PEARLS TO SWINE.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 73, 12 October 1872, Page 2

PEARLS TO SWINE.

Mr. Moorhouse deserved better of the electors of Egmont. He unbosomed to them some of the choicest experiences of his political life ; he gave lively illustrations of the arts of log-rolling and of squeezing a Ministry, he cynically promised to put his own delicate feelings entirely aside — and those of some of hia frieuda too — and to practice the noble arts he was describing for the benefit of Taranaki ; he emptied his whole bucket to them — and then to turn again and rend him, it was too bad ! Here is a choice specimen of the sort of food which politicians like Mr. Moorhouse do not think too gross to offer to New Zealand voters :—: — I shall not represent local influence, it is true, but listen how local influence gets on in the House. It is not how many votes he can command at an election, but how many he can command on a division. The member with local influence may be referred to for information, but how would it bo when there was a balauce of parties ? What would be the talk in the lobby should the Taranaki members want to force a question of importance affecting this district through the House, aud the Ministry of the day was opposed to it ? Why, the conversation would be something like this : — " There's Brown — great swell from Taranaki — only oue vote. There's Atkinson — a free lance, all to himself — Oh, never mind him ! Well, there's Moorhouse — Moorhouse will have sotno weight with Barney Rhodes and Studholme. Oh ! there will be the deuce's own mischief: — Don't slight him. We shall want his vote when we move to have a network of roads to run everywhere. We must vote for him on this matter." You will acknowledge thia fact, thafc the Egmont ib a large part of the colony, and several millions could be very profitably spent upon it in public works. When the public have au opportunity of borrowing, they will borrow — and will spend it too. You have to pay for it whether it is expended here — where it would be of most benefit to the whole colony — or is muddled uselessly away in war with the natives — or it may be spent at the other end of the colony. You will have to pay your share of it, and it is but right that the expenditure here should be in proportion to tho commercial prosperity that was likely to result from it ; and after having travelled over the Egmont District, and known it for twenty years, I say that capital could not be more profitably employed than in developing its resources by settlement. Well ! to the credit of Egmont voters they declined to muzzle in this tub ; and Mr. Moorhouse's speculation turned out a failure. It would be instructive to the people of Canterbury, some of whom doubtless still have faith in him, that this choice speech should be reprinted and circulated among them. It would at least afford satisfaction to the gentlemen familiarly described as " Barney Rhodes and Studholme," to find themselves introduced to the Egmont electors as part of the plant, stock-in-trade, or •' properties " which that benighted district threw away when they rejected the offer of Mr. Moorhouse.