THE PREMIER AND THE CITY.

Evening Post, Volume LII, Issue 161, 28 November 1896, Page 4

THE PREMIER AND THE CITY.

The Premier seems to have wisely concluded, in avoiding a contest for the City, that discretion is the better part of valour. That he felt his way in order to learn hii prospects is certain, and it is in a sense satisfactory to know that he did not reoeive enough encouragement to induce him to believe that the City believed in him. Yet we would have gladly taken part in such a fray as would have followed upon the Premier's nomination, while to the citizens Mr. Duthie on the Premier, the latter on Sir Robert Stout, and so on backward and forward, would have been a political education that would have enabled them to at least discern the pinchbeck nature of Mr. Seddon's Liberalism. As might have been expected, the nomination of Mr. Duthie has fluttered the Miuisteralist camp ; but since the Premier has not put in an appearance, there is no obligation on the part of Mr. Duthie to go on. So far as he is concerned the position is this: — Before leaving for Nelson yesterday, he was induced to sign a nomination paper and leave it with his friends, in anticipation of the nomination of the Premier for the City. Whether he will now go to the poll remains to be seen. His friends will naturally urge him to go on; but, as we understand the position, he has not laid himself under any obligation to do so. Had the Premier been nominated, it would have been a different affair.