The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1873.

Evening Star, Issue 3205, 29 May 1873, Page 2

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 29, 1873.

When M. Stout was returned for Caversham, although we knew he had crotchets in his mind, and was inclined to defend many indefensible positions, we hoped a little, experience in public life would have rubbed off those excrescences, and led him at least to a little modesty in dealing with others. It is to be feared, however, that unless a very salutary lesson is taught him, he will never be a really useful public man. That eternal laboring to bamboozle that pervades the whole of his political speeches, will never be cured, until he finds it powerless to mislead, and that straightforward honesty in speech and action is of more value than refined sophistry. The very best thing for himself and the country would be that at the coming election for Caversham, a good, straightforward, honest, common-sense man, with half his ability, should be elected in his stead. He might then ask himself why men did not place confidence in him, and perhaps find out that it was because, instead of devoting himself to ascertaining what are the real wants of the Province, he has frittered away his time in finding reasons why Mr Donald Reid should be at liberty to insult the Superintendent; refuse to resign his office, although decency and the Head of the Province pointed to the propriety of such a step ; refuse to resume it, although he professed to believe his talent was necessary to Provincial prosperity; and, finally, consent to waste the time and money of the Province by becoming the instrument in the hands of a faction to move a resolution, the adoption of which has rendered a dissolution necessary. The whole of Mr Stout’s long tirade at Caversham was one useless endeavor to shew that he, Mr Robert Stout, knew more about constitutional law than # the Superintendent, Mr Bathgate, or Mr Vogel. No doubt it was very convenient for him to single out that honorable gentleman, who, however, if he be a “ mere child,” as the Daily Times informs us Mr Stout considers him, he only shares in the paternity of the minute with other members of the Cabinet—chief of whom is the Acting Governor, his Excellency Sir George Arney, C.J. We may fairly presume, too, that although the Hon. Julius Vogel signed the minute as Premier of New Zealand, care would be taken not to take up a question involving a grave consideration of constitutional law and practice,

without consulting the law officer of the Crown, who must therefore be a part ner in the baby tricks of Mr Vogel. It may, perhaps, be owing to our not having*, grown. to maturity of knowledge, that we do not even yet see that Mr Stout’s logic has proved the opinion of the Cabinet in Wellington to be wrong, and that of our Caversbam “papa” in the right. Nor do we see that the opinions of the late Duke of Wellington, who, unlike Mr Stout, never questioned the duty of submission to the powers that be ; nor of Sir Robert Peel, who, unlike Mr Reid, accepted office in the face of difficulties he knew he could not overcome, have any bearing whatever upon the constitutional powerS of the Superintendent of Otago. It is quite useless to expose the • fallacies of the carefully twisted account given by Mr Stout of the transactions that led up to the dissolution. There is not one word that could be said to be false, and not one statement that should be considered true. The statement is in fact not straightforward. It smacks too much of special pleading, and leaves out what is convenient to his purpose, although necessary to a full exposition of the truth. The fact is Mr Stout is a lawyer in the Court, a lawyer on the hustings, a lawyer at a public meeting, a lawyer everywhere; and he shews his need of drilling in public matters on all occasions. He forgets, when he comes before the public and asks their suffrages, that he is not paid for saying all that can be said on one side of a question, and leaving out all that could be said on the other. When two barristers appear in Court in opposition to each other, they together form one fair-thinking man. They turn the question round and round, and examine it on every side, taking care that its strong and its weak points shall he fairly canvassed, balanced, and brought out. Now, just what these two men do, as experts in a Court of justice, one man is expected to do who comes before a constituency and asks their votes. He is expected to come prepared to do what is right for all: not merely what is right for a party. He stands in the light of an honest upright judge, not that of prosecutor in the case of Reid v. Macandrew v. Vogel v. Progress v. Common Sense. The electors of Caversham must be tired of this feud. It should be dead and buried. We have now to deal with facts, not with theories: to address ourselves to the future, not to nestle in the ashes of the past. It is perfectly true that our judgments of whom to trust must be based upon our knowledge of their antecedents; and, viewed in that light, we cannot say we are impressed with the present fitness of Mr Stout. He may have thought it necessary to defend his conduct, but has not been very successful even in that A little longer probation before his next essay as a Provincial Councillor might be the better for him, for we think the stuff of which legislators are made is in him, although it lies buried in legal sophistry and logical rubbish. On these grounds we recommend the constituency of Caversham to let him have four years more to complete Lis political education before again electing him.