SOME WHOLESOME ADVICE FROM ONE COMPETENT TO GIVE IT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1261, 30 April 1896, Page 34

SOME WHOLESOME ADVICE FROM ONE COMPETENT TO GIVE IT.

TO TIIE EDITOR. Sir, —Men who undertake the management of large concerns should bo men possessed of large minds, of groat insight, and untrammelled views. Especially should this be the case with those who are intrusted with the government of colonies like New Zealand. They should bo possessed of that stamina or strength of character which will stand tho test of temptation, even of their dearest friends, when it is likely to load them into the way of error,

or to sap the foundation of truth. Truth is tho basis of all righteousness, and, therefore, it. is requisite that men intrusted with the interests of a nation, a colony, or a city, which means the interests of the people, should never let. their minds lie excited by fads born of ignorance and inexperience, but should rather he guided by tho experience of tho past in forming resolutions for tho guidance of the future. 1 know that tho present is a time of great difficulty to '.ill those who are intrusted with the formation of laws to govern the future. Pressure is brought to bear on them from different quarters presenting a. thousand different views, which, like weeds in a garden, spring into existence under that liberty of speech which our constitutional Government gives to all subjects, and in this Colony in particular.' Everyone, whether wise or foolish, can express their opinions in the broadest way in tho streets or on the platform. But if individuals huso this right of free speech, they can be prosecuted for libel on one another. Then, how much more ought those who libel the whole Colony en masse to be prosecuted by tho law and abhorred by the people 'i When wo take into consideration that newspapers, which are, and ou'Uit to be, written for the education and 'miclance of those that read them, daily pu'>li.;h iies and false information it certainly seems hut right that they should bo severely punished according to the enormity of their crime. Tho individual may 1 j n r t the reputation of a fellow individual, but the newspaper libeller hurts the whole community, and saps the foundation of tho Colony. Yet we see Ibis continually going on, and articles written that can have no other effect than to lead their readers astray and to directly injure the credit and retard tho prosperity

who must themselves, in common with all others, eventually suffer from the dastardly work of their own cowardly libelling writings done for mere political partisanship. It would not matter if tho penalty for lying only reached those who concoct, write and publish these scurrilous and deceitful attacks—in fact, it would bo a just punishment; but when such attacks are scattered from one end of tho Colony to tho other, they must have an evil effect on all that read thorn, to tho detriment of tho whole Colony. Men who have lived more than half a century in the Colony, as I havo done, who have studied the practical politics of every Government from our first settlement in New Zealand, cannot easily be led astray by false, insinuating party cries before a general election. At least, they ought to know, and to warn those who have not had tho experience of former Governments, as 1 have had, to pauso before they adopt the views of tho Opposition to the Seddon Government. Our present Government is tho only ono in all these years that has done anything for the people of this Colony to raise tho status of tho working population to higher standard in political and social life. Tho sheep and cattle were of more importance to other Governments than men and women ; because, as ono of them told mo, the beasts wero better suited to tho country, and paid better than men and women. Let the women of Now Zealand consider this before they listen to utterances which can only havo tho effect of dragging them down to bo of less importance than sheep and cattle. Tho working men, through tho instrumentality of the Seddon Government, enjoy many good and great privileges which they never did before, and it is their duty to guaid them with tho same zeal they used in getting them. This applies especially to the mothers. Let them, for the suko of their posterity, take the advice of ono who has always been the friend of tho working man.—l am, Ac., John Peimmek.