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New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4544, 13 October 1875, Page 2

Me. Vincent Pyke, M.H.R, is a gentleman who is not careful in criticising the action of others, and can be virtuously indignant at any conduct to which he objects. His criticism of Mr. Vogel, re the mail contract the other night, was trenchant. Mr. Vogel has been Premier, and may be so again. Mr. Pyke has not been Minister for Mines, and the knowledge that he never will be has not produced a depressing effect upon the national finances, though the realisation of that knowledge might be depressing to Mr. Pyke, who considers that the guiding hand of providence will be recognised when a portfolio of mines is created and he is placed in possession of it. Because these things are so, however, should not be an objection to Mr. Pyke’s criticising Mr. Vogel, or anybody or anything else, except the sale of the Port Chalmers railway, and of course to Mr. Pyke that sale should not be criticised further. But whilst Mr. Pyke is thus entitled to his pleasure in criticising others, it is scarcely fair that he should quarrel with the criticisms of others on himself. And yet he does so. He recently wrote to the Town Clerk of Queenstown, the chief town of his district, and having promised to do his best to get a courthouse and gaol for that place, he went on to say: “I may add that it affords but slight encouragement to a representative, and must inevitably weaken his influence with the Government, when discontented, capricious individuals and a hostile Press parade such ill-feeling and unfair comments, and indulge in such unjustifiable remarks as appear in the report of the meeting and the columns of the Wakatip Mail. I shall do my duty. It is only right that the people and the Press should do the same.” It is iut fair to suppose that what Mr. Pyke complains of was written out of a sense of duty, and seems unfair and unjustifiable only to Mr. Pyke himself. He would probably be very much surprised if he were accused of parading ill-feeling, and of being unfair and unjust, and yet there is no doubt but that in the minds of many he has been all three. Indeed, this is the case not only as regards his speeches, but his writings. By “ starring” his name as editor under the heading of a Dunedin weekly paper, he of his own accord deprived himself of anonymity in connection with that journal, and the opinion was very prevalent at the time that Mr. Pyke printed his name conspicuously as editor of the Southern Mercury t that it was a journal rather remarkable for illfeeling and unfair and unjustifiable comment. Mr. Pyke should really not be so sensitive to a little gentle chastening. The adage is old, but apt, “ Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”,'

The editor of the Timaru Herald looks upon some of the speeches made by the Opposition leaders against the Abolition Bill as “ concentrated essence of humbug.” This is a free country, where each man is entitled to the fair expression of his opinion, and the editor of the Timaru Herald had an inalienable right to express his. 'He will therefore not deny the right to a free expression of opinion on the part of some of the Opposition leaders, who have been credited with saying that his leaders have generally been characterised by a fine contempt for fact, and an equally fine opinion of Mr. Stafford., As between the editor and some of the Opposition leaders, it is worth observing how differently different men look at different things.,