THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1860.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 332, 25 December 1860, Page 2

THE COLONIST. NELSON, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1860.

*«4Crgje liberty never sleeps. It is as watchful for good, as it is ever active against evil." We have, from, time to time, tried to rouse the people into activity on matters social and political. Those who, in the indulgence of languid ease, have neglected their duty by not registering must feel annoyed that they ought to vote, and cannot. "If the government of the country fall into the hands of men who only care for themselves, and will sacrifice the good of the people to their selfish schemes, what is the position of the public ? Why everything is committed to men who have no mercy, who look upon the jpeople as their dupes, to be gulled and cheated, and used as their own interests may dictate." How true a picture of the Stafford Ministry! Not one redeeming quality does it possess : like the cities of the Plain, not one righteous man in it. What tbie late of the people under such a Government, had all the members of the colony beon as "obsequious" as the Nelson ones; would be, we , will leave the public to judge. And we do trust that the people of Nelson will wipe out the stain, and show that their future representatives do not deserve and will not bear the opprobrious and contemptuous epithets (now become proverbial), "Netaon -Contingent," "Obsequious Nelson," ;^nd other bywords of scorn ancK ridicule. I A high responsibility aj taches to ev/ery

elector, and shame be on him who shirks his duty or who votes selfishly; such a one is a betrayer of his fellow-electors; and the elector who neglects to exercise his rights, deserts his post, and deserves the anathemas of all honest men. We copy the following letter with great pleasure from the Sydney Empire, and call upon the electors of the Province of Nelson to act upon the sound and sober advice contained in it. It is signed " A Working Man." Fellow-Workmen—My motive, for addressing you. is to try, if possible, to urge you to more diligent action and self-reliance than you have hitherto shown since we have been privileged with universal suffrage. The 'dissolution' having been granted at last, we shall be again] called upon to choose men to represent our interests. Too often men are chosen for us, or choose themselves, and if they only will spend plenty of money for the day or two, we vote for them as a matter of course. And then how often 'have you not found that these very men who, to obtain our votes (that he may secure his seat) will use every art, will make himself 'quite at home' with us for a time, but every action of whose life (excepting his electioneering actions) shows us too plainly, not only that his interest in every instance in the Assembly, when , hial^ote is given, clashes with ours, but more, by his remarks about the' mob' out of doors—-byhis; 'efforts to deter and prevent the passing of any measure which tend to benefit the people at large, jshow us but too plainly that he views us, in the words of the poet, As but the simple rustic hind, Those toils uphold their glittering show, A creature of another kind, Some coarser substance unrefined, Placed, for his lordly ease, Far, far below. But I trust, fellow-workmen, that they will shortly be made acquainted with the fact that we have our eyes upon them, and their deeds 'come to us on the wind.' I do not want you to suppose that I am asking of you the manifestation of anything like vindictiveness; no, we can rebut the charges so constantly made against us in the Herald. Let the squatters go to the Assembly if they will; but let those whose interest they represent send them there. We do loot wish to injure them; we only wish to prevent them from longer—so seriously— injuring us. I deny that we are chargeable with a desire to interfere with the well-being of any class or interest; only in so far as that interest comes out of its place to interfere with our just rights and privileges. We ask that the sentiments of that great man —Lord Brougham—may be instilled into our system, who, with much force and truth, observes :-— " That it is a radical vice in any system to exclude the people from forming their own opinions, which must, if proceeding from their own impulses, be kept in strict accordance with their interests, that is, with the general good; and it is a flaw, if possible still more disastrous, to render the people only tools and instruments of an oligarchy, instead of making their power the mainspring of the whole engine, and their interests the grand objects of all its operations.'1 And now, let us ask ourselves, whatisnecessaiy, in order that we may be a prosperous people ? I think the answer is plain: Let each one do his part, and especially in the forthcoming election; don't be too idle to act —don't be too indifferent to think; but (I was about to write) don't believe one word that' Old Grandmama' [Herald] tellsyou; rather I would say, if you do, don't believe it because she happens to say it, but think for yourselves, and don't forget that upon the one little act of recording your vote, very much indeed depends. We often hear'men expressing their wonder that our public men do so little; —that so few measures which would really benefit the country, of which also the country is in so great need, are matured; and yet many of these very men who constantly make these complaints, neglected to record their votes at all, and many more, there is too much reason to fear, were induced to give their votes contrary to their own convictions, by all sorts of improper influences. But as I have already said, I am of opinion that the remedy is within our own reach, if we will only act, and act faithfully, each one his proper part. Don't say (my one vote will not make any difference.' Those who are trying to obtain 'only one vote,' better understand its proper value; its true value is seen when we reflect that by the aid of these ' ones,' the total is made up, and who dare say that it is not every man's duty to record hia vote in favor of that candidate whom he considers will best attend to his public duties. I believe, however, it will not be until the working men choose out their own representatives, honest, active men, from among themselves, who understand our position, our wishes, and our wants. And why, I would ask, should not such be the case 1 Money is represented in our Assembly, the mercantile interest, the landed interest, in fact, every interest but ours. Why then should not the class to which we have the honor to belong be equally, fairly represented? that our would-be aristocratic gentry may learn that the good of all will be promoted when the good of each is attended to. Well, this may be carried out, fellow-working-men if we only willed it. There are men in many respects fitted for becoming our representatives in Parliament, men of good intellectual powers, of integrity, of energy, who would be willing to serve us, but cannot afford to buy the election; in fact, they would object so to go to Parliament. But let the working classes look out their man, let them pay the necessary expenses of his election, and take care that they carry him in; and let him do as many would be willing to do (and as Don, in Melbourne, does), work and earn his living between the hours of his attendance at Parliamentary duties, until we have obtained the principle of 'paid membership.' If this plan were carried out, I am fully persuaded that progress would mark the future of this great and glorious country. To any lukewarm supporter of what is just and proper, or to any waverer who has been weak enough to have his faith shaken by specious sophistry, attention is called to the following extract from the most (if not the only) able, truthful, and independent article that ever appeared in the pages of our contemporary: — "As to our Governor, we are unable to connect j " Ids name with a single act of statesmanship since j "he came to New Zealand ; and the Prime j "Minister, Mr. / Stafford, has fallen into such "thorough discredit, from his apparent apathy " and exclusive devotion to the red tapestical pro"prieties of office, that were he now to offer himself "for re-election in Nelson, we really believe he "WOuld NOT POLL A SCORE OF VOTES."— Nelson Examiner, January 29,1858.

The spirit of Christmas is now with us, and the spirit of the Old Year with his hoary head and mournful aspect is hastening on to join his brethren in the past. Christmas this year has brought his usual salutations—bis laughing, merry countenanceto but few of our households. It finds us in an unsettled state—engaged in war with insurgent natives, which may lead to a stern death struggle, and will doubtless entail on the Colony au expenditure, which had it been devoted to internal improvements in our social and political state would have yielded some signs of national progress. The heart swells with bitter indignation at the thought of the Bufferings of our feUow-CQlociatß, the expauiatioii of their wivea

and ohildren —with noble pride, too, at the spectacle of the unequalled heroism with which they have borne, that sore anguish of homes destroyed) families separated, and a protracted struggle with no nearer approach to a safe and satisfactory settlement of the unhappy quarrel. In these days of political excitement, to ask our readers calmly to look backwards, is perhaps the most unreasonable request which we could possibly make. By means of that inveterate gossip we so frequently anticipate the events \ themselves, that to suggest a retrospective glance ; at what actually has happened some months— j that is to say long ago—may appear nearly as; impertinent as a proposition to a traveller on business of life and death importance to exchange a fleet horse for a dawdling waggon. However there are certain periods when Englishmen are bound to endure and manage to do so with tolerable patience, a time honored usage of discussing the last preceding mile of their journey. It would be extremely ungrateful indeed if this were not the case: for in what department of literature or politics shall we find anything to equal the flowers to be gathered, and the powers of prophecy which these retrospects. oall into existence and action. The prophetic element is in one sense at least strong in some men, and the very fact of being dragged back for a minute into the past, seems to precipitate our philosophers with the greater force the very next moment into the future. Let us be content with avoiding to the best of our power some of the prophetic snares to whioh men are exposed. The close of the year brings with it many reflections, the most serious of which must be left this day to be uttered by the thoughtful voice of the Christian pulpit. This marked epoch of time is the suitable season appointed by providence for reviewing the past, both as a people and as individuals, comparing it with the standard of Christian faith and morals, and examining how in that divine light, our purposes and actions appear. We must confess that the retrospect of this year presents little upon whish we can look with honorable pride. When the first painful impressions whioh are natural attendants of a disturbed state of things have lost their disproportionate distinctness, we shall be inclined to make a large transference from them to the side of blessings. "The earth with her scarred face is the symbol of the Past," said Coleridge, " the air and heaven of Futurity." And some such feeling perhaps it may have been that caused the early Church, in the absence of all definite tradition, to fix her greatest anniversary of hope at a period when memory would otherwise be in the ascendant, in order to remind us that there are truer as well as brighter auguries for an opening year to be derived from the contemplation of a life above us, than we shall ever gain from minute computations of the seamed and and furrowed life behind. And therefore the last week of every year is no longer tinged with the sad contemplation of our own discolored past, of the ruin and convulsions of which the earth is weary, of the habits into which we have demurely or complacently moulded ourselves, and the rigid rails of methodical formula, which we have laid down for our narrow guidance ; but with the contemplation of perhaps the otly constantly fresh life that was ever lived on earth, because the only life of which the daily spirit was never inhaled through closed tubes of memory and tradition, but always- drawn directly from the present Spirit of God. If the past were the only index to the future, every future would be not better but worse than the past. There is a sense in which Eternity is the only real bridge between the events of time. It is impossible to shape the future out of the past, to get hope out of memory except by first rising into the world which hangs over both alike. There are no materials for hope in mere history, unless history lifts us up into the Infinitude, which is not past but eternally present; so that to look truly at the successions of time we must take our circuit by the Everlasting. It was surely no false instinct of the early church to seize the passage from year to year for that anniversary, which, instead of filling us with the sadness of retrospect, lifts our minds over retrospect into trust, and as the fruit of trust, hope. Was it not an unconscious confession that the final removal of the veil from the character of the everlasting God is the only key to the interpretation of history that could not plunge us into despair, the only explanation of the true connection between past failure and future effort ? There is no false or dreamy mysticism in saying that the passages of time—the transitions of life—are, or ought to be to us, literally something transcendental, something of which the real links utterly transcend our experience and our understanding, and which become only conceiveable at all through trust in that everlasting life which arches over all human affairs. Then and then only can we conceive that our miserable past does not give the law to our future, nay, that its failures may but serve to direct out thoughts to that plenitude of unused power above us, which, in the future, we need no longer leave unused. And if this lifting out of history to the world above history be the only real link between memory and hope—between the "scarred" past and and the brighter future of individual character —it is also the only possible link between the past and future of any real and living principles of politics. A past polioy, like past life, is but a sense of weakness, a help to despair, except it be merely used to point us to the springs of a better and more expansive policy. If no life can be continuous and progressive that stays down on its own level, that does not seek to use the stages behind, simply as a means to rise to the point of view of Him who looks at once before and after—still less can a "let ill alone" policy be continuous, which does not, in like manner, regard its own past history as mere aids to the attainment of a truer and more progressive advance in colonial prosperity. Let the old year ring out the cold and ungenerous maxims of worldly strife, and ring in I justice and integrity, and kindly feeling between I man and man. Let it ring out the over-haste for riches, and the inordinate love of the pleasures of the world, and ring in that quiet honorable pursuit of wealth, which values it not as an end, but only as a means to a higher good. Let it ring out all party-strife, all petty arts and dishonest practices, and ring in that real heroism which remains inflexibly true amidst a world of temptation and corruption and disdains to become one inch higher in the world's estimation than is warranted by honor and good faith. While our fellow-colonists at Taranaki are inscribing their names on the pages of history by their quiet endurance of hardships, deprivations, and uncongenial life— b v UwU readiaw to tew (to burnt of

battle that they may secure their lands—the ouly property they have now to secure; let us in this province do our duty, and carry on tbe good work of hospitality, and make their wives and friends feel as little as possible the painfulness of their expatriated state of dependence, and tbe (at present) not very hopeful aspect of affairs at the seat of war.