IT HAS SERVED HIS TURN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 684, 10 July 1882, Page 2

IT HAS SERVED HIS TURN.

Mr Joyce, the member for Awarua, has avowed himself a pressman, but spurns the bridge that has carried him over the stream. The writer who contributes “ Echoes from the House ” to the New Zealand Times has this to say of Mr Joyce’s speech on the Telegrams Protection Bill“ Mr J. P. Joyce, member for Awarua, came out in a new character. It may not be generally known that Mr Joyce is a newspaper man, and was therefore called upon to say something on the subject that happened to be before the House. But he got off the track, and launched out into a washy dissertation on newspaper work generally, the burthen of his song being that there were unscrupulous men on the Press who worked for filthy lucre, while another class, of which Joyce was the prophet, were men who were guided purely by principle, and a philanthropic desire to benefit their fellowmen. No one seemed to quite know why the speech was made, or to whom it was particularly addressed. There may have been something in the fact that Mr Joyce’s employer was sitting immediately behind him, but then that gentleman must have surely been aware of the extent of the member for Awarua’s purity and philanthropy. Few of the men in the Press gallery seemed to know much about Mr Joyce, and if his lecture on newspaper ethics was meant for them it was simply taken for what it was worth. Mr Joyce chose to remark that lie was ashamed of his profession. it may safely be said that the other members of the profession would resent the idea of Mr Joyce being regarded by the public as a representative Press man.” “ Asmodeus,” of the New Zealand Mail , has something to say on the subject. He also writes “ The member for Awarua regrets his connection with the Press of the colony, . and regards journalism as disreputable; and yet it is a well-known fact that he owes all he possesses to journalism.

Journalism helped him out of the saddle of the stock-rider, where, but for that, he might have been to this day; it helped him into Parliament and into a position where it became possible to hear and see the hon. (?) gentleman ! It has done him what it has done for many other men, helped him and them to improve an otherwise tmin provable mean estate, and now he turns round and reviles it. Sever the connection between the hon. (?) member and the Press, and what would he drop to ? Faugh I But inability to entertain the sentiment of gratitude is a characteristic of the lower races. I would recommend the member for Awarua to do penance for the evil he has committed in maligning his source of subsistence.”