THE WAIPAWA ELECTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3198, 28 September 1881, Page 2

THE WAIPAWA ELECTION.

[To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph/] Sib, —" According to " Auother Woodvillian " Mr W. C. Smith's strong qualifications for the representation of Waipawa are that he has worked energetically in the County Council for the good of the Seventy-mile Bush settlers, and that he does not possess any large property. We all know up here that if it had not been for Mr Ormond's influence the County Council would not have had a sixpence to spend in the Bush, so there is not much credit due to Mr Smith in that matter, more especially as the Government, in making the grant, required a guarantee from the Council that tbe money would be spent in a certain manner anil in certain places. If the County had had to depend on Mr Smith for that £5000, and on his influence to get it, there would have been no road through the Bush at v this present day. If Mr Smith's exer- f tions in the Council have been worth any- ' thing in the past they may be still more so in the future, and to that end he had better stay where he is, in a humble but useful position. But if he is taken out of the sphere in which he has been of use, we shall Jose his services in the Council, and Mr Ormond's in the General Assembly. Therefore, even by "Woodvillian's "own showing, Mr Smith's candida'ureis a mistake. Concerning Mr Smith's other qualification—the absence of landed estate —I don't think much about. One man puts his money in land, and another 7 in clothing; and both do the best they M can for themselves. Tbe advantage land has over soft goods is that it cannot run' away; it represents a real stake in the country, in the possession of which a man gives a sort of guarantee to his fellow _ settlers that it will not be here today and goDe to-morrow. Personally I should prefer land to merchandise, but this is only a matter of taste or of prejudice. " Woodvillian " will allow that the object of every elector should be to get represented by the very beßt man he can find. Now a comparison cannot be drawn between Mr Ormond and Mr Smith, for this reason, that the one is an old and tried man, and the other is absolutely unknown in tbe political world. Mr Ormond was Minister for Public Works in the Fox-Vogel Ministry ; he held the same office in the Waterhouse Cabinet; he was Minister for Land and Immigration in the Atkinson Government ; and for Public Works when that Ministry was reconstituted. How can a comparison be drawn between one who has served so many years in the above capacities and Mr Smith, who has not served more than as many months in an obscure County Council ? Tbe idea ia too absurd. I don't suppose that if Mr Smith had had the years of legislative experience that has been enjoyed by Mr Ormond that he would ever have risen to tbe eminence of tbe latter. It is the eminence to which he has attained that gives Mr Ormond his influence in the House ; it is more than likely that he will again be a member of the Government that will be formed on the ruina of the existing Cabinet, and in that position he will not forget his own district, nor fail to push on the railway through the Bush. It is ridiculous to think of Mr Smith as a Minister, and so it would be an act of suicide for the electors to put him into Parliament in the place of one who will probably be our next Premier.—l am, &c, -_* Vehb Sap. Waipukurau, September 27. 1881.