THE WAIHAO ELECTION.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 294, 11 December 1902, Page 3

THE WAIHAO ELECTION.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Replying to “ A Waihao Elector” I would first express my regret at his concealing his identity’, because it may possibly detract from the weight of his letter, and again it places me m the position so to speak, of lilting at the wind, an unprofitable and, except for the special circumstances, unwarrantable pastime. The “ sordid ” aspect of payment of public men I lake to be more or less a seniimen'ality when applied to colonial public life; the relative conditions of public t epresentat ves being widely different in the Home country and the Colonies. No doubt there could be found hundreds of representative men in England to every one in the Colonies who could afford the time for public service, without gratuity. We ai ein the Colonics, however, and if the assistance of men is wanted from among those who cannot afford the loss of time and money inseparable from such a position, then no niggardliness should be shown in the matter of defraying their actual expenses so that they may not suffer by the sacrifice made in the public interest. I cannot endorse your correspondent’s wholesale denunciation of the Colonies’ paid public men, as “ low ela*s intriguers for power,” and trust that this is merely an injudicious figure of speech. Sections 105 and 106 of the Counties Act 1886 furnish the information asked for in the coucludinjf paragraph of the letter.—l am, etc., J, F. Douglas.