The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, MAY 24, 1880.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1288, 24 May 1880, Page 2

The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, MAY 24, 1880.

Am announced by advertisement, Mr. "Roberts wili address the electors of Awamoko at the Schoolhonse this evening, at 7.30, and at the Atheiiaiiim. Hampden, to-morrow •evening. He will also meet the electors of PapaJcaio at the " choolhousy on Saturday .next, at 7 p. in. Mr. ffobertb' r.v.-♦firntrat Kak- t:i on Saturday nigiit wa* but the audience consisted principally of son-electors. Mr. M'Lvtiiont, the correspondent of the North Otago Times, and village schoolmaster, proposed a vo'e of confidence in the candidate, which, thanks to the free and independent non-electors, «u carried.

Mr. Jones 'will address the electors at Livingstone to-morrow night at 8 o'clock. A special passenger train leave Oamaru for Hampden at 7.20 p.m. this evening, returning immediately. Air. Reid's electioneering address, which was to have been delivered in Hampden this evening, has been postponed. We need scarcely remind oar readers that the concert and ball in aid of the the frmds of the Band of No. 1 Company O.R.V. will take place this evening. The programme is varied and choice, and the entertainment shonld prove a pleasant finale to the day s enjoyment. . , The following letter appears in Fridays Dunedin Star. It expresses ideas which will be heartilv endorsed by the bulk of Colonistsl received yesterday from a I venerable looking individual some property tax papers, which he requested me to fill in and forward to the Tax Commissioner before Ist Jane next. After reading the papers I began to cogitate. I came to the conclusion that if the colonists of New Zealand quietly comply with the request of siid Tax Comitsioner, the sooner we change from calling ourselves Britons of the South to serfs of the South the better. Hoping other citizens will express their opinions on this matter and take immediate steps to secure the repeal of this Act, fitted only for slaves, —I am, etc.. Citizen No. 1." ~ It is officially announced that the Kight Hon. Robert Lowe i 3 to be raised to the peeraee. Social and political promotions of this kind are not usually very interest ng to the Australian reader, but this is a special case, for Mr. Howe is the first Australian statesman who has reached the peerage, and and he is a politician who first attained political eminence in the Parliament of New South Wales. Moreover, the wealth which will enable him and his family to support a peerage was chiefly made in Sydney, its foundation being obtained in the law courts of this Colony, and its superstructure being raised by judicious investments in city properties in Sydney. He spent less than ten years in Australia, bnt in that short time he impressed his name upon our histroy. He obtained the first parliamentary committee on public education, and by his report on the subject, and his subsequent parliamentary action, he became the founder of our national system, which has received its successive developments at the hands of Sir Henry Parkes. In the land question, too, he raised the agitation against monopoly long before Sir John Robertson's name was heard of, and he was the first leader of what was subsequently knownas "the Liberal party." With Wentworth, he worked for the completion of representative government, and, unlike Wentworth, his was the eloquent voice which resisted transportation, and which prevented Australia continuing the receptacle of the moral filth of Europe. It is 30 years since Mr. Lowe left us, and he has probably given little thought of the later developments of our political affairs, but we have not forgotten that he was an Australian statesman before he was an English statesman, and now that his brilliant though erratic career has been crowned with a peerage, we may take a pardonable pride m recalling his connection with a glorious era I in our political annals. —Town and Country.