CORRESPONDENCE.

Feilding Star, Volume III, Issue 68, 10 February 1883, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

"POLITICAL SOMERSAULTS.'* TO THE EDITOR OF THE FEILDING STAB. Siß,-The "political somersaults" indulged in by some colonial politicians, as -well as newspaper writers, is proverbial. As a rule politicians and statesmen of the Old Country are not given to such political tergiversation. Occasionally, however, an instance occurs, which is all the more noticeable when the politician concerned proves to have been at one time a "leader of the people" in the Old Countiy. Tho most remarkable case of a politician "altering his sentiments if they didn't suit," has just occurred in England, in the case of Sir Charles Dilke, who, as a reward for changing his " Republican for a Monarchial coat," has been ap* pointed President of the Board of Trade — a position of considerable importance in the Gladstone Ministry. It is reported that the Queen was much averse to the appointment being made, as indeed might be all well-wishers of England's monarchial form of Government. Some few years ago Sir Charles Dilke was loud in his advocacy of Republicanism, and in some of his public utterances he attacked in a most trenchant manner the foibles and defects of British royalty and the aristocracy. His condemnation of the British aristocracy was the more remarkable, since Sir Charles Dilke is himself a member of an aristocratic family, being the son of the late Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke. Since his election to the House of Commons as member fpr Chelsea, in 1868, Sir Charles Dilke has been conceded the post of leader of the Republican party in England, and his labors in furtherance of the cause he professed were frequently shared by Bright, Chamberlain, and other Radical leaders. Mr Gladstone's leniency towards Sir C. Dilke has long been a matter of notoriety (as is supposed to be the case with Sir Arthur Gordon), and since the ascension to power of the Gladstone Ministry, Sir Charles Dilke has played a waiting game. His political opinions have undergone a radical change during recent times, and what he so loudly condemned and satirised a few years ago, he now finds worthy of admiration and support. In a- recent speech Sir Charles Dilke naively remarked: "Some of my earlier opinions were those of my political infancy, which anyone might regard as unwise as he (the speaker) grew older !" It is further noticeable that this " equivocal recantation" did a good deal towards smoothing the way for his accession to office, and further enabled Mr Gladstone tp overcome the Queen's objections .to Sir Charles Dilke' s presence in the British Cabinet. Wnalpole's axiom that " every man has his price" has found a fitting exemplification in the political conduct of Sir Charles Dilke, and the conviction is unavoidable that his price has been a " love of power." His political life stands out in most unfavorable contrast with the consistency of John Bright's career. — I am, &c, Colonial.