THE Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 600, 29 May 1863, Page 4

THE Otago Witness.

DUNEDIN, FRIDAY, MAY 29.

Angelo There is a kind of character in thy L'fe, That, to the observer, doth thy history Fully unfold : Thyself and thy bo'ongings Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on tliee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do; Not light them for themselves, for if our virtues Did not po forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not.— Measure for Measure.

The electors of Port Chalmers are presenting the edifying spectacle to the Colony of selecting as their representative in the Provincial Council a person whose past career should have rendered such a choice impossible. There is no occasion for any mystery respecting the name of this candidate. Mr. Macandrew's reputation is of no common order, aad it would have been as well for his own sake as for that of the Province if he had contentented himself with the position of retirement he bhs until recently occupied since his dismissal from public honors. One would have thought that Mr. Macandrew would by this time have learned to exercise that prudence, the great want of which has been his prevailing characteristic. If for no other reason than to save himself from a revival of the remembrance of his notorious misdeeds he should have preferred to remain in comparative obscurity. As for any consideration "for the interests of the Province, no one knew better than Mr. Macandrew himself that a renewal of his connection with the Council could not fail v under present circumstances to damage it. Mr. Macandrew's ill-advised ambition, however, smothers every other consideration, and he appears to have had a tolerably accurate estimate of the easy virtue of the Port Chalmers constituency.

Perhaps the most striking phase of this election is Mr. Macandrew's assumption of the character of injured virtue. Of all the declaimers in defence of virtuous intentions and motives, commend us to the unsuccessful unscrupulous speculator. Hamlet's advice, — " assume a virtue if you have it not," — has not been lost on Mr. Macandrew, any more than it has on other modern celebrities of the same order. They all "err in judgment " with intentions of the utmost purity according to their own statements. It is certainly something astonishing that with the circumstances of their faults exposed in all their naked deformity before the v» orld, men can be found ivith sufficient assurance to stand up defiantly and attempt to gloss them over with such specious claptrap as Mr. Macandrew's defence of his injured character. We can only account for Mr. Macandrew's confident attitude towards the Port Chalmers electors by ascribing it to a profound estimate of their character. We do not attempt to so far libel the electors as to suppose them capable ot sympathy with the misdeeds of Mr. Macandrew. We are rather inclined to think that they have allowed themselves to he bamboozled into the belief that what Mr. Macandrew says himself of his past career is true. Lavish promises of what he will do for Port Chalmers if elected, seem to have blinded the electors to anything against the character of their representative. It is generally considered that public trusts should only be awarded to men of known integrity. As Burke says of the Romans, " they believed private honor to be the great foundation of public trust ; and that he who, in the common intercourse of life, shewed he regarded somebody else besides himself, when he came to act in a public situation, might probably consult some other interest than his own." Is it possible that the electors of Port Chalmers believe Mr Macandrew to fulfil these conditions ?

Whatever " errors of judgment" Mr Macandrew may have committed, the electors of Port Chalmers could not possibly have made a greater than to choose him for their representative. His election will bring odium on the whole Province, but most of all on the electors whose moral perceptions are so blunted as to return a candidate who at present stands convicted by public opinion, and the decision of his superiors, of, to say the least, gross malpractices, and mis-appropriation of public funds. We are quite prepared to expect from the result of the nomination that Mr Macandrew will be elected ; and he has sufficient courage, we have no doubt, to take his seat ia the Council. But we much mistake the temper of the Council if Mr Macandrew's election is not resented as an insult, and very effective means taken by the members of expressing their opinion of the obnoxious member. The electors who accord support to such a candidate may be safely left to the general contempt which their conduct deserves.

There is, however, one feature of this very discreditable .business which we confess we were not prepared to expect, and that is, that a public journal should be found capable of approvingit. Very questionable things are often done in political contests, and therefore one is naturally prepared to find that the Provincial Council elections are not free from the perpetration of shifts and dodges. But that the Colonist— Daily Telegraph— call it what you will,— the chosen organ of straitlaced morality and cant, should come forth as the champion of a candidate whom the Queen's KepresentaJtive felt it his duty to degrade from the high position of trust he occupied, must, we think, startle our readers. Verily we have fallen upon pretty times. Mr Macandrew a candidate for the Council, and a public journal supporting him.