TITLES AND THE DEMOCRACY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12532, 20 June 1901, Page 4

TITLES AND THE DEMOCRACY.

We are inclined to think that very few of their constituents -will share the regret that has been expressed by. the Dunedin members of the House of Representatives at the •acceptance of a title. It seems to us, indeed, that Mr Millar and his colleagues are guilty of a piece of affectation which borders very closely on impertinence*in parading their disapproval before the public. They ihave no* the slightest right to assume that the people of Dunedin, or even the most democratic section of-them, have any objection to tbeb? leaders being selected for royal favours. If the Postmaster-General' hadsought the distinction for himself, or if he had renounced any of his political principles in accepting it, there would (have been some ground' for regret; but his critics know as -well as wei do that the honour has been thrust upon, hhnv so to speak, and that it is not at all likely to make the smallest difference in his relations with his party. If the members for, Dunedin really wished' to display their contempt for baubles of this kind they ought to have protested when Mr Seddon was made a Privy Councillor, or when the members of the Cabinet took the title of "Honourable," or when their own constituents gave them the affix of "M.H.R." The Minister's Liberalism is no more likely to bo perverted by Ma knighthood than theirs is by "their membership of the House of Representatives. One distinction has been as well earned as the cither, and we may be sure will be borne with equal modesty. We confess that we do not set

any great store by titles ourselves, but we have no patience with those people who profess to believe that they are destructive of all the better instincts of their recipients. Their "independence" is usually the most thinly-dicguised servility.