The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. SATURDAY, SEPT. 24, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2373, 24 September 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE.

SATURDAY, SEPT. 24, 1887.

Equ.-il and exact justice to all men, Ol whatsoever state or persuasion, religious or po'.iti. al.

Ox Monday the electors of AVaikato will have to choose between one ot two men as their representative in the coining Parliament. The first of these is Air J. B. VVhytc, who Inis held the scat during two Parliaments, and faithfully served the electors. His actions speak for themselves. in colonial matters he has taken a broad and comprehensive grasp of every question, and no member has more studied to secure for his district a full share of attention. To him indeed AVaikato in great measure, and Piako altogether, owe their severance from the Aiieklund and Thames Hos-

pital and Charitable Aid Districts, whereby a saving of some .£OOOO a year has been ell'ected in local rates, which must have continued to be paid for services never rendered ; while the local hospital and charitable aid expenditure actually needed is now expended within the district. As an energetic settler and a man of sterling worth, Mr Whyte has been long known and respected amongst us. No truer sketch of his past political career could have been more faithfully epitomised than that contained in the leading article of the New Zeiland Herald of Tuesday last. Speaking of the two AAVkato candidates that journal says :—“ Mr Whyte has for a number of years represented the electorate with an efficiency rarely equalled and never surpassed, and has by degrees acquired an influence in the House seldom attained by any member outside the Cabinet circle. Believing the policy of the Stout-Vogel Administration to be fraught with serious danger to the country, he has steadily opposed it, look part in the movement which resulted in the defeat of the Government, and stands committed by principle to use his every endeavour to eject them from a position which they have so grievously abused.” His opponent, Mr Russell, as he said of himself on Thursday night, is a man ot a very different stamp, and we quite agree with him. Jack of all trades and master of none, he has never risen above the plane of mediocrity. The pulpit gave place to the law which gave place again to the pulpit, the pulpit to journalism, and now the political arena is before him as his oyster, and the constituency of Waikato is the knife which he has chosen wherewith to open It. All things to all men, he has trimmed his sails to every passing breeze. The only one thing in which he is consistent is his inconsistency. An ardent supporter of the Stout-Vogel-cum-Ballance Ministry, Mr Russell proclaimed himself a Liberal, and strange to say, to gather to himself all shades of that party, as an after thought he announces that he is ready to become a follower of Sir George Grey, forgetting, or perhaps not giving his dupes credit for the intelligence to see, that Sir George Grey is even now engaged in visiting the principal centres of the colony for the purpose of denouncing that pseudo-Liberal Government, the present Ministry, and keep them out of office. Mr Russell in direct opposition to the Government, which he is bound to support (for all their influence is being brought to bear to secure his return) professes to be an advocate of Mr Yailo’s Railway scheme of reform. But in this he is no more bound than in any other profession he has made, for he claims the right to object to certain features of the scheme in detail, the omission of which would render it valueless, and which Mr Yaile himself would never consent to eliminate from it. When the scheme, in its entirety, comes before the House, Mr Russell, if elected for Waikato, could with perfect good faith walk into the ministeriallobby, and vote against its trial and adoption, and then refer his outraged constituents to his opening speech at Hamilton, so craftily has he secured a retreat behind him. From the first his connection with the Railway Reform League has only been entered upon with the selfish object of securing votes in the coming election, and, but that the real supporters of the League stepped in and prevented it, ho would have dragged it through the mire for the veriest electioneering purposes. Again, as the champion of retrenchment, “ drastic retrenchment,” as he calls it, he would yield ajblindfold adherence to Sir Robert Stout, who has declared that he will never consent to the slightest interference with the present educational expenditure. True, at the first meeting of electors he addressed, he claimed to save £112,000 per annum, by a reduction of the school ages during which free education should be given. Since then, however (by Government order in Council, we suppose), he has boxed the compass on that question, and declared on Thursday night that he would leave the education vote untouched. Retrenchment indeed! It is not more than eighteen months ago that he was openly advocating the borrowing of another ten millions sterling to assist Sir Julius Yogel in propelling the colony forward by “leaps and bounds,” and had he had his way would have plunged the town of Cambridge deep in debt. He poses as the friend of the working man, yet would actually, as he has suggested twice at Hamilton, lend at low interest the accumulated funds of the Savings Banks and of the Government Life Insurance Department to companies formed to establish cheese factories, creameries, and other local industries, the failure of so many of which he had only a few minutes before admitted and deplored. Arc these, we would ask the thrifty working man, who invests his earnings in the savings bank or seeks to provide for his family after death in the insurance office, the securities in which he would like to sec his hard-earned savings invested ? AVhat prudent or honest legislator would lend out the trust moneys of the people at two and three per cent, on such security ? AVhat business man, even, would propose to lend money out at less interest than he had to pay for it—and what would become of the bonuses of the policyholders in the insurance department, if their money was loaned out at such interest 1 AVhat an incentive to reckless speculation—what scores of “ wild cat ” companies would not such a scheme hatch out of the hot bed of commercial corruption 1 Piece by piece, if time and space would permit, Mr Russell’s political programme might be dealt with, and

its flimsy time-serving character exposed. The truth is that gentlemen, fortunately indeed for the electorate, came out as a candidate fully a month too soon. The glamour of a fluent tongue, upon the platform, which many inexperienced persons accept at once as the index of ability, has had time to fade away. His versatility in “accommodating compromise,” with which electors had been beguiled in ordinary personal canvas lias had time to become revealed in its true light as trimming, pure and simple ; change of bait to catch different varieties of fish, and has defeated its own ends. Bit by bit, since he commenced his canvas, his policy has been trimmed or abandoned, till, torn and frayed, a rag of it hangs on every bush, and what remains barely suffices to cover his political nakedness. But bad as are the main features of his policy, if such we may call it, what shall be said of the means he has taken to advance his candidature ? Only once before has there been a contested election for Waikato, when Mr J. P. Campbell opposed Mr Whyte. That contest was fought out on its merits with a perfect absence on either side of that personality which has characterised Mr Russell’s candidature from first to last. No attempt was made to set class against class, and thus provide a feeling of partisanship, which could be utilised for electioneering purposes. It was a contest between one man of principle and another, which, whatever the result, left no rankling reminiscencies, no germ of mischief behind it. We wish we could say as much for the present contest. That has been conducted on quite different lines. The strains of his own “ penny trumpet ” have been loud in extolling Mr Russell, that “ pushing vigorous spirit,” and have been blown to one tune only. As “pur uncle,” the Herald, truly says of the two candidates in the field for AVaikato, the contest thus presented leaves “no room for hesitation on the part of the AVaikato electors.” AVe would go a step farther and say, that it would be a serious loss to Waikato, amounting almost to disfranchisement, if Mr Russell were elected. He has no stake in the district, but belongs to that class of political adventurers, so many of whom are coming forward, with the object of “seeking place” in the Legislature of the colony. Returned to Parliament their constituents know them no more. They join the annv of “Tite Barnacles,” and live henceforth as parasites on the body politic of the State. The return of such men to Parliament is not merely a loss to their individual constituencies, but a calamity to the colony.