CORRESPONDENCE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2241, 13 July 1908, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

[Correspondence on public matters is.welcomed at all times, but it must be distinctly understood that this journal is in no way associated with the opinions of its correspondents.] THE "SAIART” A!AN. [To the Editok.] Sir, —At the risk of overtaxing your patience, I feel that I must again burden your columns with a reply to our old friend “Heretic,” because he seems to liavo assumed that 1 did not recognise that there are still left amongst us a few benighted people who hold his delightfully old-tashioned views about “worth,” "integrity,” and the like as opposed to “smartness.” lam fully aware that there are a few left with your correspondent's deliciously medieval ideas, but, thank goodness, the bulk of them are beginning to see tho folly of cultivating what Dr. Arnold described as “earnestness” in anything. This is manifest by the subservience they display towards the ‘‘smart” 111011 who may he publicly successful, while known to lack even the elements of "worth” or "integrity.” At one time, lam told., such men would have been ostracised by those claiming to be respectable, but is it so now? Oh, you .dear old fogey “Heretic,” you really make mo laugh with your ideas, although I should like, if I dared, to sympathise with you. You must shake tho sleep, from your eyes and wake, up to'tho fact that- a new philosophy has arisen, and that the obsolete idea that honesty is tho best policy is not genuinely held by even those most antique fossils among us. AYe have discovered that ib pays better to equivocate than speak the plain blunt truth, and our public men profit- largely by this knowledge. In this laud of sunshine and happiness, why should we wound anyone’s feelings? Is it not preferable to U6e diplomatic hyperbole (let 11s use the softer term) especially when it enables us to gain the jilaudits of tho peojile? AVliat need have we to trouble ourselves with tho affaire-of tlie country, to pain ourselves with tlie consideration of others’ ills or the wretchedness and wrong doing of any of the inhabitants of this mundane sphere, so long as the suit shines and wo are happy? Lot us eit, drink, and be merry, for to-morrow we die. It is true that there arc whispers trom our Alagistrates and Judges that perjury in our Courts is rampant. that the successful lawyer, sheepfarmcr, or business man," as well as tho unfortunate, consider it not only profitable but fair to tell on oath the tale which suits their cause best. But why shouldn't- they ? No, not- even "Heretic” can show any obligation or profit in their doing otherwise. It is aSI very well to moralise and talk about "raising the moral strength of the race,” but what do we care and why should we care about tlie race or posterity? Posterity is only useful to us in that we may delegate our loans to it or burke awkward questions of finance by reference to it.

My dear old “Heretic,” if you think that these views are wrong, preach a crusade against them, shake the jieople out of their easy tolerance of the men who exemplify them, show them that it is not necessarily Vindictiveness or personal animus'which lirompts their exposure, and suggest 1 practical scheme of reform.—l am, etc., “PRO PATRIA.”