The Evening Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1871.

Wanganui Herald, Volume IV, Issue 1108, 4 March 1871, Page 2

The Evening Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1871.

"When you are defeated, the point is to be able to effect a good retreat. Dr featherston has laid this principle close to heart. He sees the " "Welliugtonia Gigantea " stripped of its foliage, and -withering beneath the scorching sun of public indignation. The high priest of provincialism feels himself degraded in his office, the people no longer bring him anything to sacrifice, and he is about to divest himself of his. official robes. The Agent-Generalship has afforded a safe and honorable retreat. It was the only road left, and he is not, to ; be censured for choosing it. How valiant he is because ho knows he has ' got this road. The General Government -. roust pay the Province for the land given by the Defence Minister to settle' the Manawatu difficulty. We can quite imagine why the Superintendent would have preferred endless litigation to settlement. While the settlement of the question was pending it was still open for him to say— ' When we get the land the Province will rise above its difficulties.' The land has been obtained all but a few thousand acres (the whole block contains about 250,000 acres,) and the Province is as badly off as ever. Of • course it is necessary to frame another excuse, and now the General Government must pay the Province £12,000, asum just sufficient to satisfy 5 months' - appropriations. After all this tall talk the retreat commences. The Agentmoves off to England, leaving PPM§_mantlc "w#h —whom? Is Waring Taylor to be the inspired apostle to convey the gospel of Superintendentalism to a benighted Province ? The Doctor is a great man when he is on the scene. His tragedy and melodrama receive the plaudits of-an admiring horde of officials and"oldfogies^-but when ho retires the " screaming farce" commences, and the gravity of the previous piece is swallowed up in the rhapsodies of low comedy. Can any man in his senses Bujppiose that the Provincial system is to be maintained by the mere force of one mail's will ? Br.t even "the Supcrintcntc'pident is not sincere. If he loved the thing as rifuch as he professes to love it, he would hardly desert it. Perhaps, like Brutus, he does not love Caesar (the Province) less, but that he loves Rome (London) more. He is not indispensable as an Agent-General, but he is as the saviour of Provincialism. If ho leave the Colony the system will fail, hopelessly and irretrievably, and he knows it. The calibre of the Council is not such as to inspire any hope of its salvation. Perhaps Jock or Mr Morgan has plans to propose for its niainte-

nance, and even then it cannot liA^e. Tho Superintendent is not a young ~,,,,-^an. He professes to be enraptured -.with & form of government which he ha* often told us approaches to perfection^ Men have shed their blood to perpetuate systems on which they had erected the altars of worship. AVhy doea not the Superintendent cast aside that thing of yesterday, an AgentGeneralship, and, standing by the side of his beloved Province, say with as great a man as he— " To die by thee were but to die in jest; From thee to die were torture more than death : O, let me stay, befall what may befall!" But he will not. In his old days he . has gouc tlio ways of Solomon after , Btrange gods, and his kingdom shall be divided and torn in pieces. His servants shall not even reign in his stead The House of David shall be Avithout a Ja\r-givcr.