Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1887. Sir Robert Stout, K.C.M.G.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue 2085, 27 June 1887, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. MONDAY, JUNE 27, 1887. Sir Robert Stout, K.C.M.G.

The curtain has fallen; audience and actors have vanished; the Pariiamentary drama is over and we may muse on the spectacle that is past. Naturally, we first think of the person who assumed the leading rote —of Sir Robert Stout. We remember the high hopes excited by his appearance on the political stage, and ask whether those hopes have been realised. Sir Robert Stout is especially amenable to popular opinion, because no man ever appealed more persistently to its verdict; but should he now ignore that tribunal, there yet remains another by which he must, noltw volent, inevitably be judged—the tribunal of facts. He has recently perpetually appealed to the decision of the “future historian.” He therefore challenges facts, and we also are content that his own record should be his sole witness and accuser. No New Zealand statesman ever made loftier protestations or had better opportunities than Sir Robert Stout, and, if he has failed, his failure is proportionately deplorable and complete. Let us scrutinize his record then. Prior to the last general election Robert Stout—he was not then St r Robert Stout—held a high position in popular esteem. From humble beginnings he had become so successful a lawyer that parents commended his career to the imitation of their own sons. He had some experience of political life—enough to warrant the hope that his political intelligence would expand. Other causes conspired to gild his aureola. The minds of men turn ever to all that promises variety in the weary conditions of their existence. Shrewdly recognising this almost universal desire for change, Robert Stout had proclaimed himself the only New Zealand Mahdi of the Gospel of Brandnewness. In that capacity he arranged revolutions in religion, social matters and politics. His machineries for enterprises so vast were simple, consisting of his Dunedin Lyceum, music, a payment of three pence per week from each worldreformer, and various essays read by Mr Stout himself or by some of his neophytes. These disciples, having dethroned all the elder Deities, were inclined to erect an altar to Mr Robert Stout and he was not inclined to forbid them. In all this there was no great harm though much simple self-confidence and vanity. Unfortunately, short-sighted persons in Dunedin opposed the new old gospel. Mr Stout at once declared he was persecuted, and shouldered that martyr's cross which he has somewhat ostentatiously hugged ever since. His antagonists thus cheaply advertised him; his fame spread and magnified and tb< * people of other towns and cities invited him to come and teach them. He went. He preached revolution, political and religious, with the awful certainty of tone of a Gautama Buddha to whom all mysteries are plain. His more intelligent hearers the rawness of his matter but praised his,'man,:*';’ the^ est him as a modern Moses wno ’" oulcl them from out the Egypt of hard times. Mr Stout was prepared to be the New Zealand deliverer, provided always (and we desire to emphasise this) the deliver, ance could be effected with “decorum” in a “ proper manner.” Spoliation must, he insisted, be carried out with a sweet suavity.-, blood, if shed, must be shed blandly and accompanied with the rites ordained by his Lyceum Guide. Mr Stout, of course, never really intended murder and robbery, but robbery and murder were the logical corollaries of his crude and undigested theories. His lectures, his speeches, his writings—all those methods by which your nineteenth century prophet crieth in the wilderness —warrant us in stating Mr Stout’s professed creed as follows .—He believed in the People and in perfect liberty, equality and fraternity, and that he and he alone was the champion of the people. He hated Conservative tenets and tithes. He was a pure Patriot and had no desire for office. The general election of 1884 arrived. Robert Stout bounded into the political arena, the people giving him an opportunity of putting his lour threatened patriotism into practice. Ho was elected for Dunedin by the strenuous exertions of the Radicals, who not unnaturally supposed a new golden age had dawned. These were the promises, let us now glance at the performances. Mr Stout’s first political act was to ally himself with one who was diametrically opposed to his every principle, theory and sympathy. Either Sir Julius Vogel and Mr Stout differed, or they did not. If not, one or other must have been a profound hypocrite. But Sir Julius Vogel’s political convictions of today are j those of ’B4; whatever else he may be he is consistent. Granting that Mr Stout was equally sincere, how can wo account for this alliance ? Ou the ground that the Premier desired office and could only obtain it in conjunction with Sir Julius s Surely, No! for the ; former haughtily declares he does not I desire office, is injured by it, Because the condition of the country demanded a Coalition Government p Where and when has been the coalition P sir Robert proclaims the People, Sir Julius laughs at them; one professes economy, the other expenditure; Sir Robert preaches Laud Nationalisation in the North, while his colleague derides it in the South ! Some say the Premier accepted the alliance with the intention of ridding himself of his colleague at first opportunity, but if he could act disloyally to an ally what confidence can we repose in his honor ? Others again declare that Mr Stout felt ho could over-rule Sir Juliu? for the country’s good. The answer is ho has not done so, and that Sir Julius Yowl was, in ’B4 and is now the leading spirit, t vj one strong and determined mind, in |* ; Ministry. From any view point Mr tout’s protestations and Sir Robert : tout's practice, in this most vital in):ance, flatly contradict each other. Again, he loathed titles. He wrote against them. He ridiculed them. He accepted quo immediately it was ottered, and a shriek of derision resounded from North Cape to Stewart’s Island. There

is no barm in accepting a title, but there is gravest harm and pitiful folly in saying one thing and doing another. Sir Robert Stout, if not patriotic is nothing; we find, however, his administration blotted by the Waimea Railway, the Stark and other contemptible scandals. Personally, he may be innocent of these, but as head of the Ministry he cannot dissociate himself from _ his colleagues’ acts, and if he cannot influence them for good, he is unfit for Premiership, and we ask why he has not dissevered a connection which honors neither himself nor country, instead of cleaving to office as a limpet to a rock ? If indeed this gentleman be the patriot he pretends, he must blush when he reflects that he and his brother Ministers have been- —in the matters of travelling, residential and other personal allowances —about twice as expensive as any othe> Ministry , and that at a period when the country’s finances were distressed and many of her sous and daughters wanted food. And what has Sir Robert done in his capacity as the peoples’ champion ? In three years absolutely nothing. His has been the Liberalism ascribed by Macaulay to George Grenville. He has loved tyranny when disguised under the forms of constitutional liberty and has mixed up the theories of the republicans of the 17th century with the technical maxims of English law and has thus succeeded in combining anarchial speculation with arbitrary practice. And what, we ask in conclusion, has become of all those maxims, Mr Stout, working for promotion, so sedulously taught regarding' “decorum” “'courtesy to opponents,” and “ proper • methods ? ” Gone ! Vanished to the limbo of other broken vows. It is a fact beyond dispute that the Premier’s treatment of political antagonists in the House has been more overbearing and discourteous, more grossly personal than that of any other Premier of New Zealand. His language on more than one occasion to Sir George Grey and others can only be described as inconceivably vulgar. How can he rule if he has not learnt the mastery of himself? We bring this disagreeable duty to a close, regretting the necessity for it; to the rightminded there is no pleasure in detailing the errors by which a great career has been missed. Sir Robert Stout ai a politician has failed, and his failure ve attribute to the influence of bis lawyer’s profession which, as has been proved repeatedly, unfits any but men of the very strongest character to withstand the corrupting influences of professional potties. His failure is another proof of ;he unwisdom of sending lawyers to Parliament.