THE YOUNG NEW ZEALAND PARTY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 5835, 11 December 1879, Page 2

THE YOUNG NEW ZEALAND PARTY.

It is a marvellous variety troupe that which plays on the boards of the Parliamentary Theatre. There is constantly a change of performance, some novelty, soma surprise, somebody in some new character. There can be no dearth of public amusement so long as the threat combination company at Wellington caters for the public entertainment. In tragedy or farce it is alike successful, the death of Governments, or bogus motions for grants of indefinite amount. What with motions of want of confidence, and expulsion of Governments and attempts to expel Ministries, and Government and Opposition caucuses, and light comedy at the expense of Mr. Hurst till i o'clock in the morning, and curious returns of telegrams, quite by mistake, and trips to Oliristchurch, to see the races, in the Hinemoa, it is always giving us something new, sensational, emotional, or amusing. The latest bill is the "Young New Zealand Party," with Mr. De Lautour as the heavy father, and the immaculate Mr. Lundon as Peter Simple. The piece ha 3 a taking title—" Virtue its own Reward." We have heard of a " Know-nothing party," and a " Stonewall party," and the " Grey party," and " the Auckland phalanx," and now we are to have the " Take-nothing party"—the party of self-denial—with Messrs. Tole aud Speight as living statues, with outstretched hands—empty but bearing the inscription " Air hands clean V Cynicism described patriotism as " the last refuge of a scoundrel." A Trenchman thus defined Man—"a damned scoundrel." Let us have no more of either. Virtue, which, like the dove, has vainly sought dry land for its foot, at last obtains security and repose in the tanks of the "Young New Zealand Party." A joke ! Nothing of the kind. Would Lundon trifle, with purity at stake and the Bay of Islands spectators ? The Macandrew party having died in parturition, and the Middle Party haying turned out like Johannah Southcote's Shiloh, a case of flatulency, a new party is in course of incubation, which is neither to seek office nor take office, nor admit any man who has ever held office. Old members it repudiates, it refuses to honor its father, the case for the mother is not stated. Rats—it eschews rats. Greybeards and rodents it will have none of. Office means patronage, power, and pelf—the incipient Oatos eschew it. Happier than Gomorrah of old, which lost salvation for want of one righteous man, New Zealand has an assortment, and all in their prime. For tortuosity and eccentricity of conception commend us to this last freak of wayward legislators. It has not hitherto been deemed an offence for men to have served their country or to a-pire to do so. It has been supposed that the object is one which the noblest and the best may aim at, if the means used to attain it be not unworthy. As a satire on the "reed of those who care not hov/ they clamber on to the Treasury benches, who depose a leader or colleague, or sacrifice a friend, who tout in the lobbies, bribe, threaten, and cajole—such a party would speed a poisoned arrow, but, seriously designed for the * object with which it is credited, it would be one of those things of which it could be said that " the force of folly could no further go." But, really, if the persons who are good enough to fool the country at the seat of Government have not, like Cyrus, having become men put aside boyish things., let us keep them out of mischief by supplying them with marbles and skittles, even at the extravagant cost of £2lO per head. Men whose sins have come home to them, who have quailed under the sense of their iniquities, have, before now, in a repentant mood, assumed the monastic habit and sought the consoling obscurity of a cowl and a shaven head, sanginuary conquerors, debauched monarchs, statesmen out of gear. But repentant legislators content to look on whilst others skimmed the milk, to accept the fate of Lazarus while others, at the country's cost, fared sumptuously every day, to hear the chink of ministerial coin in others' pockets whilst theirs was but a virtuous void, to scent the odour of the viands, hear the revelry of the feast, to note the honor and the pride of place, power, influence, and repute, and paS3 on perfectly serene and placidly content—it is an age of wonders, but all would be eclipsed when political asceticism took the place of political greed, and personal purity usurped the place of public intrigue. We could understand Mark Anthony resisting the seductive graces of the queenly Cleopatra, we could understand a Guelph being a model of domestic virtue, we could realise Napoleon being content at St. Helena, but Tole [turning up his nose at office, and Speight saying " no" to any good thing—we could not. It is not given, even to members of Parliament, to transcend the capacities for virtue of that very poor thing—man. A lenient country asks no huge sacrifice of those whom it delights to honor with the trappings of senatorial rank. Augustus demanded of Varus to give him back his legions. Constituencies less exacting ask of their representatives no sacrifice of hope of place, but just the pay not earned last session, that is all. The youthful party has given us a good joke at a dull season, but if it is hungering and thirsting after virtue, let it not aim so high, but give us an instalment by giving us back that pay as a proof of its repentant spirit.—TV. Z. Herald.