POLITICAL MATTERS AT STRATORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7962, 5 September 1887, Page 2

POLITICAL MATTERS AT STRATORD.

TO THE BDITOB.

Sib.— So your correspondent " Vote for Marohant " thinks this an inopportune time to write about politics. "It maiks me larf, it dv." The innocent way in whioh he tells you that to write a political letter at this juncture is— ah, " bad form dontcher know," and then — writes one himself I ! 1 But stay — this may be no laughing matter. Is it possible that this is part of a deliberate attack on that cegis of our liberties, the freedom of. the Presß, that palladium of our glorious constitution to obtain which our forefathers suffered fine and imprisonment? Oan it be that ere long we may see the Takanaki Herald appear a la Russe with the political mattter (except, of course, that part of it approved of by our self appointed censor, V.F.M.) blotted out and branded with the blood-red stamp of despotism BAD FORM? No, this Bhall not be, I look upon myself as an outpost of the citadel and I will defend it to the last drop of ink. Seriously let me assure my friend that I see no reason to refrain from writing of politics or any other public matter, simply because it may not suit the taste of a hot-headed partisan whose zeal seems to have got ahead of his common sense. Mr. " Vote for Marchant " proceeds to say that the political letter, as he calls it, will not do the Colonel a bit of good. Well, suppose not} what then ? I beg to assure him it was not intended to do Colonel Trimble, or any other candidate, any good or harm. It was merely an attempt to show the prevailing feeling on the chances of the election; and on further enquiry I am convinced my estimate of popular opinion is oorrect, viz., Messrs. Marchant, Elliot, and Kelly and their respective supporters each consider Colonel Trimble their most dangerous opponent. As to tbe Colonel's *being opposed to all progress and admitting it— well, the statement is mere nonsense. The class of publio mea holding such views has been extinct forty years at least, if indeed it ever really existed. — I am, &c, Yona Stratford Correspondent.