THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1881.

Grey River Argus, Volume XXIV, Issue 3988, 10 June 1881, Page 2

THE Grey River Argus PUBLISHED DAILY. FRIDAY, JUNE 10, 1881.

Energy is one of the chief qualifications of. a public speaker, and is a very good thing to Bee in a candidate who aspires to represent a constituency in Parliament, •specially Buch an one as that of the Grey Valley, that stands so much in need of a good advocate in the House ; bub when ener y degenerates into bad temper and unparliamentary language — they neither reflect credit upon the candidate who forgets himself, nor upon the people who give him their votes. Now, we were rather pleased yesterday at the nomination ♦:.■» see »hat Mr FitzGerald could w r.> nt t*ie "cc/snion. and show an ■■■ ■ ■ v r-c mmfti ing i c nt r« ' hat were entirely Wu..t... fe i.. his fir&t appearance here. Indeed, we may go ao far as to say, that had he shown anything like Buch feeling or euthnsiasm when hespoke Iv the

Public Hall, he would not have had such" a hard battle to fight as is before him now. However, he was scarcely warranted in applying the offensive terms he did to any one on the staff of this journal. The language referred to is contained in the report, and ia not bo choice or elegant as to warrant ita reproduction here. Indeed it would be better had it never been printed or uttered. It was not very easy to see exactly at what Mr FitzGerald was driving at, but if we did not misunderstand him he complained in the first instance of being misreported, and in the second of resorting indirectly to a sort of class cry for the purpose of injuring h:s chance of election. Now we absolutely deny having done either, intentionally or otherwise. "We certainly did not go into ecstacies over Mr FitzGerald's Candida* ture, nor, for that matter, over the candidature of anyone else. But we treated him with the utmost courtesy and respect — in fact we treated him as a gentleman. We may have been wrong in doing so, but we could not forget that he was an old acquaintance of the people on the Coast, and we freely and frankly admitted his ability, honesty, and disinterestedness. We could not surely do much more for him. If we did not endorse his views it was because we honestly felt that they were disappointing, and not in accordance with the viewß we haye frequently had occasion to put forth ; and if it should turn out that his views are approved by the majority of the constituency we shall be very much surprised indeed. In the matter of reporting Mr FitzGerald's speech, we endeavored to give him every satisfaction. If we failed in that respect, we can assure him that any failure— if failure there was— was not the result of Intention. Indeed, until his nomination Bpeech of yesterday, we had been under the impression that everybody — even Mr FitzGerald himself— considered the report as very full and accurate. At anyrate, if any inaccuracy or misreporting occurred — and it is seldom that reports are perfectly accurate— it was open to Mr FitzGerald to write to us to correct them. There would not have been much trouble in that, and any necessary corrections would have been cheerfully made. We surely had a right to look for that much. As to the expression about an " Irish hint" which the candidate made the [ ground for an extraordinary piece of declamation, we reprint an extract from the article in which the objectionable expression occurred, so that the public may see it in all its wickedness. On the 14th May last the following passages appeared in an article on the forthcoming election, and in which reference was made to the backwardness of any local candidate announcing himself :— " There should be no more mock-modesty or timidity. Both are equally contemptible, and are feelings that a politician should know nothing of. 'Faint heart never won fair lady.' The question must be popped, snd the , soouer the better. That an outsider is coming here to grasp the prize is an Irish hint, and those who ought to take it, and don't, deserve the traditional treatment, and should be thrown out of the window." There is nothing here that is _ offensive either to Mr FitzGerald or Irishmen. The phrase is a common one, and neither expresses, nor was meant to express, anything to wound the feelings of the most sensitive. It is true that Mr FitzGerald says he - never read the words-r-he was merely told of them • but that scarcely excuses him in descending to Billingsgate on the hearsay of someone who stands convicted. of not understand* ing his own language. Malice could not well have been the cause, for there was nothing to prevent Mr FitzGerald looking over a file of the paper, and ascertaining whether or not anything was said of him that justified such brutal language as he indulged in yesterday. It is not well to be too hard upon a candidate for a little intemperance of language in a hustings speech, and we will not be harder upon Mr FitzGerald than by merely saying we were alike surprised and grieved that an educated gentleman such as he is should so far forget himself as to make use of epithet 3so coarse and uncalled for.