The Ashburton Guardian, COUNTY AGRICULTURAL & SPORTING RECORDER TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1880.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 164, 12 October 1880, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian, COUNTY AGRICULTURAL & SPORTING RECORDER TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 1880.

The Lyttelton Times has for some time past endeavored to give its readers the impression that Mr. Sheehan has always been at liberty to enter the present Ministry,, and that nothing but his own unwillingness has prevented him from doing so. This is perhaps natural enough when we consider the zeal with which Mr. Sheehan was supported by the Lyttelton Times through all the questionable transactions with which his name has lately been so clearly connected by the Native Commission and'the Public Accounts Committee. Bfitsufely it is practising rather too much on the credulity of the public when they are expected to believe that such men as the present Premier and his cplleagues.would be willing to sit in the sameJVlinistry with the drawer of two thousand pounds for the avowed purpose of purchasing native land, but for the real purpose of intoxicating, feasting, and demoralising native men and women; or the nominator to seats, of justice of those outcasts whose qualifications and functions are described with so much delicate tact,—but with such unmistakeable clearness, —in all their deformity, in the second report of the two Knights who formed the Native Commission. It is well known that, a son of one of the present Ministry has taken Mr. Sheehan by the hand, and endeavored to utilise his ability and conceal his moral defects; it is also well known that Mr. Sheehan has taken up a position between the two parties in the House of Representatives which has restrained both parties from referring to his past actions in the terms these deserve; but to suppose that men like the members of the present Ministry would own Mr. Sheehan as a colleague, or that a man of Mr. Bryce’s common sense would do “ nothing without consulting ’’the author of all our present Maori difficulties, and the waster of our late reckless native expenditure is rather too much to expect any commonly well informed person to believe. The “ well informed circles” which supply the Times' correspondent with the truly extraordinary political information which that; paper conveys to its readers must either be exceedingly ignorant of Mr. Sheehan’s antecedents, or can know very little of the character of the Ministers whom they represent as anxious to number him amongst their colleagues. We profess no deep insight into future Ministerial changes, .but .we know enough of the public men of New Zealand, and especially of Canterbury representatives'; to be quite sure that if ever this colony should again accept Mn’ JShHehah as one of its Ministers, the same Government will not contain a John Hall and a William Rolleston.