UNDUE INFLUENCE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 50, 6 October 1887, Page 2

UNDUE INFLUENCE.

Both Ministerialists and Oppositionists have before this wiped the dust from their eyes and read the hard and .heavy prose of disappointment. The fall of Sir Robert Stout and MrTole is galling to the Ministerial party, while |he rejection of Messrs Bryce, Rolleston and Garrick is a heavy loss to the Opposition.

In the defunct Parliament Mr Garrick as a clear thinker, debater and statesman, stood out like an Alpine peak above the ranges of average politicians, In 1884 he was returned pledged to support the Midland railway and StoutVogel Ministry, but he soon discovered that an unqualified support meant sacrifice of principle, and although he walked into the lobby with the Ministers at the last no-confidence debate, before doing so he delivered a speech which proved he viewed with contempt and disgust their modes of procedure. Aj the last election he gave the electors of St. Albans to Understand that if returned he would be an uncompromising opponent of the Stout-Vogel combination. His return was considered certain, and he was looked upon as the new AttorneyGeneral.

When good metal like this is thrown aside, it is the duty of electors to ascertain the reason. We advance three reasons for his defeat (r) Govern, ment animosity, (2) Journalistic misrepresentation, (3) Sentiment,

Government Animosity.— -The Government knew that the North Island returns would be overwhelmingly against them. Their only hope was a united South Island vote; the return of Mr Garrick meant strong Canterbury opposition, so he was opposed accordingly. In addition to Mr Garrick’s hatred to unprincipled measures, he knew the salvation of New Zealand depended upon the return to power of a strong Ministry—a weak Ministry is always extravagant, a strong one is prudent, He had the courage to show that the return to power of a Ministry with a bare working majority, would be a repetition of prodigal expenditure to keep their seats.

Journalistic Misrepresentation— A journalist may become just as great an autocrat as Shirley Baker in Tonga. The muzzle must be put on when he goes too for. What do we find in Canterbury ? Why, a solitary newspaper crowing because out of 19 candidates it supported 16 have been returned. There is at the present time in New Zealand a newspaper with two or three members of its editorial staff in Parliament, and 16 of its nominees. Truly did Mr Garrick say “ The Lyttelton Times is becoming a mischievous power in the land and public opinion must sooner or later restrain it.” The worst feature is that its parliamentary nominees are not equal in quality to their quantity, but that ia so much better for the newspaper. It can dictate with less fear of disobedience, When the colonists learn that Messrs Rolleston, Wright, and Garrick have been replaced by Messrs Buxton, Blake, and Reeves and that these changes are greatly due to the Lyttelton Times’ influence, they will not admire the choice of the Canterbury oracle. In our late Parliaments the cry has been raised “ There is too much of the lawyer element.” but in the present Parliament there is something worse-—too much of the Lyttelton Times element. Private conversations were wofully distorted and every conceivable means were used by that paper to injure Mr Garrick. It has succeeded, and in depriving him of a seat has injured the colony.

Sentiment.— Nothing is more seductive and misleading than sentiment and like an epidemic it passes over a whole community at the same time. A cry was raised for the electors of St. Albans to return to Parliament a youth of 30 summers, a son of the editor of the Lyttelton Times, who would make one of the Young New Zealand Party in place of Mr Garrick, who was mis-represented as determined to favor “ a return to power of the dry-as-dusl continuous Ministry,'' The electors caught the e nthusiasm of the hour and re-echoed “ Away with the old continuous Ministry, and give us a Young New Zealand Party.” We are pleased to see a number of young men who have been born under the Southern Cross representing constituencies in Parliament and when Dr Fitchett, Mr Ward, and Mr Mitchelson are among them it proves that the party will have men of education and commercial experience, but when legislative fossils who have been relegated to the Upper House after being rejected by constituencies, palm their sons on electors it is time to raise the alarm. This is a democratic country and young men like Messrs Wakefield and Hislop who have their fathers’ brains as well as their fathers’ names, will always stand well with the people, but when a journalist who has been defeated in past elections, and has from sympathy, been placed in the Upper House, palms his son, who, according to his own paper, is a stranger to politics, upon a constituency, and throws out a first-class statesman it is time to ask whether it is not an attempt to introduce some of the abuses of Old England into these colonies.