Beer and Elections.

Observer, Volume XV, Issue 796, 31 March 1894, Page 2

Beer and Elections.

The opinions of Mr Bichard Monk on the subject of beer and elections are entitled to some weight. Bichard can speak with authority. He has been there. But in view of recent disclosures concerning the method in which the Waitemata seat was won and loßt, one would have thought that Bichard would have been very quiet on this subject. But not so. Modesty is evidently not one of Bichard' s strong points.

We find it recorded in the daily papers that Mr Monk attended the meeting of the National Association the other night, and the discussion turning upon the vexed question of the purity of elections — save the mark — Mr Monk said " he would deprive a man of his vote who would sell it for a glass of beer. It was a shame that in New Zealand so many people could be found who would do this.* Well, for cheek this takes the cake. It is hardly two months since Mr Monk was oußted from the Waitemata seat for the Bimple reason that beer played a too prominent part in oonneotion with his election. We have it on the authority of one witness that it was impossible to get into the booth for beer, and on the authority of others that Monk's own son shouted for some witnesses and gave money to others, with which they bought beer. The whole evidence was ' beer, beer, beer,' from beginning to end, and Mr Monk was turned out of his seat. And quite right, too.

And now we have the old gentleman coming up as freßh as paint with all the assurance in the. world and telling us he would deprive a man of his vote who would sell it for a glass of beer. But it would be interesting to know what Biohard would be prepared to do to unprincipled electioneering agents who would scruple not to tempt weak-minded men and women to sell their votes for beer. It is not the people who sell the votes that we should punish so much as those that buy them, and these latter should be dealt with severely. For family reasons, it would have been in better taste if Mr Biohard Monk had not spoken.

The opinions of some of the other speakers at this meeting were equally amusing, and occasionally some very startling statements were made. One Hartnoil, whoever he may be, said ' they had seen at the last eleotion one man who had been induced to withdraw from a candidature by the promise of a seat in the Legislative Council. The power to be able to offer such a bribe was terrible!' Yes, indeed, very terrible, Mr Hartnoll. You are quite right. But surely your power of vision is also a bit terrible. You appear to have seen a great deal more than anyone else. Other people have a suspicion that something of this kind was done, but you are not a man of mere suspicions. You have an imagination whose magnifying power en-

ables you to see a great deal more than you are ever likely to behold through a pair of everyday spectacles.