Indecency, or Ignorance?

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 147, 9 June 1892, Page 3

Indecency, or Ignorance?

• : ;!■'. (Catholic Times.) Are democracy an i decency naturally ! antagonistic, and- if so, why ? The query is forced upon us by die conduct of the present Government • which! is democratic or nothing — possibly, of course, it may be nothing. By the death of Mr Macarthur. New -Zealand lost 6ne of her very best and most respectable • politicians. It was impossible for anyone to know Mr Macarthur and not to . respect him, 'quite irrespective^ of party feeling We have never leard ; one wor d breathed against either his public or his private reputation. M oreover, he was one of the very^ foremost men of the Qpposition. Had be lived he wbufd, on the defeat of the present Governments which is only a matter qf months or less, have held office as a Minister of the Crown, fle died, cut., off, without hyperbole, in the prime of his life and usefulness. Yet not one Member of the Government, or. one really representative man of . the party, attended his funeral. Why . fwas this? Do democrats, so-called,-catrj t Q 6'r political animosities beyond^ the' grave ? Do they, not satisfied with ettempting to wreck the reputations, of their political foea in this : world, also' seek to punish their antagonists in the grave itself? If so, the ' prospect is awful indeed and a new terror is 'added to the dim hereafter. Wfis it tenderness for the public funds which induced Ministers to refrain from paying the last tribute of respect to a worthy foeman who had laid his~ arms only at the feet of Death? Were Ministers too poor to do him reverence ? It mi«jht have been 'so. Yet we think had Ministers been invited to the district to feast ..and to receive the congratulations of the unthinking, no pity for the public purse,- no- remorse at frittering away the hard-earaeel money of the people, would have stood in their way. But, as it was, the baked meats were funeral meats, and what : laudation there may have been was showered on the coffin of a political rival vftio had tried to do his duty. No doubt when Ministers desire to " woo," the electors of the late Mr Macarthur's district on behalf of some Government friend, neither money time, nor the public convenience will be permitted to hinder them- JbtiH it is good policy to assume a virtue even if we have it not, and the Ministry have done Red Radicalism an ill turn by showing it is incompatible with those common courtesies and kindnesses which bind society together. '