SEARCH LIGHTS.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9323, 25 January 1896, Page 8

SEARCH LIGHTS.

AN ELECTION DITTY. Air—" Tommy Atkins." you have seen him on the waggon iv the square, Spouting prohibition bunkum to the mob; There illuminated by tbe naphtha glare. Was the place to see him fairiy " on tbe job." For his language then was forcible and free, And ho never seemed to mind the eggs that flew ; With his tongue vituperative, And his fertile brain creative Of abuses, more than halt of them not true. Chorus — Oh, Tommy. Tommy Taylor, you're a terror in the laud, As the rabid, rancorous leader of tho prohibitionist band ; May your thirst be never failing, while good liquor you eschew. Confound you Tommy Taylor with your bit of ribbon blue. Now our Tommy is ambitious, as you know, And the vacant seat for Christcnurch longs to fill; Into Parliament he thinks he'd like to go, Prohibition there to preach at his sweet will. It doesn't matter though his views are crude, Or though of present party leaders he'll have none, For though beer he now despises, It should never much surprise us If by beer and Scout between them he's undone. Chorus—Oh, Tommy, &c. Should this " honest, earnest, able " candidate Be returned, a startling change we soon should sea Banks, insurances, mines, and land all share one fate; All our business by the State conducted be. From the profits old age pension funds would flow, And the unemployed's millennium be at hand ; On a Government subsistence Tommy 'd spend bis whole existence Spouting prohibition right throughout the land. Chorus— Oh, Tommy, Tommy Taylor, now at last we understand What the tune is that you've played at in the prohibition band, For those magic letters added to your name, and pockets lined With the honorarium, Tommy, on reform you *' went it blind." To listen to Mr R. M. Taylor is to despair of Democracy. One left his meeting with only one distinct impression, a sense of utter astonishment that such a man should ever have represented a constituency. M.H.R. for the city of Gotham he might been ; bub that a lob of intelligent working men should ever have given him their suffrage passes comprehension. His speech was a silly gabble of inconsequential nonsense. To judge from his way of dealing with figures one would scarcely trust him to do an addition sum. He bewailed the hard lob of apprentice dressmakers working for a shilling a day. And in the same breath proposed to pass a law fixing 5s a week' as the minimum wage. He wildly promised to divide up in Canterbury for close settlement a considerably larger area than the whole province contains, and he would solve the unemployed problem by giving men 50 to 100 acres of land and stocking it with two cows and one breeding sow. lb is true his audience laughed at all this twaddle; but I suppose a good many hundreds of them will give him their vote nevertheless. A Liberal organ describes him as a gentleman of " transparent honesty." I should say this honesty is about the most transparent thing about him.

This sturdy democrat and educational authority who, ib will be remembered, declined an invitation to a Government House dinner on the ground that he "didn't meal out," was indirectly responsible for one of the brightest mdts ever uttered in the House. I don't remember whether I have told the story before, but it is worth repeating if I have. He was on his legs dilating on tho advantages of this 'ere glorious system of education. And in course of time he got round, as he always did, to the Sydenham school—the model school in the model borough of this model member of Parliament. "Sir." said Mr Taylor, "I have a school in my eye—," " No, Mr Taylor," interpolated Dr. FitchetS, " only a popil, Mr Taylor."

There was another M.H.R. of the same H'less variety, whose wife had a fullgrown, not to say overgrown, sense of her husband's exalted position. His daughter was setting out for a "function*' where the Governor was expected to be present, and where of course the National Anthem was to be sung. Gifted with a good voice, the young lady had been selected to sing one verse as a solo. The proud and happy mother put the finishing touches to the white frock and the blue sash, and as shej kissed her good-bye, murmured a last instruction —" Remember your father's position, my dear—and don't forget thehaitch in 'appy'."

If there is one thing the heart of the New Zealand democracy ie set upon it is education. They make a fetish of it, and seem to think the three R's is all that goes to the making of man; they deify the education system, and exact from candidates of every colour unflinching loyalty to it. Even Mr R. M. Taylor got about his only round of genuine applause, with the ring of irony in ib, when he declared that I" he warn't agoin' to tinker wibh the education question." And Mr Tom Taylor said nothing that pleased his audience more than his declaration in favour of free secondary education. Yet commonly enough the same democracy which sets ao high a value on education will allow itself to be repiesented in Parliament by men who are all but illiterate ! Mr Reeves used to plume himself upon being the only cultured man in the Ministry. There are not in the present House more than half-a-dozen men of University training, and more than half of the members have either no education at all or only a smattering of self-acquired useful knowledge. New Zealand democracy will gravely listen to a speech on education from an illiterate like Mr He Hem Smith, and seriously exacts pledges of support of secondary education from an h'less buffoon who couldn't pass muster in education or intelligence with 95 per cent, of the very working meu who follow him blindly to the poll. Ii the democracy of New Zealand really do value education arid don't want merely to talk claptrap about it it is high time they gave practical expression to their appreciation, by refusing to entrust the law making of this country to men who couldn't pass a second standard examination.