POLITICAL MORALITY.

Evening Star, Issue 4103, 21 April 1876, Page 4

POLITICAL MORALITY.

To the Editor

Sir, —The question, “Is there such a thing as political honesty ? ” has often presented itself to my mind, and as often mentally I have .replied, notwithstanding many things that I could not satisfactorily account for, “Well, I have faith in Donald Eeid and Robert Stout,” In the present crisis, or rather, I should say, wholesale robbery of the. people, where are these chain pions of the people’s rights ? The one Provincial Secretary, the other Provincial Solicitor, and I, in my seclusion to receive to-night the Provincial Government ‘Gazette (that cheap medium of many items of deceitful and mischievous communication) containing the confirmation of my worst fears in regard to the wholesale sacrifice of the people’s patrimony. It is a common saying “that extremes meet,” and after many years of hard political fighting for the people’s rights in my own humble sphere, I now feel content to be dubbed “a fool” Where is the ever ready Robert Stout, Provincial Solicitor, with his pen to explain this cancellation of runs and opening them for sale, and what is worse by what I near privately, the pre-arranged sale to the run-holders agreeing to the cancellation ? Is this the political morality taught him by his new and, beautiful faith, the outcome of the. sophistry of his friend Mr Charles Bright? Would that such a true man as the first Superintendent of the Province, Captain Cargill, could-be called up by spiritual divination to sit in judgment on the unholy alliance that has been made public by this infamous ‘Gazette,’ which I hold in my band, even although his son is a participator in the profits of the transaction. Sir, I wrote you three days ago, with a lingering hope that those in whom I had so long trusted would still prove true, but alas ! the last “ flicker” has gone out. I wonder what my old friends, Gillies, Clark, Hendersoc, think now, of their former political idols, Reid and Stout. Shame may keep them quiet, but I envy not their feelings and I can only fancy them murmuring to themselves in the bitterness of their thoughts : “ Sold! unmercifully sold ! Only a step between wise men and fools !” What deeper depth of degradation can political morality fall into ? With the example before them of the leaders of the people conniving at what I can only term, however harsh it may sound, a swindling of the people out of their birthright, can it be wondered at if in private life and transactions a development of a like looseness of morality will be initiated? I have no wish to rake up the ashes of the wretched past, but, this transaction brings forcibly to my mind 'the .old question : “Can the Ethiopian change his skin ?”—I am, &c.', Clodocbat. Clutha; April 20.