New Zealand Tablet Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, MAYS, 1874. MR. BARTON IMPALED !

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 54, 9 May 1874, Page 6

New Zealand Tablet. Fiat Justitia. SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1874. ME. BARTON IMPALED !

In another column we publish an address from Mr. Barton to the Dunudin electors, giving a " full and true account" of the cau^e of his recent defeat, and also a letter from His Lordship the Bishop in reply. The statement is a carefully-written one, and as a piece ot special pleading characteristic of the man, but it lacks one important and most necessary ingredient. Mr. Barton charges His Lordship with using his official position to sway the votes of the Catholic electors. This hns been denied, and in such a

direct and distinct manner as not even Mr. Barton himsel^ can challenge ; but, unfortunately for his accuser, His Lordship does not stop there, but relates some particulars of an interview with Mr. Barton, with which that gentleman has forgotten to acquaint the pubJic. It is rather cool of tho man who so strenuously craved the interference of Dr. Moran with the electors on one occasion, to condemn similar action — which he assumes to have been taken — on another ; but it is the same sort of consistency which has marked Mr. Barton's political career, swayed as it has been by principles as shifting as the Goodwin Sands. It is a most humiliating spectacle to see one whose abilities might have placed him in a different position, looked upon with distrust, and through his own instrumentality proved to be politically unworthy of either confidence or respect. Mr. Barton, for some time past, has been like the moth hovering about the flame so dangerous to him : and he has at last signed his owp death-warrant. Humau nature must, indeed, be confiding, and the bonds of party strong, if after the disclosures contained in Dr. Moran's reply, there will be found one in Dunedin who can believe in Mr Barton's political honesty. Those who read His Lordship's letter will be able to form some opinion of the man who could cringe to a party as Mr. Barton did, whilst he had at the same time the venom in his breast of which he has since disembosomed himself. The correspondence, however, will have this good result, that it will for ever prevent Mr. Barton appearing in any other than his true colors; and his own party — should he have one — will be aware of the struggles of this " Son of an Orangeman, nephew of an Archdeacon, and cousin to a Dean," to secure the Catholic vote by what he now stigmatizes a3 a dishonorable means. 'Tis strange that Mr. Barton should have brought this hornet's nest about his ears, but we presume that his " delicate negotiations" were so numerous that the one with Dr. Moran had escaped his memory. The outcome of the late election should be a wholesome lesson to gentlemen of the Barton type, and convince them that honesty is the best policy, and that in future it will be scarcely safe to "run with the hare, and hunt with the hounds."