South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2714, 30 November 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1881.

Ix has now been proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that Mr John Shelton Gibson, the latest aspirant for the honor of representing the electors of Timaru in the House of Representatives, is a thorough-paced Conservative, and like most Conservatives his political opinions, and especially those given utterance to on the eve of a general election, are as unstable as water. Mr Gibson protests too much. His political education evidently only recently acquired—is extremely defective. His new party have found him an apt pupil, but a very indiscreet one, as we shall presently show. Mr Gibson is, we believe, a Scotchman, and in his present position he will be able to realise the full force of the following lines : “ Oh wad some power the giftie gie us To see o ..sel’s as ithers see us; It wad frae mony a blunder free us, And foolish notion.” We have no desire to be unduly severe on Mr Gibson, who, in his private character, we have nothing to say against; but when Mr Gibson, or anyone else, seeks to be made the guardian of the interests of over six

thousand people, his actions and his utterances become public property, and as such they are proper subjects for public criticism. Having said this, we shall proceed to review Mr Gibson’s speech. In the first place we admire the candour of the speaker in his opening remarks about his opponent, Mr Turnbull, and we reproduce that portion of the speech. Mr .Gibson said :

“He had nothing to say against the late member, Mr Turnbull, and it was simply to. gratify the wish of those who asked him to come forward that he did so. He had hitherto supported Mr Turnbull, and he approved of his actions in the past. People had been asking what Mr Turnbull had done for the place. In reply he would ask what a single member could be expected to do. The power of an individual member was circumscribed, and he believed Mr Turnbull had done his very best.” It will thus be seen that instead of Mr Gibson being an opponent of Mr Turnbull he should be a supporter ef that gentleman ,as he “approved of his actions in the past, but only came forward to gratify the wish of those who asked him.” How kind of Mr Gibson ! What sweet simplicity. When we heard this statement we at once concluded that the “ Herald ” and the Hall bait had not been taken, and that the election would resolve itself into a question of men, not measures, as the views of both candidates would be exactly similar—particularly as Mr Gibson “ approved of Mr Turnbull’s actions in the past.” Pardon us for repeating the words. To our astonishment, however, Mr Gibson struck out a line totally opposite to Mr Turnbull on the question of taxation. He declared himself strongly in favor of the present property tax, whereas Mr Turnbull had always opposed that obnoxious system of taxation. Yet Mr Gibson “ approved of Mr Turnbull’s actions in the past.” The bait had taken, fulsome flattery and patronising speeches had done their work, and liberal J. S. Gibson had been converted into conservative Mr J. S. Gibson. In short, the Mr Gibson of the future was henceforth not to be known as the Mr Gibson of the past. We never make statements without being able to prove them, and the proof of Mr Gibson’s political conversion is given in another column. When Mr Gibson advocated the Liberal cause he was the most determined opponent of the property tax in Timaru, and the most clamorous advocate for a land and income tax in lieu of a property tax. About eighteen months ago, Mr Gibson, with several others, requisitioned the Mayor to call a public meeting to denounce the property tax of the Hall Government. The meeting was held in the Mechanics’ Institute Hall, and at that meeting Mr J. S. Gibson delivered the speech, an extract from which appears in another column. To prevent Mr Gibson’s newly found friends from thinking that we have made that speech to fit in with our argument—for we know how unscrupulous some of those gentlemen are —we have reprinted it from the “Timaru Herald” of June 5, 1880, and not from our own report of that meeting. We have set out—in double column—Mr Gibson’s opinions in June 1880 with his opinions in November 1881, so that the electors may read and compare them, and then judge whether our strictures on Mr Gibson’s consistency are deserved or not. The opinions speak for themselves, so comment on them at our hands is quite unnecessary. One more remark and we have done. Those who attended Mr Gibson’s meeting on Monday night will remember that an elector in the front of the stalls asked if the property tax did not mean that the tax would fall on the person who borrowed money from another on mortgage—namely, that if the owner of the money had to pay the tax, would he not in turn charge the borrower. Mr Gibson’s reply was “ No, the person who owns the money pays, as money is also taxable property.” How does this answer coincide with Mr Gibson’s argument against the property tax in June, 1880. He then said—“ It bad been urged in favor of the property tax, that by it the mortgagee would be made to contribute to the revenue in proportion to the amount of capital be possessed, but he thought the meeting would agree with him when he said that the borrowers of money would have to pay a heavier interest for the money they borrowed.” This was no doubt the answer the elector wanted, but the answer he did not get. Mr Gibson’s views on the Land Question and on Education' we shall criticise in future articles, as we imagine we have given our readers a large enough batch of inconsistencies in this article.