THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2535, 20 February 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1877.

Wheee does fair criticism end, and where does an over-zealous partisanship begin, are questions which might well bn asked by those who read the remarks printed in English and Maori, and published in a recent issue of Te Wananga. '.In, an article published in a recent issue commenting on the candidates for a seat in the House of Assembly, instead of fairly criticising the public lives of the various .candidates, enumerating what they /have done and setting forth what they have omitted to do,* the Wananga attacks their private lives and characters, jeering at the age of some and making insinuations against others which it is. more than probable they could. not justify. Their hostility to Mr Sutton can easily be accounted for; the paper is ostensibly a Maori organ, and an endeavor is being made to prove that Mr Sutton in all the dealings he had with the Natives.cheated them, and hence the validity of the sales is being tested. The covert suggestion made in the article that Mr Sutton in delivering a speech in the Court ought to have stood in the prisoner's dock instead of on the Bench, is a fair specimen of the abusewhich this paperthinks right to heap upon a political opponent. Mr Colenso is spoken of as "a fossil politician," and travestying, some well-known lines of Moore the writer implies that the electors have no great love *for antiquarian researches, and so will not vote for Mr Coleriso. Mr Tiffen is referred to the doom which the Wananga says was the lot of "unsuccessful candidates and law-givers " in Sparfea, and that paper congratulates Mr Tiffen that his lot is cast in other times, otherwise he would help to fill the cemetery his bounty has made. At what precise date the Spartans used to hang their unsuccessful candidates or law-givers, the Wananga does not inform us. We knew before that it was a very unpleasant thing for a general to be defeated, but did not know that the same fate (not that of hanging) awaited " certain unsuccessful candidates." As to law-givers, the question arises, how many successful or unsuccessful men pf that class did Sparta have since Lycurgus promulgated his statutes ? Mr Buchanan was the mail to whom the Wananga pinned its hopes, and trusted that for the sake of the credit of Napier he would be returned. Alas ! he was defeated. In ipite of invective and derision cast on his opponent, and praise heaped on himself, this " able and honest man" was defeated by,Mr Suttob, a Government supporter, and the Wananga must grin and bear it.