THE MEMBER FOR GERALDINE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1576, 3 May 1887, Page 1

THE MEMBER FOR GERALDINE.

Under the heading of "Poor Bolleston," the Napier Evening News criticises our member as follows i— Of all the public men :t this Colony who oughtto be able to control his temper under trial, the first it the honorable gentlemen who represents! Greraldine. It appears, however,, that through the simple slip of a Ghristehuroh journalist, the seething elements of envy and jealousy raging within the bursting boiom of Mr Rolleston have completely boiled oyer. Thus ic happened t—Since hit eooession to office ai a member of the present Ministry, Mr Balance has succeeded in extorting very general praise both at a legislator and administrator, and this faot has not operated soothingly upon the ambitious spirit of Geraldine's office-loving representative. With all its faults, no one can suspeot the Press Association of any qualities of invention, or ascribe to it any powers of imagination ; its business is to deal with facts—generally they are of the Tery smallest Qonseqaenoe —and facts only. When, in the course of its factdealing operations, the Preaa Association has had occasion to refer to anything said or done by Mi Ballance, the jealous, politioal-horizon ■ scanning eyes of Mr Bolleston, it seems, detected a jesuitioalaohemt to write and work up the reputation of a young public man who threatened—by bis rising fame—to blast the refulgent radiance of the legislative career of Geraldine's famous member, and keep him condemned to the dark shades of senatorial nothingness whioh he at present oooupies, Nothing to a gentleman of Mr Bolleston's temperament, oould be bitterer nor more irritating, and only opportunity was desired to give free expression to the surging gangrene, denounce the Association, aud expose the fraud. A Ohristohuroh journal published a sammary of Mr fiallance's Land Bill, and the sub-editor in a moment of absent mindedness, for whioh oapital punishment ought to be suffered, inserted it under the Association's usual heading. This was the last drop—the hair the camel's back refused to bear, and the righteous indignation of Mr Bolleston rushed grandly forth. " The Association," he boldly asserted, as reported, "was used by Mr iallanoe to sing his praises j" inferentially, to bolster up a fiotitious reputation, and herein the circulation of " this last sensation with whioh to divert the publio mind" was the irrefragable proof. Alas, for the imputation against Mr Ballance and for theoharge against the Association, the, published summary of the Land Bill oaine from a different souroe altogether! Now, if memory serves, Mr Bolleston entered publio life when still a young man; for the last twenty years or so he has been before the people in offioial, executive, and representative positions, and his feelings and temper ought by this time to be under better control. Beally, a man who has never ceased to draw public money—who has been in faot a professional politician for the last twenty years —ought to be more oareful, After this fiasoo the member for Qereldine may possibly —though not probably—be more oireful of his ground before he chucks up the reins of his personal government, and allows the wild horses of his emotions to draw him into suoh a ridioulous abysm.