MR. SUTTER, M.H.R., AND THE GOLDFIELDS.

Kumara Times, Issue 2864, 7 December 1885, Page 2

MR. SUTTER, M.H.R., AND THE GOLDFIELDS.

[From the Dmiedin Evening Herald, December 2.] Mr Sutter, M.H.R., is one of those members who do not see beyond their own nose. He has uot the makings of a statesman in him. He is a crotchpty man, who, if he takes a notion into his head, allows it to overcome his better judgment. His ruling idea at present is that the community is plundered by the goldfields, and that the goldfields representatives are a set of highwaymen, who bail up every Government with the demand, " Your money, or your life !" In his address to the electors at Pleasant Point the other day, he exhausted their patience by a halfhour of dreary figures to prove the iniquity of Weslland and other goldbearing districts. Poor man ! he forgot that we owe very much to the miners for our progress as a colony. A large portion of the forty-five millions extracted from the bowels of the earth by their industry has been spent in the colony. From that huge sum importers have had large droppings and have grown rich. The growers of grain and mutton in Cmterbuty have waxed fat on their share. The truth is that Dicky Seddon had been sitting on the ancient mariner, so he revenged himself by pitching into the goldfields' members all round. His language is very sweet. He said :—" It is high time the miner should be told that if he cannot make a living on the New Zealand goldfields without assistance of money grants, the sooner he-leaves the colony the better for himself and us too. And let us hear no more of him and his jackall the parasite who lives on him." Mr M'Beth, one of his audiencp, quizzed him, and asked him if his statement was to be published, adding—" Because there there is a good deal true'in it, and a good deal that isn't true. I know the district, and I know there is a good deal of it quite untrue."— [Laughter and applause.] Besides, his desire for a slap at Dicky, it was necessary for him to raise a cloud of inky statistics like the cuttle-fish, that he might hide his own doings in breaking faith with the Government. An old salt should never spell tar backwards.