THE SEPARATION PRIZE ESSAY.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume V, Issue 241, 20 March 1865, Page 3

THE SEPARATION PRIZE ESSAY.

(From the Wellington Independent.) Some time in the year ISG2 the Otago Separation League ottered a cup, or the sum of £SO in lieu thereof) as a prize for the best essay on Separation. We don’t know how many literary aspirants competed for the prize, nor how many folios of manuscript the judges were doomed to peruse; all that we are aware of is that early in the following year a Mr. W. E. Sadler, of Auckland, announced through the columns of the Southern Crons- that the first prize essay was his, and that shortly afterwards he got the money. There was a good (.leal of mystery about the business. The first and second essays were to have been published, the latter also receiving a prize, but somehow or other this was not done. The adjudicators could not apparently decide at once which yws second best, and they were evidently chary of letting the first see the light, so the affair fell into oblivion, and New Zealand remained ignorant of the genius she possessed in one of Iter sons. But this was not always to be tiie case. Mr Sadler is a man of energy, so Ingot possession of- Ids manuscript, and found publishers in the proprietors of "the He to Zealander, who have recently put it forth to the world. We have read Mr Sadler’s production, and think it a most extraordinary work. In the whole forty-four pages of which it consists, there is not the faintest glimmering of sense ; there is not a single argument adduced in favor of separation ; in short, the whola affair is nothing hut a mass of long and pedantic words, conveying no meaning whatever. Once it was our sad task to visit a literary man in the ward of a lunatic asylum. Poor fellow, like Dean Swift he had commenced •‘to wither at the top,” and when helpless and useless, had found a last refuge there. The ruling passion was still strong, and he scribbled incessantly the veriest rubbish. We perused some of his sheets, and they bore a strong resemblance to Mr Sadler's pamphlet. Yet the lunatic had once been a man of powerful and brilliant intellect. Perhaps there is a stronger resemblance than is generally supposed between the writing of a lunatic and a foul. The former writes nonsense because his brains are disordered, tlie latter because lie has hardly any brains at all, and the result in both cases is pretty much the same. There are of course degrees in the folly of those afflicted with the cacoethen scribnndi, and Mr Sadler can console himself with the reflection that, as his essay received the prize, there were some even worse than it. Assuming this to be the case, we trust never to come across any of the other manuscripts The present one has been quite enough for us.

The pamphlet is introduced by a lengthy preface, in which the author tells us, or attempts to tell us, why he wrote it. The style of this explanation is unique. The writer is a “ strenuous political independent,” and goes on to express *• his belief in this large comprehensive principle which touches organisms and affects constitutions,” concluding, therefore, —though how or why we are unable to perceive—“ that it was particularly congruous that he should proffer his

services as a competitor for the prize.” Then again he explains “that the motive to give expression and advocacy to things assuredly ami cordially believed was naturally a felt influence,” while lastly, ‘■file curious pleasure arising from creation, and toe cogitation and ex-cogitation of fresn thoughts, the construction and reconstruction of sentences,” and of course the £SO in prospect, tempted him to scribble. It seems his friends doubted whether he or any one else could say much about separation, but lie extinguished them with “an irrefragable smile,” and having accomplished this feat he next iiiibnn.i all win,in it may concern “that the theme ot separation goes into the heart of all politics, and escorts a 1,-Uow all over the world/ ’ “My subject theme,” he continues, “ goes at once and naturally into the very heart of the question," which is of world-wide i derest, whether every man should ' dwell in love.’ unre tricledly deal in all knowledge, and in society mildly govern himsoif directly ami indirect iv, anil be happy ; in other words, enjoy all the privileges which distinguish free Stales; or whether a’wiioic world, with all and everybody in it, should be owned, governed, depressed, and pocketed by some proud, despotic ignoramus.” We humbly sup-vise it is lid right, but if our readers can make sense of i he foregoing we can’t. Quirting the preface and passing to (lie essay irsed, we find the liesc six pages a farrago of nun--ense, about the city of Label, Alexander the Ureat, the condition of .Scotland and Ireland, the American war, Lcciesiaslc-s, Abraham Lincoln. Sir .Robert Led, Shiel, Guizot, ami Lord Laluteiston, which have not the sldute-t bearing on separation, or anything else, although the writer drags them all in neck and crop to prove “time tiie special interposition of God Almighty was manifest in the irustration of grand attempts at political centralisation.” “ Uccjusedchovah did at the tower of Label confound the language of all tile earth,” therefore New Zealand should lie constituted into two separate colonics. This, in all seriousness, is il r Sadler’s argument. Wo cannot criticise such stud, but a lew mure samides may be given. “Had {Scotland” he remarks, ‘•demanded separation, and acquired the institution ol an independent elective executive government (to avoid limiting, 1 most carefully abstain from saQng anything to «n h-Teditary monarchy), she might have been to-day prosperously populated. Now, her people arc everywhere— to the surprise ol many, and exercising the joking propensity in others.”

Wny Mr Satlll‘r “has nothing to sav to a hereditnry monarchy,” we can't imagine, nor docs (he exposition of “ his politics''’ throw any light on Inis ; nevertheless, it is satisfactory to know “ that he is an hereditary admirer ot' Lord Joint Bussell, and a determined, impassioned haler,of infidel anarehisnt.” But however much he may admire Lord John Russell, he also admires someone else as, lo quote him again, a leading principle of his political creed is tins, “ tnat everv man loves, and therefore inclines to think something of himself: yea, every man, from .Palmerston, all the way to tinnili and JBucs; —that ‘a man is a man for all that.’ ” *■'**###*# Vfe must close this article. Had we space or inclination,' we might follow the wriler through the rest of his dreary twaddle about “ union” “ organic politics,” “ darkies” the native difficulty, and what he cahs “political governmental independent Separateness.” In pity to the unfortunate author, and consideration towards our readers, we refrain from doing so. But it is melancholy lo reject that such a lamentable specimen of imbecility and self-conceit should bo found in a production which bears on the title page that it is “ Ilie Otago Hirst Prize Pamphlet on Separation.”