THE BRUCE POLL FIASCO

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IX, Issue 683, 9 April 1903, Page 20

THE BRUCE POLL FIASCO

The following criticism of the Senior Member for Dunedin by the inimitable “ Civis ” will be read with amusement, as w'ell as interest “ Our good young man, Mr Bedford, was young when we elected him, four months ago, and he remains young still. That matters little, if we have assurance, as in the course of nature we ought to have, that he can grow no younger. But on this point I begin to doubt. It may be remembere d that the Infant Phenomenon in the talented troupe, domestic and dramatic, of Mr Vincent Crummies, remained an infant phenomenon contrary to the course of nature, and even grew more infantine with the passing years. It was manifestly her interest to do so ; her stage-value depended on it. The same same rule holds, of a boy-preacher. The interest lies not in the things said, but in the fact that they are things said by a boy ; for which reason it is l no profit to a boy-preacher to produce a beard, but a loss ; his wisdom is to remain a boy. It is the perusal of Mr Bedford’s speaou before the Women’s Convention that has suggested to me these philosophical reflections. Decidedly Mr Bedford is growing vounger ; this is the most juvenile preachment vet reported of him'. Shylock and Portia/the execution of Charles 1., and Mr Bedford’s desire to see the Liqour partv brought in like manner ‘to the block ’—these youthful exuberances? may pass. But not his talk about ‘ the will of the sovereign people ’ ; here we drop to the level of the infant school.

“He had been deeply grieved that the Bruce no-license poll had been upset, because they had hoped to giv T e no-license a trial in that large district from i’rvcc to Mataura. The worst feature of it, however, was that the will of the people the expressed will of the sovereign people had been caught up in the cobweb of a treacherous law-. The people of Bruce had got sick of the liquor traffic—weary of the misery and vice wnich . it brought in its train—and they determined to lift that burden off their backs at the last election ; but they had been thwarted in their desire bv a law which was unjust. “It had not occurred to Mr Bedford that whilst the poll in question expressed the will of the people of Bruce, the law that set that poll aside as irregular expressed the ■will of the people of New Zealand—he hadn’t thought of that. And yet Mr Bedford is a legislator elect ! We will forgive him, in consideration of his youth, and on consideration that he checks the tendency to grow younger. To that end I recommend a course of abstention from kindergartens 1 and tame-cat appearances in conventions of women.”