MR TREADWELL STILL ASPIRING.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2243, 6 May 1881, Page 3

MR TREADWELL STILL ASPIRING.

To the hditor of the Globe. Sir, —I am a working man; have been knocking about at Port for some few years, sometimes employed, at other times unemployed ; and, though inja very obscure position, I take aome little interest in politics. It appears to me that Sir George Grey, and an admirer of his, who signs himself J. W. Tread well, are two of the mest incomprehensible beings now claiming the attention of the public. Sir George taid at a public meeting which I attended, that, when a young man and a soldier, he was sent to Ireland to enforce the eviction of some of the poor people from their holdings of land. The scenes iu that unhappy country so harrowed his feelings that he determined to exile himself, aud he retired to the Kawau, The strange part of the farce (or tragedy) is, that after being so harrowed, Sir George accepted various lucrative appointments from the (supposed infamous) Imperial Government, and he required about forty years to consider tho matter before he finally retired. I perceive, by a letter from Mr Tread well, recently published in your paper, and curiously'nterspersed with figures and letters, questions and answers, that m r Allwright, in the opinion of Mr Treadwell, is all wrong. I will not attempt to notice the whole of hia extraordinary production, but will take two or three samples For instance: —"Grey ordered GOOO able-bodied men. Answer : To settle the Natives without soldiers. The soldiers cost us £300,000 a year to protect 120 settlers ; if these men had come, they would have settled the land and Te Whltl." The 6000 here spoken of are the paupers Sir George so generally offered to provide for—not at the Kawau, but at the public expense. Just fancy, turning 6000 paupers loose on the Waimate Plains! MrT.professesto be a friend of the working man and the unemployed, and. to show his friendship,wishes to overstock the country with pauper laborers. Again, "Calls himself a representative of working men. Answer :No ! He and Mr Andrews are capitalists, and both are large employers of labor." So, according to Mr Treadwell, only poor men are fit to represent working men. Some time ago, he stated that he owned the largest frontage of any man in Christchurch, and be himself has more than once come forward to claim the suffrages of the working men. How consistent! What about Sir George, the working man's friend par excellence ? Is he a capitalist ? Mr Treadwell says, speaking of Mr Allwright, " What else could you expect, when a man is taken from his paint pots and sent to daub the laws T" It comes well from a working man's friend to sneer at useful and honorable callings and industries. One more modest example of Mr Treadwell's aspirations : " Lyttelton voters might find a scholar, well read ia the history of politics and people, whose soul would scorn to trifle, &c." As Mr Treadwell has stated, in public print, more tbnn once, that he is a classical scholar, and knows more about banking and commercial affairs than any one else in Christchurch, he is evidently pointing to himself. We. Lyttelton working men, are not such fools as be takes us to be. We don't intend to pay him a salary to (mis) • represent ua. Yours, &0., LYTTELTONIAN.