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Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9596, 10 December 1896, Page 3

TO THE EDITOIi OF THE PRKSS. Sir, —There are two remarks I wish to make on the Christchurch election. One of these is that I am quite convinced the liquor party did not throw over Mr W. W. Collins. It is ungrateful for his supporters to attribute Mr Collins's defeat to treachery in that quarter. ,The vote from it was as solid for Mr Collins as for Mr Lewis. The true cause of defeat ist|hab ha was not so strong as his friends supposed him to be. They backed the wrong horse and returned Messrs Taylor and Smith. If the Liberty League continue the tactics of the last, few months they will on the first available opportunity semi Mr Ell to join Messrs Taylor and Smith in Parliament. When that feat is accomplished the Liberty League's object lessons will be completed, and it will return to the obscurity from which it should never have emerged.— Yours, &c, Caution-. TO THE EDITOR OF THE PttESS. Sm, —It is perhaps only natural that those ill-advised members of the National Association who, through their refusal to unite forces with the moderate Liberals, have the mortification of seeing themselves represented by two prohibitionists, should now seek by any sort of excuse to justify themselves in the eyes of the more intelligent members of their party. The excuses offered for this tactical blunder are all of the most shallow description. For example, one writer in Wednesday's paper says that the Nationalists, who for weeks before the election abused Mr Collins, did not vote for that gentleman because Mrs Collins failed on the day of the election to canvass for Mr Lewis. Another ■writer, signing himself "J. W.," has.the consummate impudence to hector Liberty Leaguers because they supported that champion of anti-prohibition, Mr Collins. Fancy, sir, the Liberty League forsaking the man who fought for its principles in the House and on every platform. The man, who, by his oratorical and logical powers knocked prohibition into a cocked hat. The man who, the night before the election, in the presence of 2000 people, figuratively wiped the floor and dusted the walls with that world-known king of faddists, Mr Leonard Isitt. Those Nationalists who, through your columns, pretend to blame the League for its support of Mr Collins, New Zealand's most consistent and powerful advocate of personal freedom, have underrated the intelligence and gratitude of those men and women who are proud to be known as Liberty Leaguers.—Yours, &c, Non-Paetv.