TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1881.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3232, 8 November 1881, Page 2

TOWN EDITION. The Daily Telegraph TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1881.

If Mr Sydney Johnston's debut on the political platform was by no means a success, it was at all events saved from unmitigated failure by his appearance of confidence in the good nature of his audience. At any other but an upcountry meeting Mr Johnpton would probably have never obtained the advantage of finishing his address. He possesses no fluency of speech, and his memory is, apnarently, painfully deficient. It was only'too clear to bis readers that bis address had been laboriously written out, and had been partially learnt by him, but it was necessary to refresh his memory by reading each paragraph to himself before repeating it aloud. With slow and measured speech in this manner was his address delivered, and it speaks highly for tbe good nature of a Waipawa audience that, during the long pauses which ensued while Mr Johnston was learning his part, no interruptions of a chaffing character disturbed bis studies. Practice no doubt will make Mr Johnston more perfect in style and delivery, but his epeech as a maiden effort exhibited other defects of a more serious character, which were inaccuracy in statements of fact, and 9 total absence of originalty of idea. Mr Johnston's address was aa though it were the outcome of insufficient instruction ; as though he had asked bread of his political friends at Wellington, and had only received a stone. Like the Israelites of old he had been called upon to make bricks without straw. To decry Mr Ormond, and stick to Major Atkinson's speeches in Hansard, may be instruction enough to an old hand, but to a novice it proved the " little knowledge" that has been asserted to be "a dangerous thing." It was a noticeable feature in Mr Johnston's address that it completely ignored Mr Smith's candidature, and so gave color to the report that the object was to defeat Mr Ormond. It is of course nothing to the Ministry whether the Waipawa district suffers or gains by its representative. Mr Johnston's purpose is to endeavor to keep a man out of Parliament whose knowledge and influence might prove troublesome to the Government, and to that end it is immaterial whether Mr Smith or himself is successful. In the meantime the electors of Waipawa are to be played with iv order that personal and party ends may be made superior to tbe interests of the colony at large. That the electors are alive to this transparent movement was manifested by the overwhelming majority by which the vote of confidence in Mr Johnston was negatived.