MR. J. C. FIRTH'S REPLY.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1823, 18 December 1875, Page 2

MR. J. C. FIRTH'S REPLY.

(To the Editor of the Evening Stab.) Sir, —Your article of yesterday is a fair hit with your information. lam sorry, this being mail day, that pressing duties will not permit me to reply to it categorically. Will you kindly accept the enclosed copy of a gossiping letter to an old colonist at Home, in place of a more formal reply.—l am, &c, * • J. C. Firth.

Auckland, December 17, 1875,

My Dear W. We are on the eve of a general election. Since you left the colony I have kept you pretty well posted up in the various political questions that have agitated our little world. You miy remember that during the last five years, Vog*l and his schemes have put most other questions out of court. In 1871 I pointed out, in a letter to the newspapers that Mr Vogel was attempting to do the work of twenty years in five, and that such a course would before 1877 put the colony into a debt of twenty millions. I was so far right that that amount will be reached before the end of 1876. Very few were of my opinion then. Nothing would go down but Vogel and public works. Now the tide has turned, and Vogel is going down still, but in a different sense. Heaps of people all over the colony, who hooted down every body who said a word against Vogel, are ready to turn round and kick him, for doing the very thing they encouraged him to do. Well, I call that shabby. But it is human nature, and though human nature is full of noble and generous impulses, it is at times not unwilling to do very shabby and mean things; and this is one of them. You know me of old. When I was a boy I didn't much care to worship anybody but I always felt strongly inclined to tight for a fellow when everybody turned against him. I suppose I couldn't help it. It is just the same still. I never did like this man Vogel; but I feel strongly inclined to kick the curs who are worrying at him now. Last year he did a very stupid thing. Stung by one of Eitzherbert's speeches (you will remember him) he introduced resolutions to abolish the Northern provinces. On this we had a great meeting in the Choral Hall. Seven provinces out of the nine had little or no land fund. Provincialism, except in Otago and Canterbury, having no money had no friends-and the general feeling was, that it was played out. The Auckla'nders felt this, but they objected to be the corpus vile and very justly. They I went in for the abolition of all the provinces or none. They wanted all to be abolished and the land-fund to become general colonial revenue. I made a speech at the meeting enforcing these views in a decided but temperate manner, as you would see from the newspapers I sent you, in August 1874, I think. The end of it was, that the great majority of the people here went; in for total abolition and the restoration of the land fund to its original purposes. Vogel, notwithstanding, carried his partial resolutions. Soon after that your old friend Williamson, the Superintendent, died, and Sir George Grey, who after his defeat at the English elections, had been nursing his wrath against the Imperial Government, and living a hermit sort of a life amongst his books and curios at Kawau, was invited to come out as Superintendent, and M.H.R. in Williamson's place. I was strongly inclined to support him, in the hope that his great ability, high rank, and knowledge of affairs would be of great service to the colony in checking the rashness and extravagance of Vogel, and in putting an end to the vicious system of log-rolling in the Assembly by the Superintendents and their followers. To such a pitch bad the influence of the Superintendents grown, that good and economic Government was simply impossible. Well, Sir George Grey came out, and was to state his views at the Choral Hall. I was asked by the committee to move a vote of confidence in him. The meeting was crowded, and Sj[r George's reception was splendid. I felt when I accompanied him to the platform that he was a power in the land. But his speech, though wonderfully clever, went so far astray—-was so full of denunciation of everybody and everything, except "that good old creature the Queen," as he called her, Sir George Grey himself, and Provincialism, and moreover, gave to my mind the impression that he was seeking a platform from which he might advantageously pick a quarrel with the Imperial Government— that I declined with great regret to move a vote of confidence, as I could not honestly march through Coventry with Sir Geo. Grey to that tune. Like "Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle he seemed to me to have learnt nothing and forgotten Dothing in his retirement. Nevertheless I like him for his love of science, his antiquarian and forest lore. He is besides, a very good specimen of the fine > old English gentleman, and if be would only acept the position, cease his efforts to break up this colony into three or four petty provinces, and go in for one colony and one revenue, he would be a great power for good in the land. You remember Macandrew, af genial good fellow in many respects, a little "ower canny perhaps ; well, he has just written a pamphlet in favor lof Federation or Separation, the real purport of which is to secure their land fund to Otago and Canterbury, and let the rest of the colonysink or swim as it best can. Ifobjected to this and wrote a reply. Yesterday one of our papers, the Star, honored me by a leader, which, though containing some misstatements, probably unintentional, took me roundly to task for not going into active political life. I don't think the Star had begun to shed its somewhat flickering and uncertain light when you were here. It is not a bad paper: has a good deal of the terrier dog style about. it, ■ does a good deal of ratting ; sometimes usei ful and creditable and sometimes not. Some p«opl« ooniidar it rathw a blackguard wrt

of papor but I have always supported it; for, though it sometimes rants a good deal and ° chops about occasionally in a curious and amusidg manner, its ia--tinc'.s and impulses are in the ma^, ri^ht. It is a lit'le oblivious at tinr.es, ¥<£____& its charging me with supporting Vo^ei laying the foundation of a colossal estat tbe pubiic expenditure. Forgetting, I suppose, that I have steadfastly opposed Vogel s rash schemes, more especially in my oppo3ition to a proposition to make a railway through my own estate. It charges me also with minding my own business instead of going into poi ics. You know very we'd that there are other ways of serving the public besides going down to Wellington. The fact in my public duties are no trifle. The newspapers will have told you that I do a little quiet, and I hope, useful work in our Acchmi atisation, Science and Art Societies, &c., &c Not that I dislike political life; on the contrary, I like it very much, and nothing would give me greater pleasure than, for instance, contesting my old constituency of City West at this very election. The combative elements of politics have as you know well, great charms for me, but I must exercise self-denial a while longer and notwithstanding the taunts of the Star and the importunities of my friends, I must stick to the mill and Matamata awhile longer. 1 cannot yet forego the duty of doing my best to put good bread into the people s mouths, and make a million blades of grass grow where nothing but fern grew before. Ihat, for awhile is my plain duty.—Yours truly, J. C. Firth. [We shall comment on this on Monday.-— Ed. 2H.S.]