CRUEL KINDNESS. Mr.Duthie Dragged Forth from Retirement.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 112, 23 August 1902, Page 8

CRUEL KINDNESS. Mr. Duthie Dragged Forth from Retirement.

AFTER all, the press of the world which has recently been holding New Zealand " advanced legislation " up as a universal pattern cannot be sincere. There are indications in Wellington that we don't deserve our legislative pedestal, and that politics is only a nice smooth synonym for "corruption." This must not be, and the soothsayers want to dig us out of the political mud.

Assuming that the said soothsayers never wander from the truth, and that Parliament badly wants purification, it is unkind at least of those who assume to say distinctly that the only pure side in politics — the Opposition — have no one amongst them who can undertake the contract. They threaten the Government with Mr. John Duthie. No one is likely to gainsay the fact that Mr. Duthie, who is again girding on his political armour, is not a man of " sterling honesty," and all the rest of it, but it is rough on his colleagues (that are to

be) to requite a corrective agency that none are deemed fit to supply. * * * Mr. Duthie retired from the political arena on account of failing health. He personally wished to remain in retirement. His friends cruelly drag him forth as an ameliorator, and he, compelled by a sense of his duty to his fellow men, consents. Mr. Duthie is to be, if possible, put into Parliament to "raise the tone " of politics, the politics that have made the world's press write miles of leading articles in laudation. Have the friends of Mr. Duthie really considered what it all means ? ♦ # * Is Mr. Duthie, wi'h one vigorous blow, to destroy the fame of Parliament, to disclose to the nations the hideous skeleton which has reposed so long and unexpectedly in the political cupboard? Say not so. If the candidate for the city has been forced by a sense of duty to the front, isn't it somewhat cruel of the people who have badgered, him into it to expect him to resume the harassing political life which was so prejudicial to his health years ago ? No one, of course, will be absurd enough to object to a brainy man of business coming forward as a candidate, but when his supporters cut his cloth for him, and expect him to make a coat according to their pattern, they give him a steep contract. • • • Assuming there is nothing pure enough in the " House " now, Mr. Duthie should morally be supplied with a wing to himself. To impose upon one man a fight of such large proportions is not kind. Perhaps, who knows, the " wing " may have another member in Mr. John Crewes ? Mr. Crewes has thrown the gauntlet down in very determined fashion. He says, with delightful ingenuousness : "As there are in our community several persons who think that they know more than I do about the industrial, commercial, social, and political affairs of the colony, I hope that they will place against me the best-informed man among them, and let us have a fair opportunity to test each other's knowledge and ability to promote the good of the constituency and the colony." • • • Surely not one of those "several persons " will dare to stoop for the Newtown gauntlet ! If there is a man who is more admirable than the local Admirable Crichton, bring him forth. No response ? Then up goes Mr. John Crewes. Mr. Crewes is not quite sure whether he'll be able to give time to Parliamentary business, but if a very strong deputation, consisting of seven-eighths of the people of the southern suburb, could sign a requisition to implore him, even though no one of equal talents should r come forth, to sink every other consideration, and help to dig with Mr. Duthie, to extricate us from the political mire, there would be less sleeplessness among electors over the lax morality- okParliament.