ECHOES OF THE WEEK

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1290, 19 November 1896, Page 23

ECHOES OF THE WEEK

Satire’B my weapon, but I’m too discreet To run amuck and tilt at all 1 meet. Pop*.

BY SCRUTATOR.

My hearty congratulations to the Exhibition committee. Its members are deserving of the very highest praise for their hard work, the result of which will be, I trust that the Big Show will prove a great financial success. For many months the members of the committee have spared neither time nor trouble and this, let it be remembered, with no reward beyond the appreciation and satisfaction which they have a right to expect from the public. The exhibition ought to, and I feel convinced will bring huge crowds of country settlers into town. This alone must inevitably mean a considerable benefit to the shop-keepers. The economical way in which the work has been done reflects the highest credit on the promoters. No money has been wasted, as is too often the case with enterprises of this character —the coat has been cut according to the cloth, and a very fine substantial, handsome coat has been turned out. The Exhibition has been so fully described in the Times, and so much has already appeared in the same journal with reference to the history of the enterprise from its inception up to the opening that I need do no more than again most warmly congratulate that sterling good citizen, Mr “ Sam” Brown, the members of the various committees, and the energetic and very courteous secretary, Mr Morpeth, upon the result of their labour. Wellington owes these gentlemen a big debt of gratitude.

As the editor of the New Zealand Mail is a candidate for one of the city seats it would be improper, I think, were I to deal in this column with the respective merits of the various gentlemen who have come forward to solicit the votes of the Wellington electors. What I can say, however, and what I do say, is that I sincerely hope Wellington will, on the polling day, distinguish itself for once, at least, in its political history by returning three gentlemen pledged to support a continuance of the policy of progression versus the policy of stagnation and retrogression.

With regard, however, to the country elections and to the elections generally all over the Colony, my pen is not tied, and as everybody is talking politics and little else at the present time, those of my readers who are not possessed by the prevailing excitement will, I am sure, pardon my devoting most of my space this week to what is the one enthralling subject of the day.

The Government aslcs the country for a renewal of confidence, a renewal of power. Will the country grant the request? I think, nay, I feel sure, it will. After all has been said about the alleged faults of omission and commission of which the Government is said to have been guilty, what does it all amount to? Can it be truthfully contended that the country has suffered through the Liberal regime ? No, a thousand times, no. The Government has assisted in tiding us over a period of depression, and has materially assisted to replace that depression by a healthier and happier state of things. It has practically and materially assisted country settlers, chiefly by giving them access to cheap money, and thus freeing many a poor, struggling farmer from the hateful thralldom of a ruinous mortgage. It has honestly and arduously attempted to improve the condition of the masses, and that the cry of its policy having driven capital out of the country has long ago fully been proved to be the veriest bunkum.

The lands for settlement policy has been blessed by such a man as Mr Eolleston, who advises the Government to buy the Glenmark Estate, that giant specimen of the worst results of land monopoly, and such a press critic as the Post, which blesses where it once cursed, and which has to admit—and to do the Post justice, the admission was gracefully made—that the purchase of the Woburn Estate means the inauguration for the province of Hhwke’s Bay of a new era of solid advancement to more solid and substantial prosperity by tne safe and sure load of Close Settlement.

As to the Labour measures violently abused some time ago, what has the Opposition to say about them ? Practically nothing save some maundering nonsense about setting “class against class,” a specimen of old time Tory fashion, which has long ago been exposed as the veriest bunkum. The passing of the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Bill, the measures dealing with factory life and with the conditions under which the sailors shall work on vessels trading out of New Zealand ports, these alone entitle the Government to that substantial gratitude

which I feel convinced will find practical endorsement on the election day.

Much has been said as to the Government’s appointment ! Will any paper or person dare to say that Mr Martin’s appointment was a bad one, or that Mr Warburton’s advancement to a still higher and wider sphere of public usefulness merits anything but praise ? Sir Robert Stout, who just now has to content himself with very small mercies, has been repeating his stale and unutterably wearisome complaints about “those cadets,” the number of whom is, like that of Falstaff’s “ men in buckram,” steadily increasing at every meeting the honourable gentleman addresses ; but his charges on this head have been fully met and satisfactorily disposed of. And as to poor old Mr Fraser, the Sergeant-at- Arms, and his appointment, really Sir Robert might give this worn-out subject a little rest.

The Opposition ' practically say, “ We won’t alter your policy, but we want your seats.” Take Mr Scobie Mackenzie, for instance. He supports the Referendum —so does the Government. He objects to the Elective Executive —so does the Government. Ho is in favour of the three-fiftlis majority —so is the Government. Captain Russell says pretty much the same thing, but the double point is can we trust these gentlemen not to try and upset the policy of the past six years, a policy these gentlemen have hitherto so bitterly opposed, but a policy which, for election purposes, they are now, ostensibly at least, prepared to swallow ? All I can say is that the leopard cannot change its spots, and with the memories of the past to guide us, we have no right to assume, still less to expect, that once in power, the Conservatives will not do as they did when they followed Grey—that is change (if they can) the incidence of taxation, and gradually repeat, or at anyrate tinker with and emasculate those Democratic measures for which the Liberals are responsible. The duty of the electors is obvious. Return the present Government to power, give it a chance to amplify and complete its policy, and beware of the newly-found Liberalism of men, who, for years, have done their utmost to impede and defeat Democratic measures.

My old friend, Mr J. T. M. Hornsby, has gallantly undertaken the storming of the Buchanan stronghold. He has a big fight before him, for Mr Buchanan is no mean opponent. But Mr Hornsby, as well as I know from personal experience in Hawke’s Bay, is no mean ordinary fighter. He is a very doughty combatant, I can assure you. One of the best platform speakers in the Colony, with a fine presence, a powerful voice, a brain stocked full with food and figures relating to past and present politics, he is further blessed with what are most valuable weapons for campaign purposes, namely, a ready wit, a trenchant logical style of oratory and a big fund of practical genuine sympathy with the cause of the masses.

I don’t say one word against Mr Buchanan personally. He is, I know, a good employer of labour; lie has proved himself a good settler in many ways, but —and there is much virtue in a but, just as there is in an if —he is without doubt the very embodiment, the very personification, the very incarnation of Conservatism of the most fusty, fossilised type. You can’t knock it into Mr Buchanan’s head that it is a matter of absolute impossibility that this Colony, the home of progressive ideas, can no more go back to the old policy of land monopoly, class privileges and unadulterated individualism than can a black man be transformed into a white man. He is honest enough, good soul, in his ideas, but the trouble is that those ideas are just thirty years behind the times.

And is the Wairarapa going to continue to stultify itself politically ? Is the Wairarapa going to vote for a gentleman who, however personally worthy, is so blind to the signs of the times, so wedded to the bad old policy of “ Let Things Slide ” —so long as the price of wool is all right—so fatuously decided and determined in his adherence to the stupid old cry that land must be held in large areas and that the small settler is a nuisance and a failure ; is the Wairarapa, I say, going to return this gentleman and put a clog on the wheels of close settlement, progress and prosperity? Surely not. Surely, for once, when the electors have a chance of returning a man who has been battling nearly all his life in the interests of opening up the land, in the interests of the workers, in the interests of the small settlers, in the interests of that Liberalism to which we owe so much; surely they will say, we will have a change, we will no longer, through personal or local motives, send to Parliament a gentleman who is so hopelessly behind the times, so bigotedly and besottedly chained to the heels of a hidebound Toryism. I hope that Mr Hornsby

will be the new member for the Wairarapa. Furthermore, I believe he will.

Up in Hawke’s Bay Mr A. L. D. Fraser, a clever, popular young New Zealander, is making a big fight against Captain Russell. His chances are daily improving and when the “ numbers are up ” I fancy that the Leader of tlie Opposition will find himself relegated to a period of that “ political rest ” which he is pleased to prescribe as a “ panacea for the country.”

By the way, the “ Captain ” is amusing the people very much by his more or less artful devices to gain popularity with the working classes. “ F’r instance, take an instance.” Last week he was at Waipawa, on his way to Hampden, some twelve miles where he was proceeding on electioneering bent. Instead of taking a trap and driving out, he did the trip on top of a baker s cart. Of course this was done with the idea of proving to the free and independent electors at Hampden, especially the working-men electors, that “ the Captain was a free-and-easy sort of man, “quite one of yourselves, do’ntcherknow.” However, the little game didn’t work; it was palpably too bare ; and I hear that all the reward secured was the derisive laughter of those who witnessed his departure from Waipawa and his arrival at Hampden. One Waipawa resident was heard to remark that probably “ tlie Captain ” rode on the baker’s cart because he lias feelings of sympathy with the bread inside the cart, the bread being done brown, which will be “the Captain’s” own fate before the first week in December has passed and gono.

All who know Mr Fraser, Captain Russell’s opponent, know that he has a very happy knack of repartee and woe betide the man who seeks to take a rise out of him. At Hastings the other day ha returned a very “ hot one ” to a local man of law who is a staunch supporter of Captain Russell. The Liberal candidate had driven up to a Hastings hotel where some thirty or more shearers were waiting to interview him. When he stepped out of his dog cart Mr Fraser was accosted by the legal gentleman aforesaid who, with a palpable sneer and air of mock deference, remarked, “ Shall I—haw—hold your horse—haw — Mr Fraser?” “No thanks,” replied the candidate, “my horse will stand all right ; I’m sorry, though, to have to deprive you of an opportunity for earning the first honest shilling in your life !”

Just a word or two about the Christmas and Exhibition number of the New Zealand Mail, We have been obliged, owing to the great amount of matter and number of illustrations which have had to be prepared, to postpone the dace of publication to the first week in December. When my readers see for themselves what a generous feast of good, wholesome, interesting and instructive matter is put before them, they will then recognise the great difficulties under which we have laboured. I may also add that this year, as last, the Christmas number of the Mail will bo supplied free of extra charge to our regular subscribers. As to those who are not included in that category, I strongly advise them to place their orders with the agents and booksellers as soon as possible, as from the number of copies already ordered, it is perfectly safe to prophesy that the whole edition of 12,000 copies will be sold out within a very few days of publication,