The Evening Star. SATRURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1871.

Auckland Star, Volume II, Issue 502, 19 August 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star.

SATRURDAY, AUGUST 19, 1871.

i'or the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, Fur the future in tho distance,.

And tlie good that we can do."

As we anticipated, the election of Mr, AVilliamsou lor City West waa invalid. The principle hitherto admitted in New.Zealand politics, that a person not' a Minister holding an oflice ol profit under the Crown might sit and vote in Parliament is so bad that it was not to be expected that it should be longer tolerated. Such a tiring would no more be permitted in the sister colonies than would direct-bri-bery to members of Parliament; and the action taken last session on the subject was so reasonable and sointelligible that it seemed strange that Mr. Williamson should have stood for election. His seat has accordingly been declared vacant, and, as we understand, Mr. Williamson, having resigned his Government appoirltment, in about to stand for re-election. In these circumstances his candidature is a wholly different matter; and we do not hesitate to express the belief that he will be returned against all competitors. Mr. Williamson is thoroughly in accord with his old constituents; they understand him, and he understands them ; and irrespective of his principles of public policy, which are comprehensive, liberal, and progressive in a high degree, there is that kindly, feeling towards him on the part of the people of City West, that now when the one objection of his holding a Q-overnment situation is removed, will make his return, if contested, a very easy matter. We have heard, though we can ; hardly believe it, that .there is to be a contest, and that Mr. Hugh Carleton, the rejected of the Bay of Islands, entertains the idea of measuring swords with Mr. Williamson. That Mr. Carleton would have the presumption to . seek the suffrages of City West we can believe, but that any persons resident in this city would encourage such a thing we can hardly suppose. The candidature of Mr. Carletou would be simply an impertinence, at which we know not whether people should be more offended or amused. Mr. Caiv leton belongs to an antediluvian age, and, with other interesting fossils, should be placed in a museum. The Bay of Islands people thought he was too far behind the age for them, and if the residents in that lively place relieved themselves of the incubus^, the city of Auckland with aspirations after progress, is 'not very likely to bestow its smiles and suffrages on a political mummy. Mr. Carleton was born in an ago when there *wero no steamboats nor rail ways, nor electric telegraphs, and he sighs for the good old times. We do not know any place where he should be more at home than in the office

of our " dismal " contemporary fhe News. There, in company with the presiding genius of the establishment, like two owls, caught by the sun and dismally hooting at the light by which they are surrounded, he might aid in putting a drag on the wheels of progress, and mourn the madness of the age. "We recommend our contempo rary to trot him out, and, at the same time, publish a jeremiad that will set our teeth on edge, showing the doleful state of the country and the duty of putting a stop to everything so that we may be in the proper melancholy frame of mind for the final catastrophe when the ship of State is to bump on those grim rocks on which we are driving and let him show that the rejected of the Bay of Islands is just the man to not make the last hour a painful one, by idlo efforts to escape the inevitable. We almost wish that Mr. Carleton would stand for City West. It will afford us the utmost pleasure to take an interest in his candidature, to note his bog Latin and misunderstood quotations, and false quantities with which he has been wont to give sport to the educated gentlemen that represent the Soathorn constituencies. We shall await with much interest the publication of Mr. Carleton's manifesto ; and. if he stands for Auckland City West, we promise that he will emerge from the contest with a defeat compared with which that at the Bay of Islands was glory.