BANNERMAN’S CONDUCT.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 340, 14 February 1902, Page 3

BANNERMAN’S CONDUCT.

Every admirer of candor and plain speaking will feel like lifting his hat to the Hon. Thomas Graham, Q.C., At-torney-General for Cape Colony. His. denunciation of Sir Henry CampbellBannerman cannot, it is true, he des'crihed as timely in the general sense, for it comes rather late ‘in the day, ,Lut it is finely to the point. And the summing-up, while epigrammatically concise, embodies so much coirtf mon sense that the sentence in .which •it is contained rises to almost axiomatic level. “It is unfair,” says .this most pertinent critic, “to 'prosecute for sedition in South Africa .while viler treason in England is allowed to go scot free.” To the acidulated temperament and frozen soul of the pedantic John Morley such an outburst will probably seem surprising. He is politically so constructed as to be totally unable to feel enthusiasm for any cause which has not for its mim the weakening or the disintegration of the Empire. But with the man directly attacked it will be different. He is one of those beings who constitute a standing proof that there is much in the theory which affirms •mankind generally to he fonder of praise than pudding. His error as a politician has been that lie lias sought the approbation of the wrong set while keenly alive to the pleasure he would experience i£ it came from other quarters. Conscious that the Hon. Tlios. .Graham’s denunciation represents accurately the feeling of every loyalist in South Africa, it will sting him deeply. It may even do him good, for with alibis errors he need not he regarded as reprobate.