THE OTAKI ELECTION.

Evening Post, Volume LIX, Issue 4, 5 January 1900, Page 4

THE OTAKI ELECTION.

The electoral campaign in Otaki has been marked by incidents that reflect little credit upon the "Liberal" candidate or upon his sponsor, the Premier. Ministers have abused their high office by converting themselves into electioneering agents for Mr. W. . H. Field, and unfounded personal attacks have been made upon Mr. Morison from the public platform and in pamphlets. The manner in which the Premier and his Minister for Native Affairs have stumped the constituency is a distinct breach of constitutional procedure, but Mr. Seddon's tactics were fully .disclosed in his attempt to fasten upon the Opposition candidate the opprobrium of a charge that could not be ' substantiated. At the Lower Hutt last night Mr. Morison effectually refuted the attacks made upon him, and successfully proved that Mr. Seddon jhas been,, to say the least of it, disingenuous in accusing him of obtaining a long lease of native land at a "peppercorn rent." The Premier in his righteous indignation at Mr. Morison's alleged wrongdoing neglected to mention that that gentleman paid in cash the full freehold value of the land for that lease. Was this omission wilful 't It is hard to believe that the First Minister of 'the Crown would stoop to such a subterfuge in order to draw votes from an opponent, and still harder is it when it is remembered, that the Government already enjoys a majority that is positively unweildy from its size, Yet it would appear that the very document from which Mr. Seddon was quoting in condemnation of Mr. Morison showed that the latter had paid the full amount of the freehold value in cash. Can this be called fair practice even by Seddonian Liberals, whose ideas of political morality are decidedly laxV Surely it is dangerous to swell the majority that supports a Premier capable of such conduct. This incident alone is sufficient to prove the need of more members able and willing to criticise the Administration. Mr. Morison is fighting a plucky battle against very heavy odds. It is contemptible that the Premier should adopt such unfair methods in his efforts to win the seat for his protege, and we should have thought better of Mr. Field had he had the manliness to repudiate the employment of such tactics on his behalf. Mr. Seddon's perversion of the facts about the lease was not the only blow "under the belt" which Mr. Morison was called upon to parry last night. An incorrect account of an agreement with Mr. Wood was published in tho electorate in the interests of Mr. Field, and this calumny was disproved last night by Mr. Wood himself. It is a matter for deep regret that practices such us this should have been iutroduced into the contest, and we cannot believe that they will further the interests of the Ministerial candidate. There was no justification whatever for either the Premier's misstatement or the account of the Wood agreement, for Mr. Morison has carefully refrained from any personal attack upon his opponent. Ho has rer cognised, as the electors of Otaki must also recognise by this time, that Mr. Field is a mere cypher in the fight. He has

been completely overshadowed already by the Premier, and tho position he has occupied during the contest necessarily foreshadows the part he will be forced to play if returned to the House. He will be the obedient follower of the Premier, voting as he is instructed and talcing his politics not from his own experience or the needs of his constituents, but from the orders of his Party leaders. Mr. Morison, on the other hand, would enter Parliament as a free man, ready and able to make the interests of his electorate his first consideration. The people of Otaki have to choose between a political puppet pledged to follow implicitly the dictates of an autocratic Premier whose majority is already too large, and an energetic and independent citizen, who has already proved his care for the district he aspires to represent.