The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, June 28, 1887.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 8, 28 June 1887, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, June 28, 1887.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou alm’st at be thy oountij’s Thy God’s, and truth's.

BLUFF EROM BALLANCE. The Native Minister always shines at Wanganui. There his oily unctuous hum. bug passes for true oratory, and if he only panders sufficiently to local prejudices and butters up his constituents sufficiently he is sure of a big reception. To the devil with the Colony, say the Wanganui people, give us our Ballance, a new steamer on the river and plenty of local log-rolling generally, and bless you, wha t do we care about the rest of the Colony. Genial John, or Promising John, as some wicked folks call him over on the West Coast, has been addressing the electors of Wanganui. According to hi m the Ministry are a set of heaven born politicians, endowed with every virtue under the sun, and unfairly and unjustly treated by unscrupulous opponents. Of course, Mr Ballance does not like to enter the sad shadows of the opposition benches, for when one can knock out of a suffering country in three years, one is naturally loth to quit such a pleasant billet.

A short record of his speech is to be found in another column, and is worth perusing if only to show the supreme contempt such self-seeking sham Liberals as Ballance have for the force of public opinion. According to him, all the newspapers are wrong, all the opposition majority are wrong, in everybody is wrong except Ballance, Stout, Vogel & Co.

When the elections are over Mr Ballance will be even more of that opinion than he is now.

If there is one man more than another who has wrought incalculable harm to the Colony, it is this man, Ballance, He is a man of mere fads, theoretical ideas, vain, easily led, a man of mere verbose jaw and little practicality of mind. He has retarded the settlement of Native lands, he has squandered the public money in providing useless ten acre potatopatch village settlements, he has loafed on the Colony for the biggest travelling allowances ever drawn by any member, and he has proved himself to be as complete a fraud and as contemp. tible a failure in the last Ministry as he was when Grey kicked him out of his Ministry some nine years ago.

If the electors of Wanganui would only follow Grey’s example, and consign him to political seclusion for the term of his natural life, the Colony would hold a general thanksgiving service.

HUMBLE PIE AGAIN. "Wb wholly withdraw whatever of the article could possibly be construed to mean anything detrimental to either, and deny that any imputation was intended to apply to them. Should such have been felt in the minds of either of these gentlemen we regret it now and apologise to them." That’s a pretty little paragraph isn’t it, a fine specimen of journalistic humble pie eating. It is not our own, far from it. It is from last night’s issue of that moribund medley oi muddled and mischievous mud throwing, entitled the Poverty Bay Herald. For unscrupulous abuse and malicious maligning of respectable and respected citizens, the Herald certainly takes the pie. And behold the result. On Monday they abuse and on Tuesday they apologise most humbly to those whom they have abused. It is simply scandalous that our honorable and hardworking fellow townsmen should be subjected to wanton accusations of unfair dealing and interested motives in the columns of a newspaper whose proprietors, or rather chief proprietor, respects nobody or no one’s feelings. We trust that Messrs Dickson and Matthewson, who have done good and constant public work on the Harbour Board, will not mildly accept the apology which the Herald throws at them tonight, but take legal action against their calumniators. We shall always champion the rfght of the Press to fair criticism of the acts of public men, but when journalism is degraded by malevolent mud throwing we feel it our duty to enter our strong protest.

district, and, at least so we are informed, will not withdraw in favour of anyone.

Mr. Allan McDonald is also in the field. None of these gentlemen will issue their manifestoes until the new boundaries are declared. This in all probability will take place at an early date. Until then we shall say nothing on the subject of the qualifications of the three men who are courting the sweet favours of the electors.

For the present the electors who pay their money can take their choice without our interference. When the candidates have expressed their opinions upon the numerous questions which are agitating the colony, we shall then allude to their utterances in detail.