CORRESPONDENCE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2213, 6 February 1886, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor. Silt,—The opinion you have so charmingly expressed of Mr Hawkins'chances in a triangular contest for the representation of North Wairarapa, concurs entirely with my own. What still remains dark tome is that you, being Mr Beet-ham's organ (we will not discuss tho "sense" in which you are his organ), should periodically suggest that I should be a candidate : against him, and that against my most clear aud emphatic declaration that I had no such intention.. Certainly no one has done so much as yourself, by the " courtesies" you have so lavished upon me on every suitable occasion, to force me to take up that position. I cannot suppose that you are not intelligent enough to have perceived the ironical form in which I couched the supposition in my letter that I might appear against Mrßeetham. The concluding sentence made this too obvious. I can only assume that you took it mi pied dc la hike to justify you in still clinging to the theory that I am impatiently desirous to turn him out, I scarcely know what the process of''adapting myself to the colony" is. If it means that I am to be content to think the House of Representatives consists of the most honest, capable, and wise men in the colony, that government by jobbery and bribery is advantageous, that local government is in a highly satisfactory condition ; content, to sit down and conseut, without remonstrance, to an alternation of incompetent and fraudulent administrations, to see the settlers suffering, yet supine under the worst mis-government and • never urge them to fight against it, then I fear I shall never " adapt myself" to tho colony. _ You say you do not understand me. That is quite clear. It appears even .that you are incapable of understanding that it is very hard for an active mind to refrain from taking part in tho public work of the day; that the keen sense of having to endure ills and injustice which can, and ought to be, remedied, may lead a man to take an active part in stirrinp up public opinion, and thus put him into the position of—as you "courteously" put it—"posing" as a political leader; that a man may be most truly reluctant, and may regard with absolute dismay the possibility of being dragged up tho last step-that of going into the House of Representatives; and that the very fact that he knows and feels that the extreme reluctance to do this is the weakest point in his armour, and deprives his efforts of much of their just effect, continually checks and disturbs him, and accounts for many ail apparent inconsistency of action. To he continually urging upon a sensitive mind this inconsistency has something almost of cruelty in it; instead of impatience for the honour, there is fear of it, One word as to Mr Hogg. I have too hie;h an appreciation of him to ask him to desert Mr McCardle; but much as I agree with Mr Hogg on many points, we so completely differ on vital points of .policy such as Protection v. Henry-Georgeism, that he could never give me more than a very modified suppoit. Mr Hogg has absolute and earnest convictions' On these points, which 1 respect—but oppose.' I am, &c,, Robert S. Hawkins.