Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor of New Zealand, is to
succeed Sir Bartle Frere at the Cape of Good Hope ; and Sir Arthur Gordon is to succeed Sir Hercules Robinson in New Zealand. We believe both appointments to be good, the latter an admirable one. If, indeed, Sir Arthur Gordon had been sent straight to the Cape, we should have felt even more confid- ence that the various difficult native questions there would be ably treated. His administration of the Fiji Islands has been a singular success, and nothing can show what that success has been more remarkably than the translations he has sent us back of the native debates in the Fiji Council or Parliament, which, though without legislative power, brings before the Governor the grievances of the natives, and represents to him native opinion in a very graphic and useful form. The time has been when Sir Arthur Gordon might have been of great use is New Zealand, but just now Maori questions ran easily, while we should have thought that his influence at the Cape would have been of the first moment.
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