THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 193, 5 August 1876, Page 2

THE WEEK.

I was asked the other day by a friend whom I mot in the street what I thought of Mr Whitaker's resolutions, and the remarkably easy way in which they had been tided over. My answer was that I considered the Government had been exceedingly fortunate in having got rid of so ugly a question by, as it were, a side wind. You should have seen how my interlocutor laughed at what he was pleased to call my simplicity. "Side wind," said he, " now do you really suppose that it was a Bide wind, by which expression I presume that you mean a lucky accident? Do you think that the seemingly übiquitous, apparently omniscient, and afc present omnipotent Sir. Julius had nothing to say to the Whitakerian resolutions? Do you suppose for one moment that he who is sometimes Postmaster-General, sometimes Colonial Treasurer, has always been actually boss over his colleagues, and is now Premie? in name as well as in reality, he who went home without asking leave of the Parliament, and assumed the position of Agent- Generalissimo whether Dr Featherston and the other agents liked ifc or not — are you so hopelessly green as to imagine that he was not the iEoluswho directed the "sidewind" as you call it, that he did not hold the bellows and point the nozzle so that the wind should blow where he listed? Do you imagine that he did not know that by getting a Government supporter to move those resolutions he was adopting a certain means of getting the iand fund question cleared out of his his way? My dear verdant youth, if you do not wish to expose your ignorance, never talk any more to men of experience like myself about side winds — as you interpret the phrase in connection with politics." Like many others I am generally good at repartee if I am allowed plenty of time, which was not the case in this instance, for my knowing friend had disappeared, round a corner before I had an opportunity of replying to him in so severe a manner as I could have wished, and, to be frank, I have not yet made up my mind what I ought to have said. Notwithstanding the cleverness attributed by the friend alluded to above to Sir Julius I must say that my faith in that belauded statesman which has always been on the quiver has of late become much more shaky. So long as everything went smoothly and there was lots of money to be got he was a splendid hand afc spending it, and matters seemed to jog along evenly enough, but now when difficulties are looming in the not very far distance, and there is a compact and determined Opposition in the House he doea not strike me as being such a bundle of talents as people afc one time used to consider him. There is a disposition to hesitate and temporise that was not so perceptible in his character before, and whicb seems to have been developed by the force of circumstances. lam always inclined to moralise and carry out a certain train of thought when I happen to be trudging along by myself, aud it was only last week that as I was walking home one beautiful evening after a long spell of unbroken weather, I was, in my own mind, likening the excellent road which led to my domicile to our Premier. " Here," I thought, " was at one time a wretched quagmire that was almost impassable, and imparted a dreary look to all around it, but now there is a smooth hard road easv and pleasant to travel, and without a hole or hollow. Now is not this like Sir Julius and the path he has cut out for New Zealand which five years ago was in a wretched half swamped state?" But as you all know there has been since last Saturday a lot of rain, and, in the road that I thought so perfect' puddles and pools have appeared, which have put my activity to a severe test ■ I have had to take a circuit to avoid one, and a hop, step, and jump to cross another, and so on, and in fact the road I thought so excellent after continuous sunshine, has proved so wretchedly bad in foul weather that some ingenuity has beeu required to get along ifc without sticking fast in the

mud. But I don't .intend to moralise on this subject any further. I shall leave tbat to others. Hansard has -beea my study of late, rand awfully dry I find portions of it, but now and* then; I stumble across " a gem of purest ray serene '" buried between its blue paper covers whieh I regard as a sufficient reward for a deal of patient toil. Such was the case the other day, when I was reading a speech delivered by one Mr Joyce on the Local Option Licensing Bill. A good deal had been made in the course of the debate of the amount of money that was spent on intoxicating drinks, one of the statements being that the outlay on drink in this colony had been so great that it would pay half, or even the whole, of the colonial debt. Mr Joyce argued from the other side of the question, and showed what an enormous contribution to the revenue the duty on drinks so "consumed amounted t0,., but not content with this he went on to propound a totally new doctrine. In an impassioned outburst of eloquence he exclaimed—" I take it, Sir, that a man who commences to drink at twenty, and spends the average amount of two shillings per day in drink in the colony, will, by the time he ia fifty years of age, have paid such a magnificent contribution to the State that he really ought to be entitled to a pension." Many a time and oft has the Pension A.ct been denounced in my hearing as a most iniquitous piece of legislation, but never before have I heard such a reason adduced for placing a man on the objectionable list. Begin at twenty to take a sixpenny glass of beer at 11 a.m., two at dinner, and another at supper, keep up this not unpleasant habit until you are fifty, and thus entitle yourself to a competency for the rest of your life. Bravo, Joyce ! This beats the Government life insurance scheme hollow. I think I must take a trip down to the district of Wallace, which has the honor of being represented by Mr Joyce, next election time, and see the placards on the walls, "which may be expected to be something of this kind :' "ite-Joyce! Be- Joyce ! Eour drinks a day for thirty years, and a pension afterwards! Eoil up, boys, and vote for Joyce !" Haven't you occasionally met with men who acquire a certain political reputation on the cheap, by glancing superficially over Hansard and newspaper Parliamentary reports, and then spouting and blatherskiting about some particular question, their knowledge of which is confined to one or two crude ideas they have picked up from reading a little bit here of somebody's speech and a little bit there of somebody else's? I have, and I think I stumbled across one of these individuals the other day. He accosted me with a sigh, and said that for years past he had devoted much of his time to the study of politics, but at last he was fairly disgusted and meant for the future to eschew them altogether. Not knowing Mm thoroughly, I was a little alarmed lest evil should befall the country from his secession from the ranks of the students of public affairs, and so I ! asked him what was his reason tor so suddenly ceasing to take an active interest in matters political. With a look of ineftable weariness he replied — " Why, my dear F., they- have actually \ sent out the latest number of Hansard without cutting the leaves, and to be compelled to use a paper knife when I am reading the speeches of our representatives is more than I can stand. I j don't like to—but I fear I must— give | up the political researches to which I have been accustomed to devote a considerable amount of my time for mauy years past." The jolly old humbug ! He actually believed he was taking me in, aud little thought that in him I recognised the type of a certain pretentious class of people who are ready enough to avail themselves of any piece of information that may be thrust under their noses, but will not take the slightest trouble to acquire a substantial and useful knowledge of what is going on around them. I didn't sympathise with him much, whereat he appeared to be disappointed. P.