A Competent Critic.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7065, 17 January 1891, Page 2

A Competent Critic.

[From the Lyttelton Times.]

Lokd Onslow's capital address to the members of the Australasian Association on Thursday night, full as it was of good sense and. quiet humour, was specially interesting as embodying some of the results of many months' observation of New Zealand. His Excellency's opinions are, for obvious reasons, bettor worth having than those of the mere scampering tourist. At the same time, he is totally disassociated from all our Bocial divisions and our industrial differences. He is with us, but not of us. In that respect, at any rate, a Colonial Governor assimilates to Plato's ideal ruler, who was not to be allowed to own property lest he should be at once deprived of impartiality by the influence of class prejudices. The Governor of a Colony may, if he chooses, observe and study country and people as coolly as a visitor in China and Japan can take notes o£ Oriental quaintness and topsy-turvy-dom. When he speakß and drops hints of the impressions made upon him by this study and observation a Governor's words are worth remarking. For instance, on Thursday night he paid a compliment to onr much-abused charitable aid system. His words were: —

On the other band, you have not allowed that great Bocial question which is convulsing Europe, the disposal of the indigent poor, to become a Bourco of discontent and disturbance. You have avoided the pauper workhouses where the State grudgingly gives a maintenance to the aged life-long worker, under conditions the least agreeable in life leßt any should ba found to wißh to go and do likewise.

Our readers will remember that there is a large, or at least, influential section of our Colonists who do not take at all this view of the matter. These people— some of whom have appropriated enormous areas of the most fertile parts of this Colony; some of whom constitute those middlemen, who intercept an inordinate share of the profitß of industry; some of whom represent the absentee landowner and absentee money-lender — look upon utter poverty as a crime. They discusß destitution in a tone that might bethought somewhat harsh if applied to vice. They groan over the cost of relief to the poor, the aged and the sick. Their newspapers writo articles by which you might be led to imagine that the charitable aid system of New Zealand was sapping the vitality and manliness of the nation, and was chiefly responsible for depression in trade. In these articles we have been reminded again and again of the economic perfection of the English poor law system, as administered by vigilant Boards of Guardians, and the official successors of Mr Bumble. We have been assured that out-door relief is an exploded fallacy. We have had it hinted to us that our New Zealand Boards are models of weak-kneed, sentimental extravagance. We have been left to choose between workhouses and an ever-increasing mill-stone of taxation. In our stupid obstinacy we have persisted in shutting our ears to these sermons. And lo ! an English Conservative, but a close and impartial observsr, blesses this kindly system of ours, instead of cursing it.

Fieb.— Between eight and nine last night a fire occurred in a wardrobe in an upstairs room of Mr J. Struthers Williams* house at the corner of Park terrace and Armagh street, ill four engines attended promptly, but the fire was suppressed with the aid of the hand chemical engine and a few buckets of water, comparatively little damage being dont.