The Hastings Standard Published Daily WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1897. THE AWARUA ELECTION.

Hastings Standard, Issue 378, 21 July 1897, Page 2

The Hastings Standard Published Daily WEDNESDAY, JULY 21, 1897. THE AWARUA ELECTION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The newspapers are full of the subject of the approaching bye election, and the articles are mostly devoted to discussing the elegibility of Mr Ward to take his seat in the House. It is not denied that he is at liberty to stand for election, but it seems to be the unanimous opinion of the publicists that if elected and Mr Ward is an undischarged bankrupt when the House meets his right to occupy a seat can be successfully challenged. The opinion of exSpeaker Steward is wholly discounted as a prejudiced and incorrect interpretation of the law. One journal propounds a problem that is not without its humorous aspect. It asks, supposing Major Steward s view be correct, a.nd Mr Ward is admitted to the House notwithstanding that he is an undischarged bankrupt, who is to receive the honorarium, Mr V. ard or the Official Assignee ? And it is a problem that will puzzle the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer. While the discussion in the newspapers is confined to the correct interpretation of the law the moral aspect of the question, which to us appears the njost important consideration, has not escaped attention. If we admit an undischarged bankrupt into the Legislative Chamber we run, great risks of opening the door to the unprincipled. If an undischarged bankrupt why not a criminal out on probation ? The line of demarcation between the two is of the very slightest, and if one is free to enter the House of Representatives the other soon will be. It will indeed be a sorry day for the democracy if it allows the moral side of politics to slumber. It is surely axiomatic that the higher the moral tone we exact from our public men the purer and better will be the administration of public affairs, and the brighter the chance of securing wholesome legislation. Have we so soon forgotten the Jubilee, and the lessons taught us ? Is it not one of our boasts that the life of the Queen in all its varied aspects has been beyond reproach, and do we not ascribe to the purity of the Court the purity that exists in the substratum of high life ? What do we find is the rule in the Mother Country? It will be within the recollection of our readers that when the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company was forced to suspend with a view to reconstruction (since successfully accomplished) the directors of the company were subjected to a searching public examination. Among the directors was

Mr A. J. Mundella, afc that time a member of Lord Rosebery's Ministry, and we know that Mr Mundella had to retire from the Cabinet as the result of that examination. He was not bankrupt, he was merely a director of a company that committed an act of bankruptcy, yet so rigid is the moral code of British politics that Mr Mundella had no option but to retire. The same high moral code should prevail in New Zealand. The temptations that beset our public men are numerous and we know only too well that many succumb, and we should therefore set a keen watch upon them and consider it our sacred duty to demand the high moral code in our public men. The sympathy—the blaring brazen sympathy that is being lavished upon Mr Ward—is to us inexplicable, and we are afraid that much of it is spurious. We do not deny to Mr Ward a measure of sympathy; we confess to a feeling of sorrow for the man as we would feel for any other individual similarly circumstanced, but we cannot fall in with the sympathy that seeks to make Mr Ward a martyr or a hero. The greatest kindness and the best services that Mr Ward's friends can render him just now is to let him sink from the public gaze. He has energy and resources enough to enable him to recover his lost position ii so desires, and he will be best able to accomplish this if left alone. We are quite satisfied that Mr Ward must be divorced from public life for some time to come ; it is the penalty that other men have had to pay, and we see no reason why there should be an exception in his case.