Page 2 Advertisements Column 5

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1713, 16 August 1879, Page 2

To of the Globe. Sie, —“ They completely plucked him of any political independent principles he was ever suspected of possessing ” said a gentleman present at Mr Allwright’a meeting at Lyttelton on Monday night last. In that sentence he but expressed the painful truth which must hare forced itself upon the minds of even Mr Allwright's most ardent well wishers. Messrs Andrews and Turnbull, together with the lesser lights forming the special Allwright deputation from the campaign association of “Liberals," made a a complete conquest at their private interview with the self-sacrificing and misguided candidate prior to his appearance upon the platform—a complete clean out of all and singular of his stock-in-trade of political scruples and conscientious convictions. Not a few who went to hear him, willing to be convinced, arc said to have come away chagrined at his dissembling and sickened with his equivocations. The members of the “Liberal ” deputation,by complimentaiy talk, did their best to help out his case, but utterly failed to stir up any enthusiasm for their protege, hence the marked “ order ” which is said to have characterised the meeting. The closing scene of the proceedings, where the candidates essayed to obtain a vote of confidence in himself from his hearers is deeply humiliating. The audience appear to have been equal to this manifestation of Mr Allwright’s “ native modesty,” and the presumptuous suggestion was put an end to, one gentleman, Mr S. E. Webb, declaring that ho should strongly oppose any such proceeding. A sense of distrust in the candidate and disappointment at the hesitating manner in which he had revealed his views, appear to have pervaded the meeting. Feelings such as these are at once excited by an impartial perusal of the report of Mr Allwright’s speech. Instead of a full and fresh statement of principles, a statement bristling with earnest protestations of wrongs that need resistance, and a vigorous declaration showing a desire to right them, the meeting, so far as the candidate was concerned, appesrs to have been treated to nothing but a jumbled up mess of put oil's. Nothing positive, clear, frank, open, or assuring. A careful reading of Mr Allwright’s speech will certainly bear out this opinion. Moreover, when the previously held anti-Gtrey opinions of the gentleman are taken into account, his attempt to pander to tho “ Grey ” deputation on Wednesday night prove him to be unworthy of tho trust he seeks. His attitude at the meeting was throughout un-Ailwright. It was so inasmuch us it was a shuffle, a twist, a wriggle, a badly played “crawfishing" from previously held and well-known convictions hostile to Grey and hie policy. The ear-marks of the pressure brought to bear by the Grey disputation were stamped upon almost every sentence in his speech, and ho gradually, under that pressure, fell from one position to another—from saving that ho was bound to vote against Grey to that he would vote for him—and, nauseous as the pill was. to hie convictions, it was finally swallowed entire. A constituency may, in kindness, overlook a candidate’s unrefined English under some circumstances, hut certain'y n “ a working-men’s friend," us Mr Allwrigbt so much delights to call himself, a moderate stock of straightforwardness is the sine qua nun of a successful political career. I am. ic., A. Z. Lyttelton, August 15th, IS7O.

Tho following letter appeared in this morning's issue of the “Press : TO THE KDITOa OE THE PKKSS. g IE) — I send a few questions and anaitera applicable to the present crisis : Who made an unsolicited and unconditional present of oyer £300,000 worth of land scrip to absentee land holders ? Sir GsoaOE Geey ! , Who encouraged and sanctioned the acquisition o£ a large track of Crown land in the I Proyinoe of Otago by a certain Jobjmy 1 Jones P Sir Geoeqb Gees !