WHY ME WOOLLEY DOSS SOT COME.

Otago Witness, Issue 2516, 4 June 1902, Page 72

WHY ME WOOLLEY DOSS SOT COME.

The following extract from an article by . Mr J. G. Woolley, in his paper The New j .Voice, of I6th April, has been handed to the Southland Times with a request that , it be published : — j " I am not going to New Zealand. My ( interest in the eagle's nest of great reforms , has not diminished but increased, and increases as the weeks wane to the great pitched battle in December in which I hoped to bear a comrade's part; but I ihave had a new vision — or rather an old vision more distinctly — of the situation here at home. I have just made a tour of 50 cities, widely scattered, from the New Brunswick line to the Red River of the north and from Chesapeake Bay to the Missouri ; and my observations, which at first were merely interesting, have in the end taken me into possession and control. ffhe first is the clean, strong, fighting condijtioa «i ika. Eiabjbjtifift »«tx«. * * « 9&e

second is the striking change of attitude on the part of good men who were wont to ignore or avoid our meetings. . . . The third is the growing disgust at the pitiful unfitness of the religious press to command or l-elieve the political situation. . . . The fourth is that I see we have fought our issue so far to the front line of practical politics that even the smoothest men of the old parties are unable to ignore it, and it seems a time when every one of us should be in his place fighting right on. . . . The fifth is that the liquor dealeis are evidently much concerned at the situation, and arc orgaivsing to come and fight us in the open. . . . The sixth is that by some awkwat duets of expression in the announcement of my return to New Zealand tho impression was created among our own people that I was going there to remain permanently, and I refuse to rest another week under the imputation of any possible willingness to quit my own country. Under these circumstances it has been borne in upon me peremptorily that I have no j v'ukii in tkfi liamx of sis jaojiiW tftidiM-

of-fortuning in tropic islands with a united Christian pre=s and Christian ministry iv command and victory in close prospect. . . » I have not yet been released from my engagement, but I know the men and women with whom I have to deal. They will consider this view of personal duty obligatory without a question."

The s.*. Leitrim, of 4248 tons, has been • liarteied to load oat*- m New Zealand for Houth Africa. Ono hears some novel e\c.i»e= at tho Police Court ft time-, but one mentioned at the Polite Court a few clays ago by a young man named .Smith, charged with riding a horse at other thai a walking pace round a corner, would be hard to surpa== ( oy- (ho Auckland Star). According to tho ton talilc. wlini spoken to by that officer, defendant .-aid tho hor«e he was riding was suffering from influenza, and if he put it into a "wjt h» was afraid, it .might. raid.