The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1881.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 3, Issue 940, 2 December 1881, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1881.

Next week will see the end of the election struggle, and the inexorable ballot-box will determine the fate of many hundreds of anxious candidates, The verdict will be the decree of the people of the Colony as a whole, not of any one section of it—rich and poor, countrymen and citizens, workers and non-workers, will one and all count in the general result, and we are prepared to accept the conclusion which the ballot-boxes will reveal as a right and just one. There are times when the voice of a people cannot be accepted as a fair expression of that which is right,, but this is only when some wave of excitement or passion rolls through the length and breadth of a land, When, however, as on the present occasion, the people are able to exercise their judgment calmly and deliberately, when an election contest has been protracted to an extent which gives time for reflection and consideration, we have no fear of the issue. We have faith in all classes of settlers recording honest votes, We do not expect or desire that all men should be of one mind on political questions, but we do rely upon each individual elector feeling some sense of responsibility in giving his voice, a some desire to do the best he can for himself, his fellow settlers, and the Colony. There is no elector who is not capable, more or less, of testing the value of the candidates who solicit his support, He can tell an honest man from a charlatan, he can distinguish a wise man from a fool. He knows a windbag when he hears one, and he can tell a man who has got work and go in him, He knows the man whose word he can trust, and the one on whose judgment he can rely. We would just as soon take the verdict of a dozen steady, sober-minded working men on any particular candidate as we would take that of a dozen station proprietors, a dozen lawyers, a dozen doctors,. or a

dozen storekeepers. The spirit of fail' phiy,,the desire to do good, ia not coiifijied to any one class, in the community, but| permeates all sections of the people, Iu t.he present elections there has been a fair field and no favor, The result of them as whole will, we are certain; be to strengthen the hands of the Hall Ministry, and to inaugurate a new era in the history of the Colony, in which progress • and prosperity, founded on a natural rather than on an artificial basis, will lead to a rapid development of the resources of the Colony,