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Poverty Bay Herald, Volume 6, Issue 595, 9 January 1879, Page 2

If we do not altogether like the Hon. Mr. Sheehan as a politician, we certainly like him as a man, and for fhe manly sentiments to which upon occasions he gives such able expression. Last week, when Mr. Sheehan was m Auckland, he was asked to deliver an address at the "Working Men's Club, of which he had been made honorary president. To this request the Native Minister gave his consent. In this address Mr. Sheehan stongly deprecated any sectarian religious feeling being introduced into the club. He did not wish the club to be irreligious, but there was a place for everything, and the element of religion should not be allowed to enter into the business of the club. If ever they did permit that element to enter, they might make up their minds to a dissolution. Politics were even worse than religion, because the effect would be to cause division, and there would be parties m the club who wonld seek their own ends ; the interests of the club would be lost sight of, and it would cease to exist. When he condemned patronage he did not wish to discourage the practice of accepting honorary members. He approved of that. If people were willing to assist the club, by all means hold out the right hand of fellowship. But he wished working men to be independent of being patted on the head ; to be possessed of an independent spirit, and ready to help themselves ; not to go about looking for big subscriptions and big names to keep the club afloat. Every member should exert himself to increase the number of the club, so as to make the burdens easy to bear. Mr. Sheehan may depend on it that men who live by the sweat of their brains do put themselves up to be working men m the strictest sense of the term, and entitled to the same consideration, as men who work by the simple use of bone and muscle. Mr. Sheehan went on to say, I would ask you to bear m mind that there are working men and working men. Even m the hive of working men there are drones, and the great care of this Club should be to shut out such men. There are men who are 1 mere loafers and not working men at all. And again there are working men who may appear to be outside the pale of the present Club, but are still workers, because it must not be thought that only those who work with their hands are the workers of society. On tne contrary, there are i ■: , V

mental workers, brain-workers, whose labours are quite as much productive of national wealth as that of what are commonly called the working classes. I should like to see every man who contributes by his brains; or by his activity, to increase the total sum of the national wealth, look upon himself ancl call himself " a Avorking man."