North Otago Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1897. " COLOR."

North Otago Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 8791, 18 January 1897, Page 2

North Otago Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. MONDAY, JANUARY 18, 1897. " COLOR."

The Hon John M'Kenzie has an effective way of dealing with tho enemies of his Government " Ho thrusts them into outer political darkness. ' ' We'll hae nane but Heilan' bonnets here " was the patriotic sentiment of the Jacobites of old, who depended on their strong right arms to nphold the righteousness of their cause ; and Mr John M'Kenzie, altering the phraseology to suit these more dogenerato days, insists on only those who fall down and worship his policy of "the spoils to ,tho victors " being rewarded with Government benefices or pay There are plenty of worshippers at this shrine of Mammon, knd the Minister has no difficulty in finding sycophants to reward and honest and independent men to punish. At the general election Mr 0. Cowan stood against the Hon. J. G. Ward for the Awarua seat, and tho Minister for Lands,

aa a punishment for sach an acb of treason against the peace and good government of the distributors of colonial patronage, thrust him out of hi 9 office of a member of the Southland Land Board, and put someone elsa in who has not swerved in his allegiance to this great King Koffee of the South. It was not Mr Ward's doing. Whatever faults Mr Ward may have petty spitefulness is not one of them. He takes his knocks and hits back, but does not come down to the level of the Corsican to continue the vendetta. There was no fault to find with Mr Cowan's fitness for his office. He has held it for years, and although it is purely an honorary one his past services should have entitled him to some measure of consideration for the work he has done. If the country is to be governed by creatures of the dominant party what a school for the cultivation of the art of crawling will the colony become. This system of Government is a pretty object lesson for the youth of the colony. The noblest traits of manhood will disappear, and in their place will grow up a SirPertinax Macsycophant-ish "booing" that might envelope a Turkish slave with the required subserviency to please his master. This is what we are being taught is the royal road to State benefactions, and it is a pity there are so many who Bee in it no disgrace, who have sunk their honest individuality for what is likely to come out of a very dishonest desire to obtain something from the State that they are not entitled to. It is useless pointing out to Mr M'Kenzie that such acis as these only breed the contempt of right-minded men. He has chosen hia method : it is not a manly one ; but it pleases him, and it would be futile at this stage of his life to endeavor to alter what is his second nature. The Ethopian cannot change his skin nor the leopa^l his spots, and the natural failings of the Hon. John M'Kenzie are not to be eradicated. When Mr M'Kenzie realises that New Zealand ia not Russia, that every man is entitled to h*s political opinions, no matter what they may be, and that the expression of his opinions should not cany with it direct punishment, there may be a hope of civilising the hon. gentlemau. In the meantime he roams at large an apparently semisavage in a civilised country.