MR ROLLESTON’S MEETING.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXI, Issue 7224, 25 April 1884, Page 5

MR ROLLESTON’S MEETING.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —I cannot at all sympathise with the satisfaction you express at the conduct of the late Papanui meetings. To me it appears that a great opportunity was lest of weakening the present Ministry, and a course pursued that will bring sympathy to the Ministry and condemnation to Canterbury when the House meets. Mr Eolleston made many statements that might have been thoroughly exposed as purposely misleading. What he said about the borrowing of the present Ministry, the railway tariff, and the land fund of Taranaki were all misleading statements, and should have been exposed as such in the same papers that carry Mr Eolleston’s speech through the Colony, backed up as it will be, by the empty, coarse abuse, and blundering misstatements that were flung at him.

I wish, that the men who undertook to lead the meetings at Papanui on Friday and Saturday last would just look up the Daily News of the thirtieth of last January, and carefully read the report of a great meeting at Birmingham, on Jan. 29. That meeting was so crowded, and so many thousands were waiting outside, that the members began their addresses half an hour before the advertised time, and yet Mr Bright was able to say with pride, “We are strong in numbers, we are strong in our good cause, we are strong in our organisation, and we are strong in our great leader.” Now, that immense meeting was mainly composed of men who have had far less educational advantages than our population has had; but every cheer, every groan, every hiss, every interpolation from that great mass of humanity, was indicative of the highest political intelligence, and showed what can be done, even with unlettered men, by a little judicious political education and organisation. Not one stupid thing seems to have been either said or done. No blundering questions were asked. No self-appointed orator stood up to be hooted down by his own party. Every man did what was previously appointed for him to do, and did it well. When Mr Bright asked who found the blood and measure for the useless wars with France, the well-disciplined meeting responded as one man “ Not the Lords.” When the same speaker alluded to the Tory advocates as “ from Sir Stafford Northcote down to the very lowest of their speakers and orators,” the meeting cleverly put in the name ofChurchill,” “Churchill,” as a petty revenge for his scurrilous attacks on Mr Gladstone. When the great Tory leader. Sir Stafford Northcote, was afterwards mentioned by Mr Chamberlain as “always fair and moderate/’ the groans that were bursting at the first mention of his name, were instantly checked, and cheers came in their stead.

Now r , Sir, how different all this is to the conduct of the Papanui meetings, where even the leaders publicly quarrel amongst themselves, where the much frequent interpolation is, “ That’s a lie”; where the querists don’t know the meaning of their own questions, or the difference between a Maori chief and the Government; where natural and necessary allies (like the members for Otago) are converted into enemies, and a gentlemanly and chivalrous public man vulgarly insulted, but never once effectually and truthfully contradicted. What will be the effect of that meeting on the only tribunal that Ministers care about ? Will it lose them one vote ? Will it not be just the sort of thing they will rejoice in, as rallying Otago and the North Island round them? _ Will it not be said in every other Province that our cause was so bad that wo had not a word to say in its favour, and could only abuse the man we ought to have exposed : If, instead of all this, Mr Kolioston had been courteously listened to, and at the close of his address some able and inspected public man had risen and, in proposing a dignified vote of uo-contideneo in Mr Eolloston and the Ministry with whu h he is connected, had briefly pointed out that the linos that carried ino-t grain wore the only linos that paid, that the borrowed money was not wanted by the Government for public works, hut was spent on extravagant, annual appropriations, and that the boasted laud revenue from Taranaki had been cunningly withheld from the same central vortex that swallows up that of Canterbury and Otagy), do you not think the meeting would have had a better effect upon the Colonial judges of the Ministry, upon the reputation of the Avon, and upon the future prosperity of Canterbury ? Whatever you may think, I think that we have lost a great opportunity, and lost it for want of a little political education, political system, and organisation, without which we shall sink as low in reputation at we have in finance, and shall become not only the “ milch cow ” but the laughing stock of the Colony.—l am, &c., ALFRED SAUNDERS.