The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1879.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1339, 4 January 1879, Page 2

The Timaru Herald. SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1879.

We are glad to hear that Mr Buckingham, who was nominated on Thursday as a candidate for the Gladstone election, thought better of the step yesterday, and notified to the Returning Officer his withdrawal from the contest. This news will, we are sure, be heard with pleasure throughout the district, because there is a veyr general feeling that any opposition to Mr. Studholme was entirely uncalled iori The effect of Mr Buckingham's withdrawal ia that Mr Studholme is duly elected member for Gladstone, and we may now, therefore, properly congratulate the district on having secured the services of an excellent representative without the electors being put to the trouble, or the country to the expense, of a poll. The satisfaction which Mr Studholme's candidature gave throughout the electorate, is a sufficient proof m itself, if any were needed, that the recent efforts of Sir George Grey and his friends to stir up class hatreds have altogether failed, as far as this portion of the colony is concerned at all events. We do not believe, indeed, that those efforts ever had any chance of success here, or that all the claptrap about the "working claeses" arouses any sym-

pathy m this prosperous community. We protest altogether against those who earn their living by the labor of their hands, being designated a separate caste, as if they were not flesh and blood like other people ; and we are sure that the working men themselves, object to such, an offensive and unnecessary distinction, as much as we do. We can remember a great many of the wealthiest anc most important settlers m the colony when they were working men ; and there cannot be the slightest doubt that a very lai-ge proportion of the working men of to-day, will be wealthy and important settlers m due course. There is nothing m this country to prevent this process of social development going on steadily and rapidly. It is, indeed, the natural law of successful colonisation. The " working classes," m fact, are merely settlers whose only capital to start with, is their labour ; but who will assuredly get beyond that stage very quickly, by the acquisition of money capital, and will then, m their turn give other working men a chance, by paying them for their labor, instead of actually laboring themselves. There is absolutely no other distinction than this between the working class and the propertied class. The two classes belong to one another, and merge into one another at all points, and so gradual is the process of development to which we have referred, that it is impossible to say where one class ends and the other begins. Thousands of laboring men are possessed of considerable property, and thousands of men who are unquestionably identified with property, work as hard as if they were toiling for day wages. The best demonstration, however, of the fallacy of the attempted distinction between the working class and the propertied class is to be found m the fact that great numbers of men who are clearly property-holders have sons who are laborers. In these cases, Sir George Grey's principles would, if accepted, create a feud between father and son. No such feud really exists, though, because the distinction between the father and sons is not one of class at all, but merely of temporary circumstances. The sons, following m the father's steps, and often by the aid of the wages which they earn from him, will soon be propertied men like him. In numberless cases it is their labor, joined to his own, which has made him what he is ; for it is well-known that no class of settlers have so rapidly acquired wealth and independence m this country, as bona fide working men, with a family of working sons and daughters. The same laws affect the propertied class and the working class alike, and their interests are inseparably bound up together. There is not really a single element of antagonism between them ; and it will almost invariably be found that the so-called friends of the working men, belong neither to the propertied class nor to the working class, but to a class which is antagonistic to both. In Great Britain, the circumstances ai-e altogether different. There the condition of the laboring classes is a very sad one, and one which, an our opinion, is discreditable to the country and prejudicial to its welfare. Generations of laborers there spend their whole existence m ignominious toil without a hope or a chance of ever rising above the position of serfs ; and the most patient industry combined with the utmost thrift, barely suffices to keep the laborer out of the workhouse when too old to earn wages any more. Even if he does contrive, by a self-denial that is a cruel strain on him and his, to save a few pounds, he has no means of investing it m such a manner as to render his labor reproductive to himself. He cannot buy land,' or lease it on terms that leave him any margin ; and he is sternly debarred from partnership with those who can. He does really belong to a class, a caste, from which he cannot, except m very rare and exceptional cases, escape. We can understand and sympathise with class-feeling m a country like that, and we have often thought that unless British statesmen lead that feeling into a channel which will bring about a thorough reform, it will one day break out m the shape of revolution. Yet even m England we find that the truest and most powerful friends that the working classes have, are not what are called " working men's candidates ;" but men of property, and often .of high birth and refined culture, who have made a study of social subjects, and are thoroughly disinterested m their motives. We read an admirable letter of the great John Bright, recently, addressed to a laboring constituency, who had asked his advise as to the choice of a candidate. He warned them earnestly against wasting their franchise by electing a professional '• working man's friend." He told them m plain English, that nearly every man of that character who had got into Parliament had turned his back on those who sent him there, and had become the most subserviant tool of the aristocracy. He assured them that no such man ever really acquired inflence because nobody trusted his sincerity ; and he strongly recommended them to elect as their representative a man who could hold his own among the highest m the land. These were words of wisdom, and they seem to have been warmly received by those to whom they were addressed. If this was sound advice m England, though, how much sounder is it m this country, where the whole field of property is open to the working classes, and where their most direct representatives are men of means and culture, who are m all respects identified with them, and capable of entering into their requirements. All this is clearly understood by the working men themselves, and they value these idle fellows >vho go about the country prating of their devotion to the laboring classes, at their true worth. They know very well that such men hunger after nothing so much as a little social distinction, and would be the first to look down on the working men, as soon as they had attained to it. They know, too, that successful settlers are the best re-

presentatives of rising settlers, and that those who have shown an aptitude for managing their own affairs well, can best be trusted to manage the affairs of others well. So long as all these things are well comprehended, there is no danger of any pernicious class distinctions growing up m the country, or of the electors throwing away their constitutional privileges by electing men who would be compelled to take an inferior position m the public councils.