The Temuka Leader. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1878.

Temuka Leader, Volume I, Issue 107, 25 December 1878, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1878.

Otra contemporary,. the ‘ Timani Herald,’ in - its Monday’s issue lashes out most viciously. Its long, abstinence from scurrility led us to think its volatile editor: had in sone way been muzzled that-he had so totally abstained from biting. It would have been no wonder if he had been toned down a little, the mauy snubbings he has got lately would have been sufficient to silence ahy other man, and make'him hide his head for very shanvv Not so the editor of the ‘ Timani Herald.’ He has been so long schooled to these demagogic personal attacks that the least opposition offered to his unprincipled, lavishly flattering articles in favour of his friends is to him as a red rag to a bull We happened to expose some of ' this "fulsome flattery in our last issue, when writing' on the Gladstone election, and because he could not gainsay the. truths there spoken, he, knowing that the Chairman of the County .Council h is Something to do with this journal, must pour out his fury upon ui n. Not many weeks ago the ‘Herald,’ when speaking of members of the County /JcuinriljWas kin 1 on<-ivgb to nay they wort*

a set of gentlemen, not one of whom was capable of doing a mean or selfish action, in short, holding them up as very angels. The editor at that time very likely expected the Council to meet in Timaru, and, had the Chairman been a Timaru man, they would have been angers still, yea, even of the highest grade. But because the meetings are to be held in Temuka all has gone wrong. We will lake a look at this tirade against the Chairman of the Geraldine County Council, for it is chiefly against him that his shafts are let loose. First, however, we may state that it is not true that the agitation for division took place after the election of councillors. Long before this the Mount Cook Biding’ decided to go in for separation, and before the first meeting of the new Council the ‘ Herald ’ expressed its warm approval of the movement. What had the election of the Chairman to do with this movement then 1 Again, it is not true that little interest was taken in the election. When the editor of the 1 Herald ’ was elected how many voted for him in this riding ? Only forty-six out of a possible three hundred. For the wdiolo Gladstone district only one hundred. The - voting for the whole of the three ridings on That occasion amounting only to two hundred and ninety-one. On the occasion of the county election how stood the case ? In the , Temnka Riding six hundred and thirteen votes were recorded, the highest number of any election on record. For the County Council there were five candidates for the Temuka Riding, and of the number of Votes recorded the present Chairman of the Council polled one hundred and seventythree, nearly double the number that the editor of the ‘ Herald ’ polled for the whole of the Geraldine, Mount Peel, and Temuka Sidings. Yet this blustering humbug tells ns that there was hut little interest taken in the election. The Chairman polled the largest number of any of candidates, not only in Temuka district, lint iu the most remote polling station on the hanks of the Rnngitata. This does not show that his election to a seat in the Council was a Temuka affair. Nor is it true that, as the ‘ Herald ’ states, there was only a bare majority of the Council present, for only one member was absent when he was elected Chairman. This is like the other gross mistatements which run through the whole article. As to the legality of the meeting, if there is any hitch there, the late Chairman is to blame, and doubtless lie will be able to prove himself right in this matter. Again, the ‘ Herald ’ states that it was unseemly in the Chairman to vote for himself. How stood the case with Mr Wakefield himself when he was elected to a seat in the Assembly for Geraldine? Notwithstanding that ho stumped the whole country for support, and pressed his friends at Christchurch to come-down and Vote for him, notwithstanding that he hired conveyances to bring his friends from Timaru and other parts, he could only muster one hundred votes, and how did he get in ? Solely by the casting vote of the Returning Officer. Did he modestly decline to go iu under these' circumstances. Nay, did lie not vote' for hhri e elf, and so get in ? By that vote, what indecency 1 But he is a Wakefield, who is not as other men are you sec. The particulars of the Chairman’s election remain yet to be explained. He did not need to push himself forward as a candidate, although there would have been, we think, nothing unseemly in his doing so, seeing that he was so far in advance of the others at the poll, and it being proved thereby that his views as to bringing the Counties Act into force were popular in all parts of the riding. One of the councillors in a most generous manner offered to support Mr Wilson, and when the election came on, he was proposed by the most wealthy, as well as one of the most upright landed proprietors in the whole - county, and seconded by a not less worthy old settler, who also believes iu the desirability of bringing the Act into force. By the Counties Act it is understood that all present are to vote, and vote openly, consequently there was a necessity of the present Chairman voting, but had he not done so the other councillor would have given his casting vote in his favour’, as in honour bound, had the case been a tie, but being put up as a candidate himself, and made Chairman of the meeting without solicitation, he was placed in a position that he could not vote for the present Chairman as he intended. Thus, the ‘ Herald’s ’ editor, with all his rodomontade, lias not a leg to stand upon in his argument here. We must, therefore, put it down to personal spleen. Writing as he acts, it is no wonder that he ascribes impure motives to those who oppose him. Of the two, who “ squeezed” himself into office, the present Chairman or Mr Wakefield ? We well recollect the time when Mr Wakefield approved of the Counties Act, and again, when in his usual whirligig style he was hovering, halting between two opinions. * This was when he was trying to squeeze himself into Sir George Grey’s Government. That skilled old politician weighed him in the balance and found him wanting. Hence the Martin scandal. Again, not very long ago, this same editor was in favour of bringing.the Act into force, expecting to have the meetings in Timaru, and had the Chairman been a Timaru man—even had he been as devoid of principle as himself, he would have been a good fellow, and praised to the skies by the ‘Herald,’ if that is worth anything. Returning again to Ida remarks about the Chairman of the County Council, we find nothing but his usual-liberality of insinuations. As, however, lie does not say anything that is discreditable to, or can disqualify- Mr Wilson, but merely hints that he is not so rich as his friend Mr Studholme, or Ids other friend Mr Haw-haw. Wo will say no more about it, but- we will tell this editor what the Chairman of the Geraldine County Council has not been capable of doing to disqualify him. He has never twice, riot even once, gone on his knees to members of the General Assembly, or any body of men. and crouched like a mongrel cowardly enr to make a miserable, abject apology for falsehood and foul slander. Nor has he ever been apprehended for insulting a Roman Catholic priest in the streets of Dunedin in a drunken row. Nor has he ever been locked up in a room -to receive a wellmerited. thrashing- for a mean, cowardly, slander against a gentlem tn respected by all. Nor has the Chairman of the Geraldine County Council ever been hunted from public house to public house, dodging the police when ho was drunk and incapable when thne ore'bokirg foe ban to -appro*

hend him. These are traits of character that do not belong to the Chairman, nor, we believe, to any of the members of the Geraldine County Council. What then is the fault that is hinted at hy the editor of the ‘ Herald ’ 1 Simply his determinatiou to protect the interests of the country districts against the attempted inroads of Tiraaruites. We bear the people of Timaru no ill-will. Many of them are our warm friends, £nd we are sure that many of them would be glad if this demagogue were removed from amongst them, and that the ‘ Timaru Herald ’ could be conducted a little more respectably and truthfully, and less like a child’s top that can be lashed to make it whirl about by an unscrupulous operator, more gifted with gab than good judgment. Mr Wakefield is clever, but we would rather have an upright man who may not be so cle> or, than u clever man void of all princip’e, ready to sell even his own father to serve his unprincipled ends. Here we have a man, educated, well-read, who talks well the Queen’s English, and has many natural gifts, but all these gifts are like jewels in a swine’s snout, when, bestowed upon such a “man as the editor of the ‘Timaru Herald,’ who knows nothing higher or nobler than to sit down and malign honester and better men than himself. Wo have done with his remat'ks about the Chairman of the Council, believing that that gentleman is prepared to invite the strictest scruliny as to his pnhhc or private life, hut we cannot leave off without a word about the other councillors who come under the lash. Out of the seven who were elected five have been in the Council before. The scrape graces then must be the two new councillors. To comfort them a little let us tell them they only get their turn. When the last Council iiad its first meeting the editor was in his rabid state, and abused all and sundry, and again his periodical madness has come upon him, and our advice to them is, just bear a little, it is spasmodic, and will soon pass off. At the longest another session will rid us of this monomaniac. If he does not manage to get himself squeezed into a Ministry by leading a want of confidence motion against his “dear friend” Sir George, and get himself in by turning his friend out, he will at the most only have a short time to reign. Perhaps it may not last so long as even that, for we hear of a petition being got up calling upon him to resign. Tins is too bad. Let us wait a little till the fit is off. He can be humble enough at certain periods, even piteously so ! Let us be merciful with him, he only works for Timaru, little thinking that that people would be so ungrateful to .him as to give him a free pass any time he wants to go. An‘injustice is done to Mr Acton by making him say ‘he would oppose bringing the Act into force. What he did say was that he would not assist in bringing the Act into foi’ce. Mr Acton being under pressure at, the time was not be wondered at, although, we think, he could have protected himself sufficiently by voting according to his views. Elected as he was without opposition—the ratepayers knowing that he was iu favor of Ulie -Act we do not think he should give way to a few Timaru people because it did not suit them to have the meetings in Temuka. There is no evidence that the ratepayers living in the country parts of the Levels Riding are against the Act being brought into force. We believe the case is the very opposite, ar.d Mr Acton would do well to satisfy himself before the next meeting of the Council whether or not this was the case. Anyway, as lie was elected for the Levels Riding, the settlers knowing well th i views he held, it seems unfair to the electors to turn round and pledge himself, at the request of a few, to follow a different course from that which the many expected him to pursue.

Much as we dislike personalities in newspaper articles, we are sometimes compelled to be personal, both in defence of the public interests and in defence of individuals. In the present article we deal in personalities on public grounds. At a meeting of Electors of the Levels Riding, called by advertisement for the special purpose of considering the advisability of taking steps to have the Levels Riding declared a separate county, there ware twenty-one persons present, of whom thirteen if not fourteen were residents in Timaru, and these were as follows, Messrs Beswick, Hall, Brunei!, Acton, Woolcombe, Roberts, Wakefield, Sealey, Bristol, and Barnett, and one or two others, and three reporters, all of Timaru and Mr Wilson from Temuka, (by invitation) leaving only some half dozen not of Timaru, to wit Messrs Mclntosh, Orbell, Howell, Mee and one or two others. These composed what in the ‘ Herald ’ is called a meeting of the Levels district Electors! On this subject wc will say nothing more than that it was merely a meeting of residents in Timaru showing their disappointment at the Council having its meetings at Temuka. As will be seen from the report, all the resolutions (the first a most extraordinary one to be brought forward at a meeting called for the purpose of taking steps for a division of the county) wore brought forward at a meeting by Mr Wakefield —in fact the meeting may be termed a Wakefield meeting, got up to serve the ‘ Herald’s’ puaposes. The arguments used by Mr Wakefield were feeble in the extreme, and the motive too transparent to deceive any one. We have often been urged by most respectable citizens not to trust Mr Wakefield, they using the expression he will sell you as sure as you are living. Regardless of this advice we trusted him as our member, being a young man we were willing to give him atrial. He is placed in a difficult position, having to please his constituents on the one hand, and please the people in Timaru. where he gets his living, on the other. By great tact and readiness to promise anything, he managed to remove the disquieting fears of ourselves and others who who wished him well. The shuffling in the session before last in the Milford Harbour business, was accounted for by some attack or disease (not delirium tremens) which prevented him from attending to his duties; the question of the railway workshops was passed over because ho said ho had got something good for us, a resident magistrate to reside at Temuka; even the High School business his friends here were willing to let sleep, but at length the pot boils over. His proceedings at last Saturday’s meeting, has we are glad to say, opened the eyes of his constituents. The treatment there given to these is not to be booked. When he talked of petty little towns being ambitious of having the County Council meetings we felt as others now feel that our member is quite capable of selling us, and has sold us handsomely. We are pleased to see that the electors now unanimously resent such conduct. The very township or townships which gave him the seat that he now holds, is held up to ridicule, and it is a pity the election for the Assembly is not now on. It was a great misforturie to this district that he ever was elected. This has often been and now is most vehemently-reiterated by every one that ws hear mention this name. It' has been stated th nf.hr* waa heart a TunarL mail; now

we, see it, and admit we ha ve been deceived and cannot'but join in - the cry, .Pity he ever was trusted! The time however is at hand for another election. Names are already in peoples’ mouths of men well tried and found faithful to their trust, when returned to the Assembly for other constitucnces and who are ready to accent the suffrage of this county. Little fear.’.now that there will be much division. The man that could so barefacedly set himself against the interests of this district as Mr Wakefield did at Saturday’s meeting, ought to bo and we are sure ho will be, repudiated by every upright individual living in these parts. The only excuse Mr Wakefield gives at that meeting for resisting the Counties Act being brought into operation was the likelihood of a large unwarrantable expenditure being incurred, yet even that will be but small for so large a county. Much ho cares for expenditure ; the interests of the ‘Timaru Herald ’ comes before that, or the welfare of his constituents, with Mr Wakefield. At the time he was elected he could get no other constituency to trust him. Pity this one did! He may find it will be, perhaps, as difficult to get one when he is turned out of this. Timaru would have none of him, even although he made a virtue of necessity by saying ;that he would- not leave his old constituency, forgetting that a deputation waited upon him at Geraldine to ask him to resign, and but for his many promises then made he would have had to do so. It is rather impertinent for. him now to try to put his constituents at defiance, and attempt to destroy the interests of the Geraldine County by going against the wishes of the ratepayers. Mr Wakefield, with perhaps one or two at Geraldine at his back, are fomenting the agitation engendered first in Timaru. We will very likely have him again at Geraldine on Friday to. stir up strife there. All these movements unjustly taken up will assuredly recoil back upon his own head. He has raised a commotion against himself and the ‘ Timaru Herald ’ that will rather astonish him, and that sooner than he thinks of. If the subject had been left alone there were few who were unwilling to give the Counties Act a trial. Almost every county has adopted it, and wo hear no word of discontent in any of them, nor do we think the people in Geraldine County will have any cause either to complain oi taking it up.