New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4591, 7 December 1875, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) TUESDAY, DECEMBER 7.

Mb. Travers’ address to the electors elicited more sympathy from the audience than did that of Mr. Gisborne ; yet even that sympathy was not very pronounced for Mr. Travers, and as a matter of fact his speech in itself was not so good as that of Mr. Gisborne. But Mr. Travers talked to his audience after the manner of a fervid advocate, who in the warmth of his manner is accustomed to atone for the complete want of coherence in .his arguments; and accordingly Mr. Travers obtained more favor from his audience in that he at least kept them awake. His speech was a very long one, but for ajl that was contained in it, might have been spoken in one-eighth the time, and would doubtless have been so said, were it not for the peculiar professional training of Mr. Travers, which tends to repeat some particular point fifty times over in different words. In short, he cannot get out of the habit of talking to juries; and, as such, absolutely hammering away at some particular circumstance that may lead them away from the main issue, and save his client. In the instance under notice, this habit was probably exaggerated by the fact that Mr. Travers had himself for a client. That being so, in one point at least, he did not earn his fee, and the special pleading acumen with which he. is highly gifted, failed him. In the first place, situated as he is, he would have done better to have let the education question alone ; in the second place, having made up his mind to touch upon it, he should have done so with no uncertain sound. As it is, he has succeeded in offending those whose block vote was to have placed himself and Mr. Gisborne at the head of the poll, and he has not conciliated the secularists. His theory, professed to be derived from Huxley, of having the Bible road in schools as a geographical and historical text-book, with a tapu placed upon any theological interpretation of its text will suit no party and displease all. Shifty as Mr. Gisborne in some respects lias been,

he has yet managed in this matter to keep his compact with his original backer’s better than has Mr. Teavers, as the latter will presently find but. The carrying out of his plan would be an abomination to the denominationalists, as it would be a mere farce in the eyes of the secularists. For the rest of Mr, Travers speech there needs but little to be said. All that he advanced with regard to a change in the incidence of taxation is but what everyone admits, and what we have advocated ; but, unluckily, Mr. Travers past political reputation militates against the acceptance of his present candidature, even though he professes adherence to principles which obtain general support. In fact, in this case Mr Travers himself destroys the wholesome effect of the very excellent principles he lays down, and he does this because he is Mr Travers. His position, indeed, may be described in vulgar though expressive language. The electors, warned by the past, will tell him on the polling day that fine words butter no parsnips, and that, politically, they know him better than they trust him. His effort, by means of a pretty map, to prove the injustice done to Wellington in carrying out the public works scheme would have been more effective had he based his statements on a foundation of fact instead of . trusting to imagination and pure pigment. The continual iteration on the subject of Major Atkinson’s glibeness came badly from one who is himself so frequently merely a voice and nought besides, and was ridiculous when applied to one who, whatever he may be, is certainly not glib. In short, in writing of Mr. Teavers’ speech, wo but express the general opinion of those who heard him, and that was this : That whenever he spoke sound political doctrine, it would have carried weight with it only that it was spoken by Mr. Teavers, and that (and this was his habitual habit) whenever he talked what was very unsound and very specious—well it was only Mr. Travers still.