CORRUPTING A CONSTITUE N C Y.

Clutha Leader, Volume XX, Issue 1028, 6 April 1894, Page 6

CORRUPTING A CONSTITUE N C Y.

♦ . The Premier, according to a report in the Northern Advertiser, a newspaper which supports the present Government, told a deputation of gumdiggers, who waited upon him at Dargaville, that a certain section of the diggers wero induced by prominent members of that deputation to vote for an adherent of the party that supported the Government in its efforts to improve the condition of the working classes. Again, the present Government bad always been adverse to the flooding of the labour market by the introduction of cheap or coloured labour, but some of the members of that deputation had, at the late election, opposed the friends of the Government in that district, and endeavoured to return an opponent of theirs. The opponents of the Government in the House made no great secret of it that they thought cheap labour a very desirable thing. " This," says the Herald, "is something moie than the mere clap-trap of a professional politician on the stump. Coming from the Premier of the Colony aud the official head of the party in power, it i 3 the bitter rage of the political intimidator. In effect Mr Seddon gave the diggers to understand that any section of electors who were not supporters of the Government need not look for help or sympathy from his Ministry. He is tho great apostle of the gospel of ' The spoils to the victors,' a gospel which appeals to the lowest feelings of human nature, and which, unless stamped out by a wholesome and robust public opinion, will invariably lead to widespread demoralization and corruption."