The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 910, 28 October 1881, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1881.

Democracy has been defined to be a government in which the whole of the people exercise the sovereign power, either directly or by means of representatives. We do not know whether such a definition would be now accepted in Mastei'ton, hut perhaps it might with a saving clause excluding squatters and all sympathisers wiih them as natural enemies to people rather than as a section of the people themselves. Democratic principles have virtually been adopted in New Zealand. The millionaire and the swagger possess equal political rights. The dweller in a modest cottage in Kuripmri lias as much governing power in the country as the occupant of the biggest mansion in the country. New Zealand has accepted democracy, but those who have been benefited with the extension of political privileges—who have been raised to the same political level as their wealthier fellow-colonists—would like to have the particular platform on which all classes stand for their exclusive use. The importance of a gradual and steady extension of the rights of government to all classes of the people has been conceded in New Zenland freely and unreservedly by the Hall Ministry, and we trust that the confidence which has been placed in the intelligence and good sense of the working who, 'may be assumed to. form a majority in

district many hundreds of men-will vote at the coming election who, if it had not been for the liberal measures of the Hall Ministry, would have, had no voice in it. We ; cIo netsay that such men should vote in favor of this Ministry as an act of gratitude. This is not expected of them. 'AH that is reasonably expected at their hands is that in giving their votes they should exercise their own judgments a3 to the fitness of the candidates between whom they have to choose—that they.should remember that the credit of the colony and of the district is committed to them, Letan elector trust his vote to the man to whose cave he would confide his money, his house, or his laud, and he is pretty certain to vote rightly. In a true democracy each individual should look first to the interests of the State as a whole, but this is not the kind of democracy which has been preached lately in Masterton. Here the appeal has been made to each man's love of self; One man has been told that he.is the victim of the 10 per, cent, reduction; another that though he pays no property tax, that levy is neverless drawn out of him in some mysterious manner, They have not been taught the principles of pure democracy which define the duty of a citizen to the State, but that bastard imitation of .them which lays down the duty of a citizen towards himself. A lesson of selfishness has been inculcated by precept and by example. The greatest pood of the greatest number is in theory a grand idea, but in practice' very often breaks clown, : Democracy in the Southern States of America on more than one occasion led to an entire monopoly of political power by the colored population. The greatest number were dominant, but the greatest jjood did not follow because the greatest number were in power. In either of the Wairarapa electoral districts there are hut little more than a thousand homesteads. Is such a comparatively limited number of householders in a great district like Wairarapa North adequate to settle it and to develop its resources 1 We havo not enough capital and we have not enough labor to do justice to the wide-reaching and fertile district in which we are placed, There is room for all! No squatter need be displaced to make way for small holders. There is land to be bought cheaply all over the electorate! No nmn who is living amongst us, and who is diligent in earning a living in any condition of life, should be discouraged or turned away. What is wanted is united action between all classes to advance the district. What is needed is that all classes should feel that they are members of a community, and that it h the interests of the community as a whole as well ofthemselvps as indiv'd a ! s to help one another, A.ny misfortune which may happen to any section of the community ought to enlist the sympathy of every other section of it. Say the runholder is plagued with rabbits, the small holder or the laborer should give him all the assistance he can to get rid of the pest. The small holder or laborer in return should look to the runbolder for assistance when he desires land, slock, or employment. This district will be better served by kindly feeling between man and man and united action for its common welfare than by the paltry and wretched class feelings that have recently stirred up mainly to enable a settler who has a desire to bean M.H.R, to accomplish his ambition.