Atkinson administration, are but insufficiently • rewarded by a place in the present Cabinet. !Mr Richardson is a specialist pure ■ and simple. But of him it may be said that his speciality (railway administration) is as important ;as his mastery of it is admitted. Mr I Ballance is not at present well-known in this part of the Colony. In "Wellington he is known as a good speaker and a journalist iof ability. He is to have the Native : Department. If when there he acts up to , what he has written, his rdgime will not be marked by jobbery sub rosa, and by sensational displays of bouncing oppression at the expense of weak unoffending Natives, and at the expense, too, j of the good name and future reputation of J New Zealand Colonists generally. Whether ! these objectionable features have marked the reign of Mr Bryce in the Native Office, the raid on Parihaka, to say nothing of such trifles as Major Kopata's pension, the canteen of the Waikato Armed Constabulary, the wholesale alienation of Native reserves, and the disgraceful scenes in the purlieus of the Land Courts at Cambridge I and Eotorua will testify. If Mr Ballance can put a stop to these abuses he will do much for New Zealand's name and fame.