The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1897.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 130, 9 April 1879, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 1897.

POOR Duncan ! we published yesterday what the New Zealand Times had to say about him, and its utterances we very severe, and very virtuous. We are not ourselves prepared to follow altogether the lead of our contemporary, for we cannot help thinking that if Mr R. J. Duncon had not been the most active member of the Grey party—the party which threw the Times into the cold shade of opposition, and which

started an opposition morning paper in the shape of tlio New Zealandev -if it had not been for these and similar considerations the Times would not now have mi

iade use of Mr Duncan "to point a moral or adorn a tale," We ourselves

ive little sympathy with the chief of

the party whom Mr Duncan faithfully and devotedly followed. We also expect to lose by Mr Duncan a larger sum than we have ever yet lost by any one client, Still, while we are quite cap-

able of realising ouv misfortune in the latter respect, we do not care,' either in' politics or business, to hit a man when he is down, or throw a stone at ono .who is already sorely wounded. .. Mr Duncan, both in his political and business capacity, lias been a remarkable man, He lias done more to popularize the Grey Ministry in Wellington than any dozen other persons, and while others, such as the llou. Mr Martin, have been rewarded for their political support, Mr Duncan, though he Ims received temporary crumbs from the Government table, is without any permanent advantage from his arduous exertions, He has been a very unlucky man. He was to have been the Grey candidate for the representation of the Wairarapa in the Assembly, but at the last hour the expected vacancy did not occur. In business matters he has been equally unfortunate. As the Prince of Advertisers our contemporary might have spared him a little. Many hundreds of pounds must have passed from Mr Duncan's hands into the coffers of the Times, and the remembrance of them might have softened even the stony heart of an Editor. Of course, Mr Duncan has been a little imprudent and a little reckless. lie lias trusted others largely, made many bad debts, and finding things going against him, instead of throwing up the sponge, lias fought long and hard against the stream, The stream, as it almost always does, proved in time the stronger, and now the crash has come it is a bigger crash than it would have been if the battle had been given up earlier, Wo have never regarded Mr Dtmean as either our business or our political model, but there are worse men about than him, and Wellington lias never had a more useful or able citizen. Though we get but a shilling in the pound from him, we will not permit ourselves to forget that his very faults have been allied with many conspicuous good qualities. Nor would we, like the Times, demand that he should be deprived of that small honor lie possesses by virtue of his office as a J, P. On the J.P. roll there is some very mixed company. If only those who wear the whitest moral garments should adorn it, its ranks would be rapidly thinned, We do not see that Mr Duncan should be the scapegoat of it. If lie receives his dismissal, there arc many who should accompany him into exile. And should we stop at reforming our J.P.'sl Can we not throw stones at Honorables I Would it not even be possible to find a Judge or a Minister of the Crown who is not strictly virtnous 1 We trust Mr Duncan will be permitted to retrieve his position, and though we do not for a moment pretend to say that the manner in which his business has been conducted lias been, fiom a commercial point of a satisfactory character, we can hardly concur with any attempt to make his present position more painful and humiliating than it must necessarily be at the present moment,