LAST NIGHT’S MEETING.

Evening Star, Volume VII, Issue 1912, 22 June 1869, Page 2

LAST NIGHT’S MEETING.

To the Editor of the Evening Star

Sir —As I was unable to attend the meeting held last evening, jl have this momingread and heard, with much satisfaction, that the really mean conduct of the Government (for it is neither more nor less) in refusing the use of the Post Office Hall, was not allowed to pass unrebuked. The beggarly excuse put forth by the Government is too flimsily transparent to deceive any one for a single moment. Political ” purpose forsooth ; if the desirabi'ity or otherwise of the country being saddled with a million and a half loan is not a subject upon which the country miy claim the right to be heard, it is difficult to conceive of one that i-. And if they have a right to be heard upon it, certainly an unoccupied public building (erected at their own cost) is the place in which they shouhl have the right of meeting, for the purpose of d'scussion as to what that opinion should be.

“ What that opinion should be,” did I say ? Ah! there’s the rub. It was just because Mr Stafford had very naturally arrived at a foregone conclusion as to what that opinion would he, that the bugbear of “political purpose” was raised. I wonder whether it would have been ‘ 1 political purpose” in Mr Stafford’s opinion, had the meeting been called for the purpose of d;senssing resolutions of approval instead of disapproval? It seems to me just of a piece with his reason for refusing to appeal to the country last year—his own knowledge that the opinion of the country was against him. “No, no,” says Mr Stafford, “I have the greatest possible respect for public opinion—that is, ween it accords with my own. Vox popidi vox Dei. Bah ! Vox popidi vox mihi, or no vox at all. ” Seriously, I do hope the well-merited reproof uttered last evening willjbe echoed in the House of Representatives.—Yours, &c., Otagonian. [And 1 say, “Fox popidi Fox mihi,” Stafford ain’t afeard of the “vox,” he ain’t; but, mihi (that is, my eye that is), ain’t he afea r d of the Fox ! I know, I know Ido ! —The Printer's Young Gentleman in Blade.]

(To the Editor of the Evening Star.) Sir, —As one of the listeners at the public meeting at the Masonic Hall last evening, I take exception to the remarks made in the local column of the Daily Times this morning respecting it. The hour was not well chosen or the room would have been more crowded than it was, but notwithstanding that drawback there was a full attendance during the first hour. As to the speaking abounding with “ platitudes, ” as no popular orators were present, the wonder is that it was so good as it proved. Oratory is not needed to commend such plain commonsense resolutions as were passed at the meeting, and the fact of so many coming forward, who do not care to be heard on ordinary occasions, oply shows how deeply seated is the determination to resist the loan. The re a rks are quite iu keeping with the snobbery of the Daily Times, which has been so conspicuously displayed in toadying to the great aud presumably well educated, by wishing the Corporation of Dunedin to give precedence to the Provincial authorities in the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh. It by no means requires a Cantab to understand facts and figures. Oratory may fairly be left to professors, but as no Belial was wanted to make the worse appear the better cause, there was not much lost hy their absence,

Common Sense.