POLITICAL PORTRAITS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1189, 12 September 1874, Page 5

POLITICAL PORTRAITS.

MR MANTELI/. In Mr Mantell we see another of the veterans of old New Zealand days whose labours may be said to have begun, continued, and ended in her councils, and to have materially advanced her prosperity. They belong — these retired veterans — to a veritable order of emeriti, for they have served hard and long, and with an energy and lofty spirit which are no more conspicuous now, if as much so, than when they gave it practical application. They have stood by their weapons in many periods of danger and distress, and have seldom been known to flinch or give way to the bitterest and most hostile assailant, leaving an unobscured and imprinting effect upon every principle they have inculcated and introduced, and the stamp of the order of their minds on their measures and chief acts. This is a class of our public men who now stand very close to the doorway of other Houses ©f Parliament beyond our limited sphere, and are gradually receding before the advancing tide of young blood of fresher spirit, leaving behind them the inevitable feeling which always clings to the memory of the past, whether rightly or wrongly, that there were giants on the earth in those days compared with those we now see occupying their places. Mr Mantell now reckons among the oldest perhaps of those who have watched the Colony and taken a leading part in the administration of its affairs ; at any rate, he stands well forward among the claimants for that honourable distinction, and they are not a few, and to a great deserving of favourable consideration in that capacity. No man, despite of the injunctions given us some thousand and odd years ago, can be perfect, and the subject of our sketch, having that human nature which has been apologetically taid to be a belonging of some men, has not been free from the blunders and ills that flesh is heir to, and has once or twice fallen either by his own mistake, or the misconception of others, or by both concurrently, under the ban, if not of public, of Eartial, disapproval. At other times he as risen high up in the ladder, the rungs of which are the praises of fellowmen and the laudation of a ruler, and has not been envied for his political and social advancement attendant thereon, even by his opponents, while he has received always the good wishes and best will of his friends, whom his social qualities skilfully brought to play in the more extended and less striot public life, had won over as effectually as they had dissolved the pungent solid of malice out of the then harmless envy of cavillers and illwishers. In both positions, and in the intermedial one of smooth, even progress, when nothing particularly exciting or disturbing upset the serenity of the political atmosphere, or threw a cloud of uncertainty over the tenure of Ministerial seats, or the retention of comfortable and easy sinecure billets for reaping, at small cost to the reapers, the firstfruits of the harvest of the general revenue, he seemed always to preserve a happy share of equanimity in himself, and of toleration in others, which enabled him to gain a name and win a comparatively profitable reputation, with the exertion of only those powers of mind and body which have enabled him, after retiring from the more active scenes of governmental eruptions from want of confidence craters, to take a more dignified and assured seat in the Legislative Council, in. which he is still recognised as one of theTeading members, to whose words due weight is to be attached, and on whose utterances, although the " fate of kings may not hang," yet the chances of a measure being carried are to no despicable degree rested. Mr Mantell has recognised the truth, and followed the precepts ac well in his ordinary life as in his intellectual development, which may be a motto for every man, homely, and intel ligible, and pointed, that " Faber quisgiie fortwux, sues" let each man carve out his own fortune and leave it to others to find the pedestal for the work, and the result is an independence of thought and character which at once carries by its own weight a corresponding attachment of respect and attention. He stands in marked contrast to Mr Waterhouse, near whom he sits, on the right of the Speaker's chair, and with whom he is frequently obliged to exchange words when a question is under discussion. Mr Waterhouse has not studied ancient Grecian history, or he would remember some account of the laws of Lycurgus introduced into Sparta, by which all recruits for the army, nay, even the youths of a very tender age, were mercilessly and severely scourged, bare-backed, before the statue of Diana, to test their personal courage and ableness for the fight ; and he would remember Plutarch's instance, by which he seeks to show how much shame was attached, more by himself than by his companions, to one who was soft enough to cry out or murmur under the infliction. Mr Mantel), has been politically scourged pretty freely, as have some of his other colleagues, yet all have borne it all events without making a public exhibition ef their sorrow. Mr Waterhouse, having joined the army rather suddenly and without long trial, was suspected of a certain inability to pass through the ordeal which would have been imposed upon him had he followed the usual course ; and the suspicion, a3 it grew, proved to be not unfounded, for when Mr Waterhouse was brought by his own action, but doubtless unconsciously to

himself, and with his clothes on, so to speak, gently admonished before the altar of the political Diana, he immediately, without a single courageous effort, gave vent to the most puerile pukings and wailings, and tears, and lamentations, and woes, and ineffectual struggles. Of course, this would not not fill up the necessary sheet of required virtues in the commander of a division, and accordingly the unheroic soldier, choosing rather to resign than to be cashiered in a gentlemanly manner, was accordingly got rid of from the service, and his not yet dried up tears continued to flow with an accompaniment of political groans which may be heard, as the Scripture saith, "Even unto this day." Here, in one body, we have two men radically different in temperament, conduct, mind, successes, and all those other circumstances which make up the sum total of the elements cf a man's existence and progress in the world. Comparisons— though we used to be told they were odiouB — are, like many unpleasant medicines which might well be denned by the same expressive adjeotive, very often beneficial in their result, and may be so in this case. We will have occasion to speak of Mr Waterhouse in the aspect of hispublio capacity, and to portray Mr Mantell will give an opportunity to judge between the two without continual particular reference to the dissimilarity of their individual attributes. Possessed of a great deal of worldly tact, and a talent for negotiation, aided by a strong will to smooth out minor objections, Mr Mantell combined with these qualities a very fair share of the persuasive elements, which enabled him at one, or rather at several periods of his public policy, to create and maintain an influence over the Native race, which, as we before pointed out, was rather mesmeric over them than one inspiring pure confidence in him. Yet, with every blandishment and flattery which he was capable of bringing to bear on them, they never knew of, nor had cauae to complain of, an undue use of the power, but rather had to concur in the good-humoured exercise of it, which they were told, but could not quite perceive in their dusky intellects, was the very best thing for them. So they acquiesced, because acquiescence was the better part of valour, and they knew what the comparative merits of valour were, as well as we did, to our cost. Mr Mantell was Native Minister in a brief and short-lived Ministry of Mr Pox's in the year 1861, but resigued the office shortly afterwards, to resume his old position with an undiminished vigour, when the powerful hands of Mr Weld were entrusted with the formation of that Ministry which found so efficient a supporter in Mr Fitzgerald, and the policy of which formed the basis as it gave the aspiration to the famous speech to the Christchurch electors in the Town Hall in 1864, where the Weld party werejjustified to the seventh heaven, and offered up as immaculate holocausts on the altar of what Mr Fitzgerald depioted to be a grateful country, he himself claiming a very large share in the apotheosis and its successf ulconsummation. No more efficient manager of the Aborigines could be found than Mr Mantell at this time, and in the following year he was again Native Minister, until Mr Fitzherbert's brief tenure of that office ensued, when Mr Mantell shortly afterwards left the cares and sorrows of a career, precarious and hazardous though full of life and interest, of a fighting member of the House of Representatives, to become a dignified peer of the realm with the usual addenda of " honourable" and M.L.0., which he has retained up to the present time. In thus briefly running over MrMantell's various offices, and noticing their salient characteristics, we have not again referred to the important and not yet forgotten effects of his labours amongst the Natives, as a Commissioner for Crown Lands, in which capacity we spoke of him on a former occasion in a few words. That this position was one he was qualified, both by previous service and by practical knowledge, to assume, there may be little doubt about, but that the effect of the appointment was hardly such as was anticipated was generally conceded. While making some arrangements with the Natives that ensured immediate peace and subsequent profit, he not unfrequently became involved in enquiries and acreage questions which had better have been let alone, and which led sometimes to the verge of a quarrel. Nevertheless he was able to steer clear of any serious difficulty, and as bygones are bygones, only a few solitary instances crop up now-a-days to show the inefficiency, want of exactness, and impropriety of the grounds upon which some of these lana sales were made and transfers conducted. But all in all being taken, the Maoris would probably have as good a word to say for Mr Mantell now as we have. There are few who possess the advantages of a mind trained and cultivated aB Mr Mantell's, and that, too, to a very great extent by his own keen observation and quick apprehension. There ia a superiority ©f culture in Mr Mantell, which finds vent not only in his voice but in his general appearance and conduct — that indefinable superiority which, although the gift of explicable nature, is impossible of explanation, and yet irresistibly makes a. perceptible impression. Call it haut ton, and it is faintly and as by a platitude expressed. Call it " culture," and it more fulfils the idea, but lacks the full spirit. A. man of that peculiar temperament and mannor which adorn Mr Mantell requires to be seen and conversed with to be known or appreciated, Hearing him speak, there

is a dignified posture, of his body as he stands leaning one hand on the bench beneath him, and with an expression of earnestness on his countenance, which bears the stamp and insignia of high breeding, not only of that inherent kind which comes by descent, but of that harder and more valuable description which is the result of self-education of mind, while his words are delivered with the clearness of articulatelyspeaking man (a noble race now fast becoming extinct before the inroads of Cockneyism, dandyism, drink, and slovenliness), and with a mellow run which tempers but does not depreciate the metallic ring of younger days which advancing years have rendered less distinct and sounding. There is none of the faiiltiness, the painful hesitation, the interruption to the flow of ideas, or the entire want and absence of them which mar and impede the advancement and perfection of most modern orators in New Zealand. Mr Mantell never hesitates ; his fault, if anywhere, is rather on the side of a too versatile and harmonious flow of conceptions which would be insulted by the term volubility, but which still possesses most of the characteristics of that quality. As for the matter and substance of his speeches, they are always above mediocrity, often passing up to excellence, occasionally soaring into the regions of lofty eloquence, and there remaining. No one ever knew Mr Mantell make a stupid speech, and the phenomenon, for such it would be, is not likely to be witnessed yet, if ever. There are two other points which eminently distinguish Mr Mantell, and should not be omitted in this description. Not only is he by far the wittiest, sharpest, liveliest, of joke-makers, and the most perfect adept at fencing with sarcasm, but he can join in the laugh against himself or anyone else with a heartiness of delight and a vigour of healthy enjoyment which is very refreshing in those days of simperins; and giggling. The imbecility of the grin, and the harshness and coarseness of the guffaw, are equally and supremely objectionable ; but the clear, ringing, jovial laugh is a divine attribute not to be made sport of. There are as many kinds of laugh as there are of voice, and the real, the jovial laugh, is an accomplishment, which sadly needs training up to, for who does not know the internal torture of striving to laugh heartily and being unable to do more than show the teeth. For wit and laughter, and we take it that the two, hand in hand or separate, are not to be despised, Mr Mantell is unrivalled. His literary repute stands high, and is evidenced not only by several well-known, though not bulky, productions of his pen, as well as by the evidences of literary taste which are afforded by the well selected and valuable library which will stand favourable comparison with any selection of books in the Colony. We may yet see, now that he has more leisure, some such great work emanate from Mr Mantell as took New Zealanders even by surprise, in the form of Ranolf and Amohia, 'by one |who had lived the same political life, and given forth the fruits in the same leisure. Abdul.