THE PRESS ON MR TWOMEY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2300, 2 January 1892, Page 3

THE PRESS ON MR TWOMEY.

(Press, December 26.) Mr Jeremiah Matthew Twomey is an exceedingly Irish gentleman of blameless private life, who plays a humble and harmless part in public life as proprietor and editor of the Temuka Leader, a newspaper of no consequence and small circulation, which supplies news—more or less veracious—to the inhabitants of the sequestered little township of Temuka. 'the first occasion on which the public heard much of Mr Twomey was early in 1887, when Mr Joseph Ivess —a gentleman who once occupied a seat in the House of Representatives as a member of the great Liberal party, and who is remarkable for having founded more newspapers than any man living of whom we are aware —brought an action for libel against another journalist. Mr Twomey, who has much of the poetic temperament of the Celtic race from which he has sprung, committed his thoughts on the subject of this action to verse in the poetic columns of his organ pending the trial of this action. He was summoned to appear before his Honour Mr Justice Johnston to explain or apologise for this offence against the dignity of the Court. When called upon he began an oration which would, if we may judge from that portion of it which he was allowed to complete, have contained many gems from the greater and the minor poets, for Mr Twomey, like Mr Silas Wegg, has a habit of dropping into poetry. But ho was speedily stopped by his Honour, who, in stentorian tones, informed him that the Court knew all about that, and wanted no more poetry, and sternly requested Mr Twomey to confine himself to an explanation of or apology for his conduct. The result of this interview with Mr Justice Johnston was that Mr Twomey had to tender an apology and pay the of the proceedings, the former being abject and the latter heavy. When he left the Court we have no doubt the lamentations of this modern man of letters were as tearful as those of the great Hebrew prophet whose name he bears, though doubtless they have not, like those of the# illustrious Jew, been preserved for the instruction of remote posterity. The next occasion on which Mr Twomey attracted the notice of a wider circle of his fellow colonists than those in and around Temuka who draw their journalistic susteeance from his newspaper, was during the general election of 1887, when he contested the Gladstone seat with Mr Arthur Rhodes. Mr Rhodes was then very young, and quite new to public life, but he succeeded in defeating Mr Twomey by a very handsome majority, and again Mr Twomey had to retire into private life without having increased his dignity or improved his position by his public appearance. Since that time Mr Twomey has been a watchful, though somewhat bitter, critic of Mr Rhodes’s performances in the political arena. Like most of Mr Rhodes’s friends, and many others who have no personal acquaintance with him, we have been more than satisfied with his conduct in Parliament, and ever since his first election he has steadily improved his position in the estimation of South Canterbury constituencies. But we hope Mr Rhodes will not be offended with us if wo say that he owes something to the opposition of Mr Jeremiah Twomey. Mr Twomey is so constantly and so comically in the wrong, that his opposition' js infinitely more beneficial to his opponents than his advocacy to his friends.

When Lord Palmerstan sat fqr Tiverton, there was in his constituency an irrepressible butcher, who was a most determined opponent of his. When Lord Palmerston addressed fiis constituents the butcher was always there to ask him questions ahd endeavor to embarrass and interrupt him, but, as may be imagined, Lord Palmerston found the butcher of great use to him. He served as Lord Palmerston’s butt, and his interruptions and questions invariably had the result of enabling the laugh to be turned against himself. We do not compare Mr Rhodes with Lord Palmerston, but we do say that Mr Twomey is as useful to Mr Rhodes as the Tiverton butcher was to Lord Palmerston, My Rhodes, as opr readers are aware, rpcently ipade a very effective speech at Temqka, m which, in temperate and accurate language, he showed the enormous folly of the duplicate taxation 'of foreign capital imposed by the Government in their new system of taxation. Poor good Mr Twomey, who had not even read the Act, was rash enough to

tackle Mr Rhodes on the platform on this subject. As he knew nothing about it and Mr Rhodes knew a good deal, no one was surprised to find that Mr Twomey had to retire from the platform in a very crumpled and disconcerted condition of mind. Being a worshipper of the great men of his party, he appealed to his great leader, Mr John Ballance. For a Twomey his inquiries were made in language which was clear and to the point. But alas he asked for bread, and the great statesman gave to his hungry follower a stone. Like an ancient Greek, Mr Twomey appealed to the Delphic oracle, and he got a most oracular reply. Mr Twomey was delighted with the utterance of his oracle. He straightway published his appeal and the oracular reply in his organ, a proceeding which had the double advantage, as he thought, of, crushing Mr Rhodes and of proving that he (Mr Jeremiah Twomey) was a correspondent of the Honourable John Ballance, Prime Minister of the colony. But, alas, for poor Mr Twomey. He was not aware that Mr Rhodes, like the heathen Chinee—if that gentlemen will pardon us the comparison—had the right bower up his sleeve, in the shape of the letter from the Commissioner of Taxes to the Northern Investment Company, which was recently published by us, and which proved that Mr Rhodes’s interpretation of the Act was completely right —that, in fact, he had, if anything understated his case, according to the Commissioner. No Government newspaper, as far as we are aware, has been found to dispute Mr Rhodes’s contention, and most of the Opposition papers from the extreme north to the far south have dealt with the controversy and expressed their gratitude to Mr Rhodes for his triumphant exposure of the folly and injustice of this part of the Government policy. Thanks, therefore, to the exertions ofMr Jeremiah Twomey, Mr has made the most successful Opposition speech of the year. We are sorry for Mr Twomey. We are sure he did not mean to contribute to this result. We are confident that he is really and truly bitterly opposed to Mr Rhodes. There is not the slightest ground for supposing that he and Mr Rhodes are secret “pals.” To suppose that it were so would be to put Mr Rhodes and Mr Twomey on the level of the spieler and his confederate. We are further supported in this belief by the fact that Mr Rhodes has just published in pamphlet form all the articles and correspondence which the controversy has brought forth, and he is circulating this among his constituents. It would be too cruel to do this if he had a secret alliance with Mr Twomey. Our advice to Mr Twomey for the future is that it is inadvisable for a gentlemen like himself with political ambitions to meddle with subjects which J he does not understand. I

[Mr Twomey’s reply will appear in our next issue.]