CHRISTCHURCH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 13, 18 July 1884, Page 19

CHRISTCHURCH.

(From our own correspondent.) July 15. Everything is of course swallowed up in the election excitement;, in which two things are very prominent. There are, in this Canterbury district no less than 57 candidates for electoral honours, and they are all,'or nearly all, getting unanimous votes of confidence from their respective meetings. The principal business of their lives seems to be to get votes of confidence ; no difficulty daunts them, and no experience is of any value to their plotting committeemen. At the last election, but three short years ago, electors promised largely, and electoral promises were largely broken. One candidate, a man of wealth and influence, smiled upon his friends on the polling day with the information that he was certain of a two-thirds majority. — " Got the promises, certain, either personally, or by most trusted friends." Great was the array of friendly carriages of all kinds that defiled before him, full with the promising electors. The committeemen ticked them off duly on arrival, and the wealthy and influential candidate thanked them effusively. As the day wore on the cheerfulness of that happy party increased in a manner delightful to see, till, when darknes fell, the brightness in their face was almost enough to replace the sun's last beam. Nothing remained between the hungry men and the sumptuous dinner that was, waiting, for deserving

appetite. Appetite grew impatient, but it was held to be deceab to wait for the purely formal iiuisb. Alas for human credulity of candidates ! The purely formal announcement declared the majority 'to be very much on the wrong side. Tbe friendly carriages had carried loads of unfriendly voters. Appetite fled aghast. There J was grinding and gnashing of teeth, the bad labguage of dissappointment doing duty for the succulent moriels that ought to have found work for the grinders. Still men are found putting their trust in votes of confidence. If any man has read the 57 addresses he must be in a whirling condition of brain. The mysteries of t he property tax, of the land tax, of the income tax, jostle the intricacies of finance, which make the air hideous with conflict of unskilful handling. We hear on every side repeated editions of many things, until we wonder who is for what. One thing, however, is clear that there is a lively political feeling through* out the country. Another, nearly as clear, is that a great majority of the candidates are for Vogel, with the brake, as one of your southern candidates phrased it the other day, more or less hard held down. Everybody seems dreadfully afraid of the Corrupt Practices Act, and everybody gives a pledge of some kind, more or less distinct or more or less vague, whichever way you like to put it : — everybody except the three lucky candidates who are unopposed. Kaiapoi is, as it has been for years, too dull for a contest, so Mr. Richardson is getting a walk over. Mr. Wakefleld is so versatile and so strong that an impression has got abroad that whoever may start his boat into the Selwyn waters, Mr. Wakefield will be found pulling in it, and pulling the stroke oar. The Selwyn waters, therefore, remain calm for him. Why Mr. Ivess does not have an opponent it is difficult to say, unless it is that Mr. Ivess owns a newspaper, and knows how to get the puff judiciously written, as well as the thing • which is by no means a puff. Among the pledges the unearned inarement is conspicuous by its absence. Bursting up, too, seems to have gone the way of all flesh ; — of the illustrious author of the late attacks on the unearned increment, only one man is the avowed follower, and be has as much chance of getting in (for Stanmore) as tbe man in the moon. That, constituency, by the way, is to have the opportunity of returning its old member, Mr. Pilliet, whose erratic course, his friends hope, is now forgotten in the admiration due to the 'cuteness of his tactics. I notice, however, that irrepressible people are advertising for rotten eggs. Sir Julias is not, as so long seemed certain, in the lucky list of the unopposed. A reverend gentleman, of the name of Crewes, has come forward at the eleventh hoar for Christchurch North. He, too, follows in the steps of the member for Auckland City Bast. He has read a great deal of Herbert Spencer. Stuart Mill, John Bright, Richard Cobden, Adam Smith, and everybody else who is an authority, and who is not an authority. He has read nearly as much of all these people as Mr. Stoat himself, and his reading is in nearly the same undigested condition. A great meeting bailed his first appearance, but it was a meeting of electors of other districts. The Vogel party tried to extinguish him with rudeness, but their champion narrowly escaped extinction with extreme rudeness. Jokes are freely made, as you may imagine, about the " Widow's Crewes," and the " Crewe-sial test," but the persistency of the reverend gentleman is unabated, and his fluency never flags. The stream of •all the great writers of the present, and all. the bad laws of the past (tbe diploma of the candidate's statesmanship), flow on for ever. The Vogelians implored their representative and hope to gladden them and ease their labours by his presence. But Sir Julius reluctantly announces the interposition of medical authority. Dr. Grace writes to Mr. Matson, the head of the Committee—" Sir Julius Vogel requires the interval between this and the Session to make him really fit for the active work of the nest session. I am, therefore, prohibiting him from going down at present. You do your work at that end, and I shall have my man in fine fetter." The committee, you see, are all very well in their way, but he is, after all, not their man ; he is Dr. Grace's. OE what possible use will it be for the doctor to cure him if the committee do not have him elected ? Prevented by a medical certificate, ruthless but spiritedly Vogelian, Sir Julius has to deny the constituency his presence. He has done the nest best thing. He has sent an address by the biggest steamship be could find— one of the biggest that ever came to New Zealand. The Premier, who has lately been describing Sir Julias as a most extravagant person, too swell for our little country altogether, is quoted in that address as having declared the same Sir Julias, at his retirement in 1876, to hold the first place among the capable statesmen of New Zealand. On the whole, I do not think Sir Julius will lose by not coming down. There was a feeling about his attitude towards the West Coast Railway ; but he has just declared that in tbe event of failure of the proposed syndicate to construct, he will bs in favour of constructing the line out of State funds. That cloud may, therefore, be considered as dispelled from his horizon. Out of the 57 candidates of Canterbury, seven may bs regarded as just in their views upon education. The rest are economists, who unite in saying that oar beautiful system must not be touched, but that it is too expensive to last long on its present scale. Justics io Catholic claims is good in their eyes in the abstract, but they will not permit it to abstract from the Exchequer any of the money contributed thereto by the Catholics. This unanimity extends to the principle. They do not care a button for the secular principle. What they respect is the secular feeling which they all consider general. Yet they show the value of that plea of human respect, by declaring that Catholics must not have grants because everybody else will want grants, in spite of their belief in the beautiful system. One candidate went so far as to declare for school fees in the event, he hoped improbable, of their being required as aids. Sahool fees, he added, would please Catholic 3, and so diminish their grievance to some extent, on the principle of burning half the roof of your neighbour's house to compensate you for the destruction by fire of the whole of your mansion. But this has raised a storm that will probably cost that poor man his election. He might as well have declared for the whole ex ten v of " denominationalism." P.S. — Since the above was written, Mr. John Grigg has been, nominated in opposition to Mr, Ivess at Wakanui,