A POLITICAL PORTRAIT.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2844, 6 May 1882, Page 2

A POLITICAL PORTRAIT.

A writer in tbe “ Otago Daily Times ” has drawn a series of portraits of new members. Here is*Tom Bracken ;—“ I pass to Mr Bracken witli regret. I like him—who does not ’—and therefore it pains me to say that his Parliamentary failure is as certain as the sun’s rise to-morrow. He is a man who has frittered himself away. Ho is a littlevery little—of everything, and thorough in nothing. The visionary ideas we all have in boyhood still cling to him. He is strong only in making weak verses and weaker jests. As kindly-hearted and generous as anyone in Dunedin, he plunges into the hurly-burly of politics with a temper that a word goads to violence. He will speak on mysteries of which he has not learnt the alphabet, and when past masters quietly point out that fact he runs away with himself till he is pulled up by the Speaker. A belter-in tentioned man never lived, but what does Johnson say of Hades’ pavement? Mr Bracken takes other people’s opinions; when he forms his own ho is wrong. Not well versed in any subject within the range of practical politics, he has vague notions about nationalising the land, and thinks an Act of Parliament can reverse the law of gravitation. Pope, asked his religion, said it was always that of the last theological book ho had studied. Mr Bracken’s opinions are those of the last man he had talked with, or the last leader he road ; or if should happen not to adopt these, he lots them capsize his own; ho has then no opinion at all, and his last state is worse than his first. Mr Bracken s only hope for self-salvation in politics would be to master some one subject perfectly, and to bind himself down never to mouth onjany other. But he has not the application to learn the subject, nor the self-control to keep the bond when made. So he will often speak much _ and say nothing on subjects ranging from Native policy to a Cemetery Bill and only the reporters will hear him. He will earnestly desire to bo in the right, but will delay deciding which is right till too late, and will then genorally be wrong. He is too much a creature of impulse, and Eackstraw’s case nearly describes Driven hither by objective influences, thither by subjective emotions, I am a living ganglion of irreconcilable | antagonisms.” The smallest part of my • prediction falsified would delight me, but I have no hope. Ho will continue to fritter himself, and at the dissolution will be just what bo is now. Constituents seldom twice let personal liking overrule judgment, and Mr Bracken’s first Parliament will be bis last. Poor Bracken I A year hence

how many will wish ho had never entered active politics)! Another year, and ho will himself he among the numher.