TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3209, 11 October 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1881.

A very pood article appears in the Chri«tchurch Press on the subject of who to choose as a representative. When candidates for election are announcing themselves in all directions it is time for electors to discriminate between the capable and incapable would-be members of Parliament. A popular delusion b&e long prevailed that anybody would do for a land and estate agent or a newspaper editor; but now a similar delusion appears to have sprung up with respec' to Members of Parliament. The question of fitness on the ground of aptitude for public life, political training, or specially representative character, does not seem to be deemed worth considering. We hear mentioned on all sides the names of persons as probable avowed candidates who have no more business to be returned to tbe House of Representa tiveH, if the electors do their duty, than they have to be placed on the Bench of Bishops. The Parliament now happily about to expire contained many men who literally had no claim whatever on any onnsMUiencv, but who were returned because the electors were too indifferent to find better men, or t<> distinguish between good and bad. The last general election took place under circumstances of greater political excitement that had occurred for at least fifteen years. Yet in most of the electorates, not nearly all the qualified electors took the trouble to register themselves, and of those who were on tbe rolls, not more than half came to the poli in some of the most hotly contested elections. The plain truth is that tbe candidates in too many instances, were not worth voting for. The electors having made, the fatal mistake of neglecting to bring forward the best men to be got, perhaps did wisely in not troubling themaelves to distinguish between the rival claims of men who had no claims at all. We do no not pretend to explain thi« remarkable aoathv on the part of the electors. It in said that the immigration policy had a great deal to do with it, that the introduction of a hundred thousand people one fifth of the whole population —not by a genuine process of colonisation, but by sheer force of borrowed money, made all the difference to the degree of interest felt by the public with resard to public affairs. We are not prepared to express any very decided opinion on that point, nor, indeed, are we particularly anxious to rake up the past at all. What we wish to dwell on most eniph-mcally is that a grand opportunity lies before the country now, of redeeming the errors of the past, and of once more setting New Zealand on a pinnacle of political excellence. What a noble thing it would be if every constituency should secure the services of a representative in Parliament of whom the whole colony might be proud. Though there is nothing impossible in that, we are not so unreasonable as to expect such a result. We have a right to expect, however, that every constituency shall take such care in the election as that the new Parliament may contain no man of whom the colony need be ashamed. That surely is not an unattainable object. On the contrary, it can be achieved without any very great difficulty if the electors as a body wil! only sink personal considerations and make up their minds to procure and support candidates for their public qualifications only. What those qualifications are must be known to everybody. High character is the first of all, because it is by far the most influential. The electors ought not to look at a man whom they do not respect. Ability is tbe next. An ignorant man ia always prejudiced, and therefore always liable to be misled. The electors ought to be ashamed to send as their representative in Parliament a man whose intelligence they despise. After these, other qualifications are not of essential importance; but the electors may be quite sure of this, that the more distinguished their member is in the community generally, the better acquainted he is with business, and tbe more familiar he is with public affairs tbe greater their share of political power will be. It is not possible for every constituency to be represent ed by a statesman, and, perhaps, it is not desirable either. But it is quite possible, and in the highest degree desirable, for every constituency to be represented by a truly representative man—representative, that Is to say, of all that is best in his own constituency and in the colony as a whole.