PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1880. POLITICAL LEADERS.

Patea Mail, 15 July 1880, Page 2

PATEA COUNTY MAIL PUBLISHED Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1880. POLITICAL LEADERS.

Public speaking ought to be classed among the fine arts. Some men seem to be born to it. They have the divine gift of eloquent expressiveness in a superlative degree. Nothing comes amiss to them. They express ideas with a lucid force that captivates if it do not convince. They might rank as poets who do not speak in “ numbers,” But all this carries a qualification, for your born orator may not be a wise man. and experience shows that he often is too dreamy and impracticable for every-day business. Mr Gladstone is eloquent and very practical. Sir George Grey is eloquent but not very practical. Some of the most sagacious politicians in this colony are not endowed with the gift of eloquence. Those who happen to be facile talkers are first pushed into office because they have caught the ear of Parliament or of the populace. They got the first opportunity ior proving their capacity to manage public affairs, and if the capacity be there, they realise the old truism that great emergencies produce great men. But a politician who talks himself into office must justify his elevation by something more than talk; else he will blunder himself back to the ranks.

An interesting competition is going on just now at Wellington. The Opposition is in need of a leader who shall bo powerful in speech, able in business, and clever in those manoeuvres which are called tactics. Several competitors are striving for the leading position, but no single man among the Liberals in the House is sufficiently distinguished in the requisite qualities to command general support. The best of them arc second-rate. Until a really able leader be forthcoming, that party is likely to remain the undisciplined rabble that it now is. We should consider it a misfortune to the colony if Sir George Grey were again at tlie head of a party in power. He is a clever man, but not a wise politician. We believe he is honest, but your honest enthusiast may do much mischief in public affairs by following a will-o’-tlie-whisp of his own ardent fancy. The Opposition are withbut a real head, and are not in a condition to take office. They are strong enough, however, to embarrass the Government by various factious movements, and by raising hollow questions of no-confidence. These stale tricks are not reputable, and have a tendency to disgust that respectable intellectual support which might fa irly be relied on outside the Chambers. So far as the session has gone, the Opposition have cut a sorry figure; and it is desirable that independent journals should let them know it. The Government have been gaining strength, so far. Their actions since the session opened are based evidently on good intentions, and until the details of their proposed measures come to be discussed in committee, there will be no strong dissatisfaction felt in the colony at what they are doing. Their Royal

Commissions are resulting in some good and some harm. The Commission device does not inspire confidence, because it is not.a satisfactory process of settling any vexed question. None of their reports can bo adopted en bloc, with safety to the Colony or with credit to the Government. The enquiry has been so defective in each instance —re the Railways, the Civil Service, the native claims to land—that no court of law would be justified in pronouncing a verdict on such evidence; and we hold.that no Government ought to accept and act on evidence that has not been fairly obtained and properly sifted. For example, the recommendations as to native claims on the West Coast are based on evidence some of which is notoriously bad, and all of which was obtained on the principle of inviting each claimant to tell his story, and accepting it as gospel. That is maudlin nonsense. Again, many of the so-called “ facts ” on which the Civil Service report is based are already shown to be either groundless or inaccurate assurapsions. No man likes evidence to be heard against him in secret; yet it is on such evidence that the Civil Service would be reformed, if that report were to be acted on. That report is a valuable document, speaking generally, but see how much its value as a whole is reduced, when parts of it are shown to grossly wrong ! If some u facts ”be erroneous, how shall we know which others are worth acting on, and which arc not ? It is a mischievous principle to appoint a Commission, to allow it to take insufficient evidence, and so to deceive Parliament into false legislation. Ministers ought to have known better, as practical politicians ; and the Commissioners are individually blamable for adopting a procedure which they would not like to have applied against themselves. Yet Parliament would surely cap these blundeis if legislative effect were to be given to them as they stand.

A ROYAL BURLESQUE. The Eailway Commissioners arc preparing a lengthly report for presentation to Parliament. That report will deal with the West Coast Eailway, and may contain recommendations as to disputed Station sites at several places. Itappears to us necessary to make a protest against this report, not for what it will contain, but for the manner in which the Commissioners obtained evidence as to disputed routes and disputed sites for Stations. That Commission has done its work in a manner which has made it the laughing-stock of the colony. It has been a ridiculous attempt to unsettle the previous railway policy, and to do it upon hasty, one-sided, insufficient evidence picked up by Commissioners during a flying visit through the islands. This is what they did at Patea. They arrived on a Sunday, and the only person they had warned of their coming was the Chairman of the County Council. He met them about Sunday noon, and the Chairman of the Harbor Board was also sent for and joined them. The Chairman of the Town Board refused to see them because he was not officially invited to do so. From the two chairmen they got certain statements on a disputed question as to which was the better side of the Patea river for a Station. They went on to a hill, looked over the river valley, returned to lunch, and went away some time in the afternoon. Upon that evidence, obtained from two persons representing only one view of the question, they were prepared, as they said, to make certain recommendations to the Government, if maps and written statements could be forwarded to the Commissioners setting forth what had been told them viva voce. Upon that one-sided evidence, obtained in ridiculously one-sided manner, and, obtained too on a Sunday, when they could not make anyofficial record of theirvisit because it was Sunday, they wore prepared to make certain recommendations to Government, These would probably have upset the plans the Government had already fixed. Parliament would have been told that the Commission had carefully enquired; The local Chairmen

who had that interview did not follow up the invitation to send plans, &c. They saw how unfair was the mode of enquiry —hearing only two witnesses, on one side, and stopping throe hours on a Sunday—and the Chairmen took no farther action. They would not snatch an unfair advantage, even at the invitation of a Royal Commission. This is a sample of governing by Royal Commissions, and a bad sample it is. It is no worse than the burlesque inquity they attempted to make atNorraanby; while Hawera was treated even more scurvily by having not even the form of an enquiry, This thing has been carried too far. Will one of those Commissioners kindly inform us, in confidence, what was their real object in running through this district at a speed a Commissioner might adopt if a bailiff were after him ?

WILL THE ROADS MEET ? Those Roads are a long time meeting on the Plains. Travellers coming down by way of Parihaka have been assuring us these three weeks past that the roads were on the point of joining ; that they would meet the next week, or certainly within a day or two after. Yet they didn’t. Are we to blame the roads, or the travellers, or those who have been trying not to make the roads meet ? The last length of road has been an unconscionable time in hand. Perhaps some parties up there are unwilling to leave the job. Mr Hamlin, for example, looked at those unfinished ends with a critical eye, it being his mission to spy out the bad places in the Government work ; yet he was led to believe the roads would meet within a mile of Parihaka before he could reach Wellington to report to the House. Other persons who have been on the spot have brought similar information. Neither Maoris nor weather can be held accountable for these delays. The fencing has not been at the point where the roads are to meet. Has Minister Bryce been waiting till the Maoris ceased their fencing manoeuvres ? because if so, they will not stop “ trying it on ” till a now Native Minister Jets them see that Government is not to be trifled with. They know they can take' any liberties with Mr Bryce, and they know that their amiable friend Mr Parris is equally squeezable.