SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1901. MR. HUTCHESON ON THE STUMP. A Melancholy Story.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 46, 18 May 1901, Page 8

SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1901. MR. HUTCHESON ON THE STUMP. A Melancholy Story.

IN the social amenities of life, or in the ordinary intercourse of citizenship, Mr John Hutcheson is just as nice and as jovial a fellow as you would chance across in a long day's march But the Mr. John Hutcheson of politics is quite a different sort of individual. Judging him by his utterances from the platform last Friday night, he seems to be afflicted with political hypochondria of quite a severe type. The picture he drew of Parliament and public affairs was unrelieved by any bright or hopeful features Everything was invested in funereal gloom . » * • Bribery and jobbery were the chief agencies in legislation That legislation itself was, of course, iniquitous. The Premier dominated everything He is "a man for whom nothing is too paltry." His followers are "tongue-tied" ; they are "a soft and jelly-fish party" ; they are "the blind followers who do the brutish will of their master" , the Government whips are "hired suborners," and "sycophancy, hypocrisy, crawling— not merit" are to be the future tests for employment by the State." It will be remarked that Mr. Hutcheson's vocabulary of abuse is copious, and that he has developed into a political scold of the most virulent type. ♦ * * But the senior member never does anything by halves. It is the whole animal or nothing with him. When he first stood as a candidate for Wellington City he bestowed his panegyrics upon Mr Seddon with just the same lavish prodigality with which now he hurls abuse at his devoted head Yet, the Premier has not changed one iota in those few years that cover the political evolution of the senior member for Wellington The "big-hearted, broadshouldered man," for whom Mr Hutcheson professed the profoundcst admiration and the warmest attachment in 1896, is just the same Mr Seddon, with no shrinkage of either heart or girth, that Mr. Hutcheson now rails and ieers at • • J * Nor, has the party, with whom Mr. Hutcheson was proud to associate himself just five years ago, changed in character It has grown very much larger, of course, thus showing; how firmly the country believes in Mr Seddon and his Government, but the party is practically the same — minus Mr. Hutcheson, of course Yet, now its members arc blind, tongue-tied, and soft as jellyfish Wonderful transformation ! • ♦ • However, it is a peculiarity of Mr Hutcheson's political malady to take sudden and strange dislikes to his political friends and leaders In the present Parliament, he joined the Opposition party, commanded by Captain Russell, and yet now he has suddenly turned upon his new leader, denounces him as a failure and a hindrance, and, with the most charming candour, calls upon him to make the supreme sacrifice of political suicide ♦ * * The pith of the whole matter seems to be that Mr Hutcheson suffers from political nightmare In the field of politics everything is awry " The time ib out of joint. 0 wi etched spite, That ever I wa& bom to put it right." He sees visions, and dreams dreadful dreams. Everybody is doing the wrong thing but himself. That is

only in politics, however In the wide-awake, work-a-day world, when John Hutcheson forgets he is a politician, and attends to his ordinary business and the duties of citizenship, he gets quite rid of these morbid notions, and finds he is living m a very pleasant little colony, governed most admirably, and peopled by the very nicest and straightest lot of men and women one could wish to meet.