cho
answers 'Where?'" But the public are not satisfied with echoes, and in
this matter-of-fact age people look to those who fill ostensible posts
and draw bona fide salaries; and if these men hold the appointments, no
matter under what system, they become the deserved objects of either
praise or censure.

Thus it may appear too much to say that Sir G. Anderson is liable for
the mismanagement of the colony in toto--for the total neglect of the
public roads. It may appear too much to say, When you came to the
colony you found the roads in good order: they are now impassable;
communication is actually cut off from places of importance. This is
your fault, these are the fruits of your imbecility; your answer to our
petitions for repairs was, "There is no money;" and yet at the close of
the year you proclaimed and boasted of a saving of twenty-seven
thousand pounds in the treasury! This seems a fearful contradiction;
and the whole public received it as such. The governor may complain
that the public expect too much; the public may complain that the
governor does too little.

Upon these satisfactory terms, governors and their dependants bow each
other out, the colony being a kind of opera stall, a reserved seat for
the governor during the performance of five acts (as we will term his
five years of office); and the fifth act, as usual in tragedies,
exposes the whole plot of the preceding four, and winds up with the
customary disasters.

Now the question is, how long this age of misrule will last.

Every one complains, and still every one endures. Each man has a
grievance, but no man has a remedy. Still, the absurdity of our
colonial appointments is such that if steps were purposely taken to
ensure the destruction of the colonies, they could not have been more
certain.

We will commence with a new governor dealt out to a colony. We will
simply call him a governor, not troubling ourselves with his
qualifications, as of course they have not been considered at the
Colonial Office. He may be an upright, clear-headed, indefatigable
man, in the prime of life, or he may be old, crotchety, pigheaded, and
mentally and physically incapable. He may be either; it does not much
matter, as he can only remain for five years, at which time his term
expires.

We will suppose that the crotchety old gentleman arrives first. The
public will be in a delightful perplexity as to what the new governor
will do--whether he will carry ou