THE WAKEFIELD POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 279, 23 November 1881, Page 2

THE WAKEFIELD POLITICAL ASSOCIATION.

To the Editok of xhe "Evening Mail." Sib,—l have been waiting for the manifesto of thia association, for now is tho time for action. Where are Mr Lighthand and his patriots ? Some months since I read in the Evening Mail some wise sayioga, s&id to have fallen from the pen of Mr Gladstone end the !aia Lord Baacongfield, he, Beaconsfield, having laid down this precept. " Great men should think of opportunity and not of time. Time is the excuße for feebla and puzzled spirits." I would recommend this observation to the Wakefleld Association. Let them well consider the Maori affair which appears to me to be an electioneering dodge. What has been doua now could havo been years ago ; but dow ccc what our great men in power bavo done— Settled the Maori quttti-m f,r ever I The hou the Premier has put tbe cloture on the Maoris, as wail ai on Parliament ! We have another Napoleon in the distanca. But I think our Premier is only playing at Bee-saw, for while one end of the political plank riaes, the other goes

6own, for I read in an Australian paper of the 22nd October this paragraph, "Immigration to here from New Zealand continues. The steamer Waks.tipa arrived here la?t evening bringing 125 steerage paggeagers and a full complement in the salr-on." Jiere ia only one of the hundred of losses to New Zealand, for the »»'. raß raph says tbat this Immigration continues," so it seem 3 to hare been go'-,,g 0G a ] 0I)g t j tne 'When we see P Gr 'ple flying from a ccuutry by thousands it is to avoid the oppression of a reck J es3 j government. The sin lies with the Government, not with the people. The people catmot reconcile themselves to this Redistribution of Seats BiH; which, in itself, was unjust and uncalled for ; not so much the Sill itself £s the chture by which it wns forced through the House: for after this it was useless to talk about '-free institutions." Tne people look at this cloiure 83 a rivt t to the chain of slavery, and they fly from their adopted country to avoid the threatened oppression. But I fear tbe Wakefisld Association will prove something like a lucifer match ; and cow, I want to know what has become of our great city patriots, who, at the last political meetings held in the Provincial Hall, talked so much about unity! They seem to me to be srmething like an idle cat, never cqueals until some one treads on its tail, or a careless soldier, who goas into the field of battle witboat ammunition. If the members of tbe Wakefield Association bad seen as much of politics as I bavo Been ; the abuses and corruption of power to ioflicfc evil and oppression on the innocent and industrious, they would, with Robert Southey, exclaim: " I feel indignant : I sicken : I blush At tbe paiiance of humanity." I have a great deal to say to this Wakefield Association, but at present will not ask for farther space.— Yours, &c , Simplb Simox.