EDITORS TREATED BY MR WEBSTER, M.H.R.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 299, 23 October 1873, Page 6

EDITORS TREATED BY MR WEBSTER, M.H.R.

Mr Webster, the member for Mataura, is regarded as the funny man of the Opposition. We have carefully perused his speeches as recorded in Hartsard, but have failed to detect any wit in them. Even that extraordinary speech he made on the evening he re turned from Government house in a " festive 1 garb," as Mr Luckie felicitously described his condition, reads dull in the official record, because it has been judiciously toned down, aod the interruptions omitted. The Independent, however, publishes Mr Webster's utterances on that occasion, and they were as follow ;—; — Mr Webster thought that, with the exception of the Native Minister, no ' one knew one iota about colonisation. It was given to that happy class who, with that self-flattery so common in this country, took to' what they called literary pursuits, that was writing to the newspapers. — (Laughter.) They had had instructions from the editors, not only in regard to the heroic work of colonisation, but in regard to the best method of shipping goods, and other such like matters. This Immigrants Lands Bill had been constructed by one of these literary gentlemen. It was unpractical. The Premier thought that out of a ship-load of immigrants not snore than one-tenth would be agriculturists. There would be tradesmen of all kinds. There might even be editors. Just imagine giving an editor twenty acres of land to cultivate ! They might get a good washerwoman out,- and if they did, he would back her against any others, even the editor.— (Laughter.) He meant, of course, an ordinary editor ; not those leading thunderers — " busters," as they called them in their part of the country. These persons who thought that the wool -growers, who occupied the back country as wool-grow6rs,were cumberera of the ground. They even said that of himself. — (Laughter.) Why, there ..were some of the wool-growers who employed a large number of people, who actually kept in existence a newspaper and an editor. To hear the way the goldfislds representatives talked, one would think they were hard working diggers. On the contrary, if they were to trot out the goldfields representatives in a row, "they would see that there were not a more rotund, obese class of persons in' the Colony.— (Loud laughter.) He saw ftome gentlemen in the H.ouse who had been pioneers of ciyilieatwn

before the Premier had the frills off his breeches. — (Laughter.) - In reference to the despuch which had just been laid on the table : the idea that forwarded it appeared to be that * it condemned the Agent-General for not having at once broken with Shaw, Saville and Coc, ' and supported the claims of the New Zealand Shipping Company. He did not- know the Agent-General, but he knew that the present Ministry Were a few years ago on the benches just as his mouthpieces. He was a man of historical position. Was it to be expected that he would accept patiently impertinent letters from men of local reputation, accidentally shunted on to these benches ? He thought the attack on the Agent-General shewed animus. He fully shared the Premier's holy horror of monopoly, but he maintained that ■ Sbaw, Saville and Co.'s trade was not a monopoly. It remiuded him of the old story of Moses and Aaron. Aaron had a serpent that swallowed up all the other serpents. Did hon. members recognise the parable? — (Laughter.) The new monopoly would swallow them up, and what better would they be? There was*- a monetary monopoly as well as a shipping monopoly. He did not like to see private arrangements entered into in such matters with members who had considerable influence in tie House.