ANTI-ADVENTURER.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 85, 30 September 1870, Page 3

ANTI-ADVENTURER.

CT° ti&tor of the Mount Ida CifßONici/E.) SomeTOien are borh to .greatness; some achieve greatness, others have greatness thrust upon them.—Shakespeare. [ Sir,—-A few words, with your per.t mission, upon the subject of the letter ft which appeared in your last issue under thenom de phime " AntirAdventurer." I cannot but think; sir, in the letter referred to there is. a very large amount f of clap-trap about honesty and independence. Does your correspondent > imagine that a man must'be rich to be independent ? and does he want to establish'in thie new Colony the system of property qualification for members of the Legislature," which the people of the Old Country have been making, and are still making, strenuous efforts f to abolish ? Does-your; correspondent wish to assert that wisdom, honesty, and independence follow hereditary titles and hereditary wealth, and that the .poor man, because—in his eyes---he , is a political adventurer, cannot possess [ any of. these requisites for a represen - I tative ? The history of modern times I teaches* us the reverse, and among the IT: principal leading men of the present

century, whether politics, the army, or the. navy, are those who have risen'from the'ranks, and who, by a .proper application of the talents with which. Providence has endowed them, have attained .rank, wealth, and honor in each and every of. the spheres to which I. have referred; and to have in many instances succeeded iii obtaining for themselves seats in the House of Peers and, as inmore instance, on the woolsack itself. Will " AntiAdventurer " be. bold enough to assert that these men were mere; adventurers —or that they were either " born to greatness " or had : " greatness thrust upon them ?" No, sir, these men " achieved greatness," arid the same path of- : hpn6r'Avhich ; \was.. open to them in the Old Country, and which enabled them to raise themselves to positions of wealth, honor, andeminence, should not sui ely be closed against them in a new-country like this. I trust that your correspondent's views. are . not largely shared'in by the liberal constituencies of New: Zealand, and that he will', find that; a.man may be poor, independent, and honest, without being an adventurer. - ; ;

.. I had . proceeded -thus far. when my eye ; caught another letter ; upon, the same subject as that' to which I have alluded—in factj v.thevideas. appear so similar that 1 could ;almost have declared that 1 , they emanated from same mind,;if hot' writtenby the same' pea .1 think, however that the sigria Ti t,ure of this. : second epistle should j have: been " Squatter," for though the writer may be an .' " Elector,"- he ..evidently belongs -ito the 1 former";" genus. : ' ■ Not hkving data the same "as -' Elector " at my corhmknd—data which could''only be in the possessiqn of a squatter—rl j am not in a position to, refute his assertion; as' to the wealth of the squattocracy, but I have no hesitation in taking exception to his somewhat dogmatical assertion that the squatting interest' will be still flourishing in the district when the mining interest has succumbed from the effect of the ground being worked out. The arguments of " Electorare so similar to those in the letter; which appeared signed " Anti-Adventurer," that the remarks I have already made will, I think, fully meet the case without trespassing further oil your space. In conclusion, I can only say that, if the miners are sufficiently blind to their own interests to be hoodwinked by the unsupported assertion of an Elector" as to choose a squatter to represent tHem, let them by all means do so ; and. if they find,, as I feel certain they will find, their interests neglected and their claims laughed to scorn, let them not forget that they have been warned and have neglected the warning. No man can fairly, honestly, arid independently represent two interests so completely conflicting as are mining and squatting, • be he ever so wealthy, and have he an unlimited, amount of time at his command.—l am'j &c., Anti-Abistocbat.