The Evening Star SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2475, 21 January 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 1871.

The election is over for the City, and it is not for ns to find fault with the result. Differing as we do with Mr Bathgate in his views on the operation of the Hundreds Regulations Act, we look upon him as one who is sincerely desirous of forwarding the interests of the people by giving his sanction to public works. We do not hesitate to say that in our opinion Mr Macassey would have proved the better representative of the two ; but it is too late now to discuss that question. The majority of the electors apparently think otherwise, and we trust that the future will justify their choice. We confess ourselves somewhat disappointed that the efforts made to shew how mistaken are the views generally held of the land question, and how visionary are the promises held out 1»y land law cobblers, have not been more generally accepted. We have no objection to statements made in the public prints being looked upon with suspicion—it is only right they should be. It is never expected by journalists that they should be any other than guides to thought, and hints to a thorough investigation of a subject. The evil is they are not accepted in that light. They are looked upon more as the expression of the theories of a party, than impartial comments upon passing events. So far as this journal is concerned, it has been subjected to very silly misrepresentations as being the organ of a particular class —a very convenient cry, supposing men to be unable to think and to bo actuated by unreasoning impulse. But the electors should be far more suspicious of a mere election cry than of a public journal. The life of a newspaper is not so ephemeral as the excitement of an election. Its work has to go on after the choice has been made; and if, during the progress of a contest, remarks are offered respecting the programme of the candidates, they are principally examinations of the opinions expressed, and are, as far as possible, divested of every feeling of personal friendship or antipathy. “ Measures, not men,” should be the motto at elections; and the only personal question should be as to the ability and trustworthiness of those who ask the suffrages of the constituents. It is in this spirit we have dealt with the questions of the clay, and have to the best of our ability endeavored to shew their real tendency on public welfare, divested altogether of the fact that they wore proposed by this man or that man. if the bugbear of the Hundreds Regulations Act still stands in the way of sound judgment, we say unhesitatingly that it has been either wilfully or ignorantly misrepxcseuted—that its operation is not to close the land to settlement, but to throw it open on cheaper and better terms than it could have been obtained before it was passed ; and on the principle of calling a spade a spade, we denounce those who have opposed it, as either unacquainted with Avhat they ' are talking about, interested in misrepreseuting it for personal or political ends, or so utteii3 r ignorant as not to be able to understand English. In saying this, we are only comparing the Act of 1866 and the Goldfields Act, as they stood, with those Acts modified by the Hundreds Regulations Act. We are not saying that there may not be better Acts passed. This is quite

possible; and so much do we value a well-to-do population, that should any brilliant genius mark out a better, we shall give it every support. All that we wisli to shew is, that those candidates who tell the electors they were content with the Act ol 18G6, leave something out of sight lor a political end, are from the nature of the case obstructive, because they want to go back to a system that shuts up the land from settlement except on most extravagant terms, and which had a tendency to keep down wages, and to make Otago a land of sheep walks and cattle runs. These statements are made after due consideration of the Acts as they were and the Acts as they are ; and we venture to assert that ninety, out of every hundred men would arrive at a like conclusion, if they studied those Acts in a perfectly unbiassed spirit. So far as public works are concerned, all the candidates are pretty well agreed—the only difierences being as to whether the Province or the Colony shall do them. Respecting them the object must be to send men to Parliament who will work together, and insist on the terms of the Acts being carried out. A beginning has been made in electing Mr Reynolds and Mr Bathgate, On this important point we think they will act together; that they will forward and not obstruct them ; and the outlying constituencies must be careful to elect those who will not stultify what Dunedin has done by electing opponents to them.