New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4823, 6 September 1876, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6.

Mr. Reader Wood has not in him an idea that can rise above the pettiest level. A man, a gentleman (the designation he himself so frequently uses), with anything in him beyond the moat ordinary, would have refrained from speaking yesterday as ho did. What though every word he uttered in mingled bathos, bombast, and bounce, in mixed-wp rapidity and venom, against Sir Julius yesterday, was not the time for saying them, and he was not the man from whom they should have come. In some respects it was just as well, however, that Mr. Wood should have acted as he did. His having done so showed him in his true color. The thin veneering which time has enabled him to adopt, and which occasionally qualifies him to appear

as a statesman, fell off, and we had .only the fretful senility which differs little from the spite of childhood. He had an opportunity for seeming to be great—he availed himself of it to show his infinitesimal httleness. Silence to a departing foe would have entitled him to respect; a tribute to the worth of a generous enemy would not. have been unbecoming. But Mr. Wood can neither earn ■ respect . nor»act becomingly. And yet a retrospect of his own career might have taught him discretion if not dignity. Does he remember hia celebrated statement about the confiscated lands when he was Colonial Treasurer i He parcelled them out beautifully for the future. They were to have filled half-a-dozen different purposes. They were to have paid the national debt, settled a race of yeomen on the soil, and been a security for borrowing during all time to come. Where are those visions now 1 The less Mr. Wood prates about financial statements the better. And as for. consistency, why, who could couple the name of Reader Wood with it? .Where is his consistency on the abolition question ? Stowed away somewhere together with Sir George Grey’s affection for the human race; equally incomprehensible and equally unapparent. Mr. Wood yesternay was continual in his assertions as to how gentlemen should act. No gentleman would care to follow the example he set. There was a snobbishness that was disgusting about the manner in which he continually arrogated to himself a title to which he has no claim. Your true gentleman is considerate of others, regardless of himself, four brummagem imitation of the real thing is ever self-assertive of its unearned- title. Mr. Wood may at some future time be regarded as the first gentleman of New Zealand. That time will be when no one worthy of the name remains in the colony. Messrs. Wakefield and Rees said exactly what was to be expected from them. It has become a ; chronic impossibility for either gentleman to address the House without violating good taste, and in the case of Mr. Rees outraging every feeling which should conduce to decency of speech; But both gentlemen have this excuse. Each has his petty spite against a statesman, who is to him as Ossa to a wart, and neither can lose an opportunity, houndlike, of snapping at the heels of their superior in every sense. Both were loud on the degradation of the New Zealand Parliament. It is not for us to assert that the Parliament has not of late suffered degradation. It has, for it has been dragged ‘through the mire by the utterances of persons of the Wakefield and Rees stamp, of which utterances the Premier truly said that the sooner they were forgotten the better it would be for the credit of the colony. -