PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, October 1, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 983, 1 October 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, October 1, 1881.

Mr. McDonald addressed the Gisborne portion of his constituency on Thursday evening last, a full report of which appears in our other columns. We have not room for any extended remarks on either the proceedings or the issue. But we may state that beyond having kept his promise to the electors, there is little to be said in favour of the sitting member for East Coast. Of course the meeting was Mr. McDonald’s own, and it is only natural that a large number of those present would support him—with tumult, and interference with independent speakers, if with nothing else — while the remainder either demonstrated in his favour, from a kind of contagious influence, or were silent as to any definite expression of opinion. Certainly a lamer, or more impotent and inconclusive address never parted the lips of any speaker, not excepting Mr McDonald himself. It w’as thought that experience would have brought him wisdom, but Mr. McDonald proved, most self-assertively, on Thursday night that he is still far away from home, not only on the minutiae of parliamentary practice, but in a knowledge of the general tenor of what a politician’s parliamentary duty really is. And in no instance was his ignorance so painfully exhibited as when undergoing the purgatory of Mr. Gannon’s cross-examination, when he positively broke down in his attempt to excuse himself for having, first of all, “ ratted” from the Grey Government, throwing bis allegiance in with the Hall Ministry, and then turning round on them wdien the exigencies of his “ party ” demanded it. In fact Mr McDonald is but a modern edition of that kind of Vicar of Bray —above all characters in the political world the least to be trusted—who shelters his defection under the assumed virtue of necessity. Mr McDonald left no doubt of this on the minds of his

hearers, for he repeated, in substance, and in words, that whatever Government might be inppo r er, he would stick to it until he saw it was about to fall, and then go through the transformation scene of the pantomime, changing from the harlequinade of the one to the pantaloon of the other. A good deal of capital was sought to be made for Mr. McDonald by his friends, in regard to his action on the Crown and Native Land Rating Bill, the Harbor Bill, and the fact of there being the sum of £20,000 on the Estimates for this district ; but none of the claims put forth met with anything like approval, except by those who were bent on excluding ought that would tell against their pet object—namely the return of Mr. McDonald at all hazards, whether he had done right, or whether he had done wrong. The spectacle of a sitting member of Parliament, struggling against an innate consciousness of political defect, giving an account of his stewardship before a small band of noisy supporters and adherents, determined to make him believe he enjoys the confidence of the body of the electors, is one of the most pitiable. We pitied Mr. McDonald, because, knowing the extreme sensitiveness of his nature so well, he evidently felt in the position of an accused, who had previously acknowledged his guilt, butdenied it when he heard what his advocate said in his defence.

Taking, then, the result of the meeting as one unctuously flattering to Mr. McDonald—whatever that may be worth —it will be equally unsatisfactory if what was said is accepted by those at a distance as the outspoken voice of the electors. The Harbor Board Bill w r as the last peg on which the tattered shred of Mr. McDonald’s political reputation hung; but it had to bear the superincumbent weight of all his Parliamentary backslidings and misdeeds as well, and it may prove of some temporary service to him, except in the estimation of those able to look beneath the surface of affairs.

We propose to deal at length on this matter, in a future issue ; but we would now ask if Mr. McDonald, and his vituperative henchman —Mr. Rees —hold, as they say they do, that the financial salvation of Poverty Bay depended on such a Harbor Board Bill, as the illegitimate bantling nursed by Mr. McDonald, becoming law, why did he allow two months of the Session to elapse before introducing it, and then in such a hole-and-corner way that the electors —whom Mr. McDonald accuses of want of support —knew nothing about until it was before the House ?