THE KUMARA CANDIDATES.

Kumara Times, Issue 2522, 21 July 1884, Page 2

THE KUMARA CANDIDATES.

[to the editor.] Sir —Kumara has been deluged with a very foolishly-got-up tirade of abuse of Mr Seddon. Had the writer drawn it a little milder it would have been more to his credit, and drawn fewer smiles of contempt for the writer from the lips of the electors. Each individual elector knows Mr Seddon’s faults as well as the writer of this electioneering squib 3 but what may be said of Mr Blake ? This foolish writer says Mr Blake is in the truest sense of the word a gentleman, and seems to forget that in the foregoing sentence he uses the word prostitution. Now, while I could afford to smile at his abuse of Mr Seddon, far different were my feelings on reading this sentence. I had formerly laid some claim to the attributes of a gentleman, but if Mr Blake is one I will abandon the pretension for ever. While Mr Blake remained a private individual, it was no one’s place to point the finger at him 3 but, when he asks us to p'ace him in such an important position as be now seeks, I have a right to say why I for one will not do it. For a man in Mr Blake’s position to challenge comment, as he did at the last election, was an insult to every man in the community who pretends to the smallest modicum of morality. Mr Blake propounds a grand panacea for all the ills the sludge-channel is heir to, by asking us to relieve the Government of the trouble in the matter by volunteering to do it ourselves. It means the same thing when we are asked to continue the stand and deliver price for water that we are now paying, for I hold there is no record of a highwayman who has dragged the last shilling from the pockets of his victim with a more merciless grasp than the Government aie now doing. Not only would Mr Blake continue this state of affairs till we had removed the evil, out of our own pockets, but he would actually enforce contributions from the men outside of the channel who have already been filched to an enormous extent. No such crying sycophancy should mar the actions of our member 3 for if our member heretofore has fought on the losing side, he has fought on the side of right, and many times during the last three years might has gained momentary victory by the loss of honour and truth, and by the sacrifice of the liberal principles of this electorate 3 and for all this are wo to throw him over for a man like Mr Blake ? I say no, and firmly believe that that “No" shall reverberate through every pollingbooth in the district till Mr Seddon is returned by a glorious majority. An Independent Elector. June 20, 1884.