OUR REPRESENTATIVES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 209, 1 February 1872, Page 6

OUR REPRESENTATIVES.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, — It is with a feeling of surprise that, looking over your widely-circu-lated journal week after week, I find uone of our members of Parliament reviewing the work of the past session, or giving an account of their stewardship to their constituents, according to time-honoured custom. One would suppose that, taking part as most of them did in giving effect to Vogel's " glorious " Public Works and Immigration scheme, on finding leisure to revisit their several districts, they would be quite impatient to convene public meetings to disburthen themselves (with much self-gratulatory cackle) of their votes and utterances in " another p?ace 5 " but, far from this being the case, a provokingly mysterious silence prevails — a silence challenging enquiry as to its oause,

What can be the reason that men, who in the Assembly were loud in the praise of " Yogel and all his works "—" — hailing him as the financial saviour of New Zealand, now that ample oppor* tunities are afforded them of continuing their theme, display such reticence and remain so persistently in the back ground ? The principal reason, I fear, is not far to seek. By the skilful manipulation of a leader well versed in needy human nature, having many billets in his gift, and of promises infinite, our representatives were bound hand and foot, and having lost any remnant of independence they possessed, and not being entirely devoid of the fitness of things, fight shy of meeting where many pertinent questions are wire to be asked.

The state qf the country is such as to alarm all thinking minds, and on every side this is universally acknowledged ; yet no steps of an- active nature are being taken to avert the consequences that almost everybody admits to be inevitable under the present regime. There is an old sawto the effect that " when rogues fall out honest men come by their own." What must it be when rogues agree ! A most wonderful unanimity now prevails, among £he people who have the ordering of the affairs of our country — espseially wonderful when it is taken into consideration that abuse of the most virulent kind, accusations of swindling, and a general denunciation of one another, were $he prevailing features in the intercourse of these men, who now amicably sit down together tq divide the spoil. Verily honest men may well tremble when they survey the united phalanx of needy place-hunters whose only rules of conduct are expediency and selfseeking, and who fear nothing so long

as they can retain their, seats.

Nor is this singular unity of opinion confined to our legislators. It extends its soothing influence to the agitators and others who generally start our politicians in their career of chicane. One has only to look round for evidence of this fact to procure them in abundance; and people would be justified in supposing the Millennium had > come at last, on seeing the wonderful concord now existing between quondam bitter political opponents. Truly the lion and the lamb lie down together. Probably this change has been brought about by the agency of souae occult mesmeric influence, the effect of which may vanish on the magician withdrawing his hand, aud the poor lamb may yet be devoured. It is not at all difficult for the electors of Waikaia to understand their representative's diffidence in coming again before them, in the face of his recent conduct in respect of a portion of the district, and the requisition recently addressed to him. Probably he will solve the difficulty by going back to the people of the Lake 3, for whom he alUges he did such great things in the past, and leave the benighted denizens of Waikaia to their primitive state of darkness. — I am, &c, Jacobus Nicer. Waikaia, Jan. 24th. 1872.