The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING, GISBORNE, MONDAY, JUNE 2. THE CANDIDATES—MR. REES.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 146, 2 June 1884, Page 2

The Telephone. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING, GISBORNE, MONDAY, JUNE 2. THE CANDIDATES—MR. REES.

The three candidates'for the honor of representing this constituency have delivered their primary addresses on the public platform, and are now in active canvass throughout the electorate. The first address of each may be deemed the basis of his whole policy as being delivered in the densest centre of the electors, all that follows at centres of less importance must necessarily be mere repetitions of first utterances, embellished only by small gildings to suit the more local circumstances, grievances, or wants surrounding the various suburban centres of the constituency, Accepting this as',the position, we may fairly consider that the views of each is before us. Strained no doubt by each to suit their several circumstances, and also by what, in their opinion, is the best course of policy to ensure what each aim at, to head the poll. Mr. Rees came upon the platform the first in order, at a time when parties were much agitated and divided upon the question of Sir Julius Vogel’s candidature. Mistaking the general public feeling upon this question, Mr. Rees launched at once into the chivalrous and belligerent. “ Like Homer’s hero, he does spurn all laws, And by the sword alone asserts his cause.”

The self-sufficiency of such a course was too apparent to the electors for one moment to deceive them, and all the eloquence used to mislead, fell upon untuned ears. To attempt to review, point by point, the subjects of Mr. Rees’s address, would be tedious and unnecessary. That Dlr. Rees did not lack any of his usual apparently earnest and flowing eloquence all admit, but to deny the mistimed egotism of his claims, is more than any of his most staunch supporters are prepared to do. To quote from the poets “ Demades, the orator, by studying in his whole administration to please the Macedonians and Antipater had great authority in Athens. He often found himself, by that complaisance, compelled to propose laws and make speeches injurious to the dignity and virtue of his country.” Demades was the very man who wrecked his country. He pursued such a vicious plan in his public conduct that Antipater scrupled not to say of him “ that he was like a sacrificed beast all consumed except his tongue and his paunch.” Veteran politician though he be, Mr. Rees has misjudged and wrongly timed the pulse of the electorate body. In piivate life a more genial companion than Mr. Rees none could desire. In public matters of business and in politics he is far too sanguine and visionary; obstacles of the greatest magnitude are as nought in theory with him. In the actual practice of their removal or the accomplishment of all he promises he signally fails. The inconsistency of his policy has been too clearly pointed out by one of the opposing candidates to need further comment by us. Mr. Rees is too closely identified with certain institutions having too many exceedingly blunt axes to grind to expect the electors will entrust him with their suffrages. His voyages on the political sea have been of too tempestuous a nature, Flying Dutchman-like, unhavened and erratic for us to freight his barque with our political welfare. Too petrel-like has been his career—- “ From billows bound to billows cast, He finds a home on the stormy blast.”