LETTER'S TO THE EDITOR.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1247, 2 October 1911, Page 5

LETTER'S TO THE EDITOR.

» WHAT CONSTITUTES POLITICAL "CORRUPTION"? Sir,—ls it a shadow of coming events. & betrayal of moral disturbance in tlio Political atmosphere, Uiat first the Hon. Ocorgo Fouids anrl then tho Rev. L. M. Isitt so strenuously pleads (like- retained coiiivsol in Supreme Court defamation ease) that the Ward Government "is not corrupt"? Mr. Isitt, indeed, liko a newfledged barrister seeking distinction, is very bold, njid affirms ."it is pure"! Why then it may be asked did Mr. Fowlds feel constrained to leave this immaculate Government? - Had lie not been a loval henchman to Sir Joseph Ward? Had'he not bean very zealous beyond many for the Ward regime? Had he .not been sent abroad as its representative and faithfully fulfilletl his mission? Had ho not magnified the Baronet and despised others, those Opposition members, counting them as nothing, as a small, feeble, and negligible quantity? Had he not borne on his willing shoulders the heaviest Governmental Departments? How then could ho at tho very hour of a crisis, when, despite baronial and civil and city badges and adornments, his chief had brought back but "little dignity" from England—how at that very hour could ho forsake lrim and desert? Sir," I submit that thero is but one solution! Tho commanding call of a higher vision, the vision of higher principle and of a nobler life, of freedom from the trammels and fetters of a Government itself ignobly governed, ruled by and living for "personal and partisan purposes"! To this heavenly vision Mr. Fowlds was not disobedient, and giTding up his loins for ono great decision 110 boldly mid calmly made his renunciation in the House of Representatives, saying in a sentence he could no longer hold office with a Government in subjection as bond-slaves to "personal and partisan purposes." Did not this decision Hash liko a searchlight through the Chamber, and tho city streets and dwdlings, tlio harbour and the sleeping shipping? The flash goes out and denser darkness follows. From tho lips that came these bravo words there followed this enigma: "The Government is not corrupt!" Who can this mystery explain? Have the words of our common Anglo-Saxon tongue through long conventional use and abrasion by daily use aud impact with many and divers languages lost their original meaning and significance as much-worn current coins lose the imago and-super-scription tliey bore? Let us appeal to two great linguistic authorities—to Noah Webster on the right hand and to .Tames Stormouth on the _loft, ami ask what is meant by "corruption" ? Webster's reply in brief is: disintegration, loss of integrity, of wholeness, .deterioration, rupture and falling from higher .to a lower condition, perversion, opposing tho higher natural state and sinking to a lower and impure state. Stormouth gives a similar answer, viz.—wickedness, putrescence, depravity, bribery, _ pel-ver-sion, and roots its significance _in conruptum, to oppose, to break against. What is that but our general definition of evil, the preference of the lower to the higher, and it is this lower preference, habitual, dominant, that Mr. Fowlds felt lie could not longer endure. This is, indirectly, his own- explanation. The present Government calls itself Liberal, but it has broken from and against the true, the grand. Liberalism of John Bright and William Ewart Gladstone, and followed the self-exalting, self-aggrandising, bribegiving, pseudo-Liberalism of a too earthbound age. It is a hybrid, temporising, base pseudo-Liberalism. And yet Mr. Fowlds affirms "It is not corrupt," and Mr. Isitt that "it is pure"! Surely "blindness in part has happened to Israel"? And still Mr. Fowlds belittles Mr. Massey, the leader of the Opposition, and his party, who for theso many years havo been witne?? : ng and asserting very samo depravity—subjection to "personal and partisan purposes." breaking from and opposing the essential principles of the democracy it professed to _ represent.! Yet no national or Imperial distinctions have come to him—no royal badge, no city address and exaltation. He lias, however, the blessedness of those who endure, whose true motto is: leh dien ("I serve"), tho motto of one and another old Roman farmer and of many a noblo British yeoman with Cromwell at their head, who sank self and party for their country's deliverance, and supremely desired that the Lord of Hosts should bo on their side.

' And mark, sir, the quiet practical test Mr. Massey, by timely coincidence, applied to Mr. Isitt's loud-sounding eulogium. It was a motion to reduce the vote to legislative Council by JCo, as an expression of the House in favour of a Council elected by some popular method. "Wo nro in ' the minority," said Mr. Massey. "yet for 20 yeaTS not a single; member of the Opposition has been appointed to the Upper House"! And yet, say Messrs. Fowlds and Isitt, "The Government is not corrupt"! This is not bribery! Oh, no! The Government is pure! Yes, so pure! Yet by Him Who "sitteth upon tho circle of tlio earth," and by tho conscience within overy man, if this be not corruption, what and where can it bo found?— I am, etc., EDWIN COS.