The Globe. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1876.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 191, 19 January 1875, Page 2

The Globe. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1876.

The polling for the election of a member of the House of [Representatives for the Kaiapoi district, takes place on Friday next, and on that day the electors will be called upon to decide a very important question, viz—either to return a gentleman personally in every fvay qualified to represent them, and thereby to endorse the centralising scheme of the Government, or to place ftt tb* of th* foil a

inferior in every respect to his opponent, but who announces himself a provincialist. We are exceedingly sorry that this great question has come before a Canterbury constituency in such an unsatisfactory shape. Had the two candidates been gentlemen whom the public held in the same esteem, we should have been able from its result to obtain some idea of the opinion of the public of this province regarding Mr Vogel's abolition resolutions. But unfortunately such will not be the ease. Mr Bowen, apart from his political allies, is a gentleman whom any constituency would feel proud to have as its representative. Me possesses all those qualities which go to make up an ideal member. He is a gentleman of unimpeachable honor, and would scorn to stoop to anything mean or base. But unfortunately he has joined a Government whose policy has been one series of surprises—a Ministry which came into power cn the shoulders of the provincialist party, and then threw that party over for the sake of place and power. We believe Mr Bowen’s presence in the Cabinet will tend mucb to counteract Mr Vogel’s tendency to chicanery, and, if Mr Bowen is able to keep him in an open and straightforward course he will have done a great service to the colony. But this task would be a Herculean one, and we are afraid that after a time Mr Bowen will be compelled in despair to retire from the Government. The other candidate, Mr Beswick comes before the electors in the character of an injured man. Those wicked newspapers are so far left to themselves as not to take Mr Beswick at his own valuation. They will persist in regarding his utterances as of no great importance, and have thought one reporter sufficient to take down his words of wisdom, while three or four are required to report the speeches of his opponents. This very sad, but perhaps the newspapers know their own business best. They have a stupid habit of consulting the taste of their readers, and unfortunately for Mr Beswick, the reading public of Canterbury do not* care to peruse reports of speeches full of abuse and personalities, Mr Beswick apparently has no policy to announce. He believes in Mr Vogel’s Public Works policy, but is opposed to the abolition of the Middle Island provinces. Whether he would vote for the abolition of the provinces in the North Island he does not nay. He to^^EMna member of the Provincial Executive, showed much more regard for place and power than for principles, and judging from his political career in the Provincial Council, he may find it convenient, in the interests of his constituents, to .bo an obedient follower of Mr Vogel, and to vote for the destruction of those very institutions he has gone up to defend. The electors would also do well to remember that during the last few years, no man in the Provincial Council did more than Mr Beswick himself, to bring Provincial institutions into contempt in the eyes of the public.