The Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1896.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5583, 5 June 1896, Page 2

The Star. FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1896.

" The Wandering Star " has come and gone. It is Captain Russell's new title, self -bestowed by him at the Opera House last night, and we frankly adniit that it fits him perfectly. As the Wandering Star of New Zealand politics, the light he emits is feeble and fitful, and he certainly leaves no trail of glory behind him. When the Wandering Star previously appeared in Christchurch, quite a theatrical effect was indulged in. Only Captain Eussell and the Chairman appeared on the stage, and it was explained to an amused public that this was the quite correct and yip-to-date procedure. The fashion, it seems, has changed, for last night the Wandering Star was backed up by scores of other stars of varying magnitudes, the twinkling lights of the National Conservative Association. The organisers of the meeting had done their preliminary work very well. They had ordered everybody they could get at to " roll up," they had planted compact parties of claqueurs, well provided with sticks, at numerous points, and they were all ready to applaud anything and .eyerything. But the meeting was not a success — from the National Conservative Association's : point of view— and Captain Russell was decidedly unhappy, both in matter and in manner. They Wandering Star, it was plain to see, is just now in the receding stage. ' These was a great deal of interruption throughout the meeting, but this was in a very large measure due to Captain Russell himself,, who displayed an extraordinary tendenoy. to go off at a tangent, and speedily became weak, halting, inconsistent. While declaring that he had no desire to introduce personalities, he was freely indulging in that vicious practice ; and, as to the matter of a Conservative policy, it was the case of Canning's needy knifegrinder over again, " Story, Sir, God bless you, I've none to tell." Captain Russell complained that he had been termed "an amiable failure," but last night he more than justified that expression, and created roars of laughter by his assertion that "Ministers wanted the Opposition to bring down a policy that they might rob the Opposition of it." But the whole speech was flat, stale and iinprofitable. It contained nothing that was ; new, and a great deal that was not true. It was the same old tirade against Ministers that has been inflicted on so many audiences, and that has done not a little to harden up tho Liberals, and to impress upon the people the solid facts of the progressive legislation of the past few years. We can wish nothing better for the Liberal cause than that Captain Russell should deliver his speech in every available centre of population.