Passion in Politics.

Patea Mail, 11 March 1882, Page 3

Passion in Politics.

The fact that the Judges disbelieved most of the witnesses for the petition in the Wanganui election inquiry is not surprising, when the evidence is viewed dispassionately from outside the healed politicla atmosphere of Wanganui. It must be allowed that the charges were trivial rather than serious, and that they were not free from that perverse bias which seems inseparable from politics. When a contest is severe, and passions get heated, there is a leniency to misconstrue the simplest acts and the lightest words of an opponent. Candour and magnanimity are not sufficiently practised in small communities. A very little knot of virulent partisans may make a place unfit to live in. They nnrse their bitterness till they fancy it is virtue. They go to church as a social duty, but the benign precept to forgive their enemies is not practised : it is thought to apply to the other pew. They do notdislinguish between opinions and facts. Even their suspicions become orthodox by frequent assertion. They are like those other persons who travel far and see nothing. The principle of give-and-take is thought to be a weakness—except as to the taking. What can be done with the political partisan ? If you pray over him, he rather likes it. If you pray at him, yon are imitating his own evil habit. He wants a special providence to come down —more likely to come up—and sweep away his enemies. His enemies are all the world, except his own little clique. If you look over his fence, yon are wicked. If ho looks over yonrs, he is privileged to spie out your goings-on, and tattle as if they were an awful discovery. That is the difference between the partisan and the man of average common-sense. There is no help for it but to let him alone. He is important only when yon notice him.