DEMOCRATS BEWARE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2672, 12 August 1887, Page 3

DEMOCRATS BEWARE.

(From tho- Wairarapa Standard.)

The cause of tlie weakness of young Democracies is not far to seek—it is lack of political knowledge in the meople, exposing them to the deceptions of professional demagagues. America, for instance, after the civil war, was inundated by aiidal wave, of im in tion from ovory European nationality, composed of people who, though white, had been'• practically slaves without political rights, Then, every inisuc- . cessftil and unscrupulous fellow, endowed will) fatal flucucy, a ready " gift of the gab," packed his carpet lag and leapt into ■ the political arena, These creates " wooed" the people; wooed blrcH'-with lies, flatteries and delusive promises of very easy riches and little labor, imposing, villiout difficulty, on men unaccustomed • to freedom and not capable of weighing and discriminating politically. What was the consequence ? Honester and better men who would not deceive and cajolo the masses stood on one side and tho banditti wete returned to power—i|a scavengers of politics carried Ihe Then whs inaugurated a reign of .jobbery, rings and robberies to which •civilization ,ciu show uo : parallel. Precisely what happened.in America has happened also in Australia. The re, fluent demagogues like G-aham Brny in Victoria, and Henry Parkes in Now South Wales, began .politicial- existence as tho greatest loveis of the masses, howling perpetually for " liberty, fraternity, equality," and iroAjiately they attained what they wmrjwl for themselves, developed into ..the meanest kind of Conservatives that crawl j aiid one of them—tho creature Parkes-now spends his timeiu devising methods for tho onco '' loved people's" enslavement, Have not we ourselves 6een an ardent profeßßftd.Democrat whose baokbone was broken with three, inches of ribbon, a "dogcoHar"aiula title 1 Domocrats of New Zealand, beware I You surely cannot be politically ignorant. Tako example by America and Australia, and shim tbesecarpet baggers like tiger snakes.

tk Tho Presß'and pulpit of this country awakening to their responsibilities, and arc solemnly warning us that the tone of New Zealand politics, once lofty, is yearly degenerating. Already throughout this colony, for our remarks have general, not merely local significance, loud mouthed spoolers, mere glib mountebanks, men without know-ledge-experience or real moral woilh, are Aiming' the' people everything, including tho impossible, it they will but return them to power. Democrats beware! Ask yourselves what these men's objects arc. Ask whether men who have done no good for themselves are likely to benefit you, Never in our history have we so urgently needed the services of men, honest and true, We havo, as a country a great future before us, but 'tis not such as these, who can bring a golden dawn. Let us be true to ourselves and return nun only of sterling worth and character, of tried and proved honesty, careless of the class in which such men fay bo found.