TRUE PHILANTHROPY.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1023, 6 August 1898, Page 2

TRUE PHILANTHROPY.

Hugh Campbell and the Editor of the ' Star.'

It seems to us that the principal advocates of this Private Electric Lighting Bill are Mr Hugh Oampbell and the Editor of the\ Star. What] a remarkable coalition. But then the cause they bo enthusiastically espouse iB also a remarkable one. It is so full of philanthropy. And they are both great philanthropists— Hugh Campbell and the Editor of the Star. Don't laugh! They are, indeed they are. You may take our word for it that they are constantly making tremendons sacrifices for the good of the people. The other prominent advocates of the bill are Graves Aickin and Peter Oliphant and Johnny McLachlan. They are philanthropists

also. Their names are calculated to inspire the public with confidence in the bill, and counteract any suspicion that this particular scheme is a boodling one.

' Hugh Campbell is the greatest philanthropist of all. He is not paid a brass farthing by this mysterious HeavenKnows- Who Syndicate for all the talking and writing he is doing to assist this scheme on to the city. He iB no professional advocate whose voice and pen are at the disposal of any Fat Man or party of Fat Men who have a speculation to promote. Not he. His heart bleeds for poor, benighted Auckland, which hasn't got any electric light, and this is why Hugh is content to get his feet wet tramping round to political associations at night to trounce the conservative city councillors for sitting upon this Belf-sacrificing -and magnanimous Bcheme of his philanthropic friends. This is why he pours out his very soul in columns of turgid bathos in the Star. Hugh has nothing to gain— not even fat professional fees, and this iB wny the solemn - affidavits with which he clinches his powerful arguments in the Star ought to be accepted holus bolus, without any grains of salt. He has been doing all this solely in the interests of the people for whom his heart bleeds— often and frequently. Fortunate people.

And being himself so disinterested, and having nothing whatever to gain, Hugh Campbell is justified in showing the motives of the people who oppose him. There is nothing so effective in a fight of this kind as to hint that your adversaries are actuated by interested motives. It strengthens your own cauße by showing tbat jour opponents are influenced by ulterior considerations, and convinces the people that you have nothing to gain and that your own motives are pure and unselfish. And there is nothing mean or unmanly in imputing motives. This being so, Mr Campbell was entitled to Euggeßt that it is unfortunate for the rival cause that the Mayor and Councillor Kidd own gas shares.

This fact is, of course a convincing argument why the electric lighting rights of Auckland should be made a gift of to Hugh Campbell and his philanthropic friends. It is also, no doubt, a satisfactory proof— to Hugh Campbell — that Mayor Dignan and Councillor Kidd are dishonourable men and cannot be trusted to discharge their duties as councillors conscientiously and honestly on questions where the interests of the Gaß Company are concerned. We take it this is what Mr Hugh Campbell means. The ownership of these gas shares dominates the policy of the Mayor and Councillor Kidd on the electric lighting question, and they cannot rise above the level of their own sordid interests and be honest men. Is this what Mr Hugh Campbell, the philanthropic gentleman who wants the electric lighting rights of Auckland for nothing, means ? If it is, things have Barely come to a pretty pass in public life when a man cannot hold a few shares in a public company without having his motives questioned ahd his integrity doubted.