HIDDEN LIGHTS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 213, 25 October 1888, Page 2

HIDDEN LIGHTS.

What is the duty of a good citizen ? is a question which may well be asked after what occurred at last meeting of the Harbor Board. Mr Matthewson was making various objections, when Mr Gannon very pertinently asked why these objections were not raised at the public meeting, when the members had an opportunity of meeting the ratepayers face to face. “ I am a Government nominee,” was the reply. A Government nominee 1 We can admire Mr Dickson for the plain and outspoken way in which he maintains his opinion, even in the face of a vast number of fellow-ratepayers, and to a certain extent we can join with Mr Matthewson in a lament as to the statement published, but we do de'est this, wretched cant about being a Government nominee. This unfortunate country has had much of its life-blood sapped from it by over.-ge'emment, officialism, redtapeism, and like “isms,” but never before, in this respect, have we heard of anything so absurd and ridiculous as a ratepayer and a citizen excusing himself from speaking face to face with his fellow ratepayers and fellow citizens because he was a Government nominee 1 We are astonished at and ashamed of Mr Matthewson for making such a plea. Who, in this age of political privileges, are the Government but the representatives of the people ? And what is Mr Matthewson’s position but the nominee of the people’s nominees ? Yet he seemingly seeks to set himself above members who jjaya been elected by those who have to pay hard cash towards the works. Could anything be more unreasonable! ti.« Premier himself dare not ignore the taxpayers, and the only fact upon which Mr Matthewson can base hi? glgiip for exemption is that he is obscured by official adjustments. But as a ratepayer, and one who has an opinion to offer, surely he has some consideration for his less enlightened fellow citizens. If he is naturally too mod est th® call pf duty should give him courage. If his contention is correct, that the. exChairman’s statement is absolutely misleading, why did he sit down in the public meeting and allow his fellow

ratepayers to pass resolutions, when he, in his opinion, was possessed of knowledge which would warn them against taking a course that, to his belief, is positively suicidal ? What, this leads us to ask, is the duty of a citizen ?