Our Wellington Letter.

Opunake Times, Volume VI, Issue 276, 30 April 1897, Page 2

Our Wellington Letter.

Wellington, April 23

TRIUMPHAL, ARCHES. From a commercial gent recently arrived from Lancashire I gleaned an item of news which shows that Mr Seddon's apparent disdain of the pageantry of the record reign and his desire to rather stay in the colony at the post of duty was all assumed. My informant was at Eccleston, a little town north of Liverpool, in December last, and it was then all the talk of the people there that their quondam neighbor Dick Seddon, who had risen to great honor in the Australian colonies, had cabled to his relatives that he intended coming Home via America, and that he desired that no expense should be spared to give him a reception suitable to his station. The Ecclestonians appeared to understand from private letters which had reached a certain hay and corn dealer there, a relative of the Home coming hero, that the cost of the show would be paid by himself " out of a fund provided by his subjects," and they intended to erect one or more triumphal arches in honor of his arrival. So much for the story of the man of samples. It has an air of probability about it, for Mr Seddon was cute enough to cajole Parliament to give him a free hand with regard to his o .vn expenses in place of fixing them at a definite amount, and had he gone direct to London his magnificence would have been lost in the crowd of other magnates, but by making his landing at Liverpool, near the place of his nativity, he will attract notice. In the course of a few weeks we will know all about it by cable, and it is to be hoped that details of the expenditure on the trip will be asked for in Parliament, so that the people of the colony will know who paid for the triumphal arches and other tokens of grovel the Lankies will enjoy at our expense. UNWELCOME GUESTS. Last night being the last opportunity for the Minister of Lands performing as a canvassing tout for Mr Charles Wilson, he was billed for Karori, and found on his arrival two of the most unwelcome individuals conceivable there—Mr John Duthie and Mr T. J. Gale, who had been freely referred to in previous speeches in anything but complimentary terms. They were out for a bit of fun with Jock, and they got it. He had referred to the first one on the previous night as corrugated-iron Duthie, and got off a clumsy pun or two on the other name, and when the Minister started to- say his little piece, he addressed his remarks to these two mercantile gentlemen and ignored the electors altogether. They, on their part, came in frequently with interjections when the burly Minister tripped in his statements, which occurred in nearly every statement. An elector then cross-examined him regarding the Bushy Park affair, and stuck to his poiut so persistently that the hon. gentleman flatly refused to answer the question whether a single sixpence had been paid for the purchase of the land. When asked, " Will your sons hand over the estate at the price they agreed to pay for it ?" the Scottish instincts were voiced in the prompt and indignant answer : " No—not much," which brought down the house. The audience saw by evasions of questions, the refusal to answer the most crucial of them, and the display of temper they provoked -that the Minister of Lands had beeu all through the moving spirit in this land deal. He finished up as he did at Newtown the previous night, " You will get no other answer from me," and the questioner blandly remarked, " I did not thiuk I would," and then the audience burst out into another roar, THE SUBURBS ELECTION. This unequal fight came to a conclusion to-night, and the electioneering and canvassing of three Ministers and four other members, combined with the wholesale stuffing of the roll with permanent artillery men, _ the torpedo corps, and others not qualified to be on it, resulted in another Government victory. The figures are interesting when compared with the results ol the general election four months ago. 1806. 1897. Government .. 2191 2035 Opposition .. 1912 1898 Majority .. 252 137 Showing a Government shrinkage of 115 votes, and 203 fewer votes were polled. A number of Oppositionists refrained from voting because of Mr Atkinson's prohibitionist tendencies, and when it is considered that he fougkt all the strength that the personal exertions of Ministers, their influence, and their utter disregard for fair play, it must be conceded that Mr Atkinson fought his up-hill fight against fearful odds to some purpose. True, he is beaten, but there are some defeats which are more honorable than victories and this is one of them. He is a young man with real good grit in him, and more than the average allowance of brains, and has only to wait his time, and when that time comes he will make his mark.* As for the new member, he will play Pylades to Mr Hogg's Orestes, and both consorts of Mr George Fisher. The scurrilous language he has used towards his opponent during the campaign would have made even Thersites feel uncomfortable. But there he is, another living proof that we have not yet reached the climax of the Democracy, as it is called in the colonies.

It may not be a popular thing to say, but the truth is our workers do not look so deeply into the real meaning of things as their British compeers do. A recent observant visitor to the colonies, Mr Cooper, the wellknown editor of the Scotsman, pointed this out in an article in the Melbourne

Argus recently. He says :" In Great Britain I am convinced that the gradual extension of the franchise to what is virtually manhood suffragej has had a distinctly Conservative tendency. The working classes have not developed into Tories in any party sense, but they have become distinctly anti - Socialistic and anti - Radical. Messrs Tillett, Maun, and Burns set themselves some time back to organise unskilled labor—a task akin to twisting ropes of the sea sand. They succeeded to the extent of obtaining for themselves positions in the orthodox trade unions which they quiokly perverted to the ends of State Socialism. But the more solid majority of workers were at once disgusted, and the movement went no further. Under the present franchise in Great Britain the working classes must be in an enormous majority, yet repeated successes are won by the Conservatives." His observatins regarding New Zealand are anything but flattering, and they cannot be denied. "As for New Zealand," he wrote, '«politically speaking, the impression I gained there was of a colony which had not yet finished sowing its wild oat 3. A prominent Minister of the Crown has frankly admitted that a great part of one session was spent in passing inoperative Acts, and a great part of the next in rejecting them." The evils Mr Cooper saw were political, and not by any means the worst of what we have to bear._ Bad laws may be so administered that they may not do much hurt; while good laws may be administered or ignored in such a way that glaring injustices are perpetrated daily in the name of the Government. They are looked upon as bearing too harshly on the liquor dealers by some, while others would put an end to the trade altogether, But such as they are, they are openly violated every day in the week, and the police, who are supposed to be a terror to evil doers, have a blind eye to open breaches of the Act. As a /consequence the whole of the immense voting power, influenced by the trade, is thrown into the scale to aid the existing Government; not for its merits, but because the Government shows it exceptional favors. It is merely a question of sale and purchase. The publicans say, in effect, "We control so many votes—they are yours for a consideration." The Government reply, not in so many words, but by their actions. "We agree, the police are the watchdogs of the Licensing Act; to oblige you and to balance your votes, we will muzzle our watchdogs." Ministers have repeated over and over again during the past fortnight, and their organ has taken up the burden that they have not acted corruptly. The fact that they persistently refuse Parliament sessional returns and so hide facts and figures is in itself a matter which, if not corrupt, is illegal and contrary to the usages of any other constitutional Government in the world. But by this very practice they prevent questionable matters from being discussed and opened up. Among matters which may be mentioued as coming within the category of things requiring elucidation and explanation before the Seddon Government can be held to be as free from corruption as they would have the people believe are— 1 The Assets Realisation Board and its administration ; the appointment of officers in defiance of the law, such as those of Colonel Fraser and Captain Hannah ; the recent appointments in the Mines Department; the real truth about the banking legislation; the Horowhenua, Pomohaka, and Bronner disaster Eoyal Commissions; the goldfields expeuditure; Ministerial expenses aud allowances, especially special trains, steamers, and cab hire ; the support given to newspapers of the right color ; the roads and bridges votes; the cost to the country of Ministers for expenses during elections, especially of telegrams ; the selection of the contingent, and a hundred other similar matters we are at present in the dark about. When they are cleared up we will be better able to judge of the purity of Ministers.