THE Wellington Independent. Friday, March 1, 1861. THE HEATHCOTE (CANTERBURY) ELECTION.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVI, Issue 1501, 1 March 1861, Page 5

TH E Wellington Independent. Friday, March 1, 1861. THE HEATHCOTE (CANT ERBURY) ELECTION.

Were it not that Mr. Wakefield and the seven other gentlemen who recently resigned their scats in the Provincial Council, are under a public pledge not again to offer themselves as candidates during the existence of the current Electoral Roll, the proceedings in connexion with the Heathcote election at Canterbury, (fully reported in our last,) would have had an important bearing on the Provincial elections which are this month occurring here. As, however, those gentlemen are for the present politically shelved, we do not think it at all desirable to point out the various bearings which the candidature of Mr. Wakefield, for the representation in the General Assembly, of a constituency in another province, has on his unfitness for being the permanent leader of a local party in Wellington. There being just now no Wakefield party — it having dissolved with the same rapidity with which it was called into existence — it would be but a waste of time to discuss the new position in which its ci-devant leader would stand, were it still in existence ; but we cannot refrain from calling attention to one portion of Mr, Wakefield's Canterbury address, reprinted from the Lyttelfcon Times in our columns of to-day. Throughout the whole of the short contest at Heathcote, Mr. Wakefield strove to persuade the electors there that he was a Canterbury man and more bound up with its interests than with those of Wellington. His body was chained to Wellington ; but his heart was roving over the fair plains of Canterbury. It was through no will of his that he spent more of his time here than there. " The continued " severe illness of my father compels me, " (he writes) to reside at Wellington " more than in Canterbury." Should his father sufficiently recover to bear removal to a colder province — a desere we believe Mr. Wakefield, Sen. has long entertained — we presume the change woukl be most congenial to the feelings of the son ; at least so he lately endeavoured to induce the Heathcote constituency to believe, and cannot very well hereafter attempt to induce the Wellington electors to disbelieve. But into the bearings which this avowal has on his want of fitness to undertake, for the future, the duties of leader to a party here, we do not, we repeat, under present circumstances, intend to enter — we simply call attention to the avowal while it is fresh in. everyones recollection, in conformity with Capt. Cuttles very excellent maxim of making a note of important points at the time of finding them. Our cotemporary the Advertiser is very fond of publishing articles and speeches, from extra-provincial newspapers, corroborating views it may have advocated, taking great credit to itself for so doing, and generally winding up with some such sentence as — " If it had not been for the existence of the Adver-

tiser the public of. Wellington would have remained in ignorance of the opinions of this writer, or of that speaker, as the case may be." Almost invariably this parade is followed by sundry letters purporting to be written from correspondents at Wair.arapa, Taranaki, or elsewhere, complimenting the Editor on the painstaking with which he endeavours to enlighten the dark understandings of his readers, informing him that the Advertiser is a universal favorite in the neighbourhood, and concluding by beg--1 ging that he will send a dozen or so copies for distribution. This mode of puffing is so commonplace that it deceives no one. While it is not very flattering to a public journal to be told that it does sometimes dissipate ignorance, that the community among which it is published is really a little wiser for its circulation, that it does now and then contain something not to be found in the columns of its cotemporaries ; yet when it is told all this, (either by real or imaginary correspondents) no one can blame it for making the most of the information — the only wonder being that the similarity between ' the usual quackery of "your last box of pills did me so much good, pray send me half a dozen boxes mere " and the requests made in the letters of the Advertiser's Correspondents for a few copies for distribution, is not as patent to that journalist as it is to his readers.

' The proceedings in connexion -with Mr. Wakefield's candidature for the Heathcote election are matters of much interest here, and have been read with avidity by all classes. B^fc as they are very damaging to Mr. Wakefield, and if need were, might be made almost equally so to those of his late party who intend contesting the forthcoming provincial elections, the Advertiser omits to reprint any of them, contenting itself with condensing the whole into a few lines. The I impartiality it so much boasts about and' parades, simply amounts to publishing whatever suits its purpose, and omitting to publish whatever may tell against | the interests of its party. All that relates to both sides of a question is rarely to be found in any party organ, and certainly not in the Advertiser.