Daily Circulation, 1640. The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1894.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XIX, Issue 6127, 18 December 1894, Page 2

Daily Circulation, 1640. The Oamaru Mail. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1894.

Captain' Russell, the leader of the small band cf malcontents who now constitute the Opposition, is a politician who has hitherto been esteemed for his personal qualities and the high tone he has generally adopted, even by those who have most emphatically dissented to his political opinions. He has been frequently quoted as a bright example for men of all parties as to how political warfare might be carried on without the loss of self-respect or the respect of and for others. It is, too, only a little over a year since he sent a thrill of admiration through the country, and caused the blush of shame to suffuse the visages of the meaner-minded men of his own party, when, in answer to their taunts because he refused to join in the hounding down of the Hon. MrCadman, he boldly avowed that the honor of Parliament was a consideration high above any party triumph. Even when he felt called upon to condemn the policy of the Ministry to whom he was opposed, he took up an elevated position, and generally let it be understood that his opposition was more in sorrow than in anger. But all this was before Captain Russell became leader of the (Opposition, and before he put oil the boots so long worn by the late Sir Harry Atkinson and filled for brief spaces in succession by Messrs Bryce and Bolleston. Since he put on those boots Captain Russell has degenerated lamentably, and now occupies no higher ground than other members of the House. To what this falling away is due we are not prepared to say. It may have been brought about either by the boots of his great predecessor being irritating misfits, or by the unruly character of the awkward squad that he has now been called upon to command. Possibly both causes have operated in combination to produce the relapse. But, whatever the cause, the fact remains that the Captain Russell of today, leader of the Oppos-'tion, is not the courtly, courteous, and high-minded Captain Russell who before his elevation refused to emulate the example of his party and descend to personalities and abuse. Captain Russell's elevation has been his downfall. His speech at the Hastings banquet in his honor the other night proves that much, if any proof were wanting. We should have been glad to have attributed the character of his post prandial utterance to the evil influence of a dinner that had disagreed with him, or an over-indulgence in bad wine, but such excuses are not available, because there is nothing to show either that the dinner was badly cooked or the wines selected for their cheapness rather than their quality, or that Captain Russell was guilty of the impropriety of over-feeding or over-drinking; and, moreover, Captain Russell's degeneracy took place some months ago, and followed pretty closely upon h's assumption of the leadership of the Opposition. We confess that it grieves us to have to write thus of a man for whom, despite bis politics, we have always entertained a high opinion. But when the leader of a political party cannot find anything better wherewith to entertain his friends and admirers than coarse references to his successful opponents as quacks and charlatans, whom he compared to a peripatetic medicine map, we are, however reluctantly, forced to the conclusion that the leader of the Opposition has forsaken his previous high tone and fallen to the low level of the band of malcontents whom he should command, but who apparently command him. Captain Russell's claim that his party possesses all the brain-power iu the House is an impudent assumption that is shown to he utterly unwarranted if stated as a matter of fact, and if it was intended as a joke to set the table in a roar it was coarse to the verge of brutality. His reference to the policy of the present. Government being accountable for the existence of unemployed in the colony was as untruthful as it was ungenerous. Captain Russell is fully aware that the cry of the unemployed was just as loud and as pitiable under the Conservative Government of which he was a member as it is now, there being jußt this difference in the two cases that, whereas under his Government the congested labor market found relief in an exodus to Australia, the difficulty under the present Government has been intensified by an influx of people starved out of Australia and the crippled condition of agriculture consequent upon a succession of bad harvests and poor prices. As to his statement that the policy of the present Government had had a disquieting effect at Home, that is shown to be utterly untrue by the fact that never in the history of the colony have its debentures been held iu such hidi favor as they have been and continue to°be under the present Administration, despite the efforts of the Opposition and the

Opposition journals to decry the credit of the colony.