The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Tuesday, September 10, 1889. POLITICAL TOMFOOLERY.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 349, 10 September 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, September 10, 1889. POLITICAL TOMFOOLERY.

Bo just and fear not; Lot all the onds thou aim’st at- be thy country’s, Thy God's, and truth's.

The great waste of time and money that has taken place since the present session of Parliament first began marks the session as one that has so far been almost barren of results. But there will probably be one result which will be of more service than if there had been a great many more complicated laws passed into existence. The electors have grown so .weary of the continual wrangles, and the political guerilla warfare which has been carried on, that there is some hope of a reaction that will prevent these scandalous proceedings being endured much longer. Th? H. B. Herald has an article on this subject, from which we make the following extract : — Parliament just now ia boingcarr’ed on as if it were a debating elub, provided by the country in order that loquacious persons may try to talk each other down, and incidentally feel the pleasure of spending the people’s money. The Opposition have behaved badly almost from the start of the session. They had a perfect right to try to oust the Government, as we have before said, and they would have been wanting in their duty to the country, supposing there is any good! n party Government, if they had not tried to turn the Government out, but having tried and failed it was their business to set to work. But no, work does not suit the patriots now at Wellington. They seem to think it their business to pose. For all the good that has resulted from the present session of Parliament having taken place it might as well have never been commenced, nearly the whole time having been occupied in a series of political free fights. Can any sensible man hold that all this nonsense is for ths good of the country ? The supposition is an impossible one, Parliament as now carried on suggesting an outrage upon common sense as well as upon political rectitude, But, if the tomfoolery going on at Wellington is not for the good of the country, why should it continue ? Yet it will continue till the electors make a sign, and a certain one, that they will submit to no more of it. After all, though marionettes dancing blithely a fandango of absurdity at Wellington may be treated as direct objects of blame, the electors cannot escape censure. The man who invented the aphorism that “ Every country is governed as well as it deserves to be ” stumbled across not only what is an undeniable truth, but also a truth that ought to be more commonly borne in mind than it ie. Every elector can say “ I helped to (make House,” and the House so truly represents the electors that in effect it is the latter who sre preventing their own (business being done. But probably the best proof that the stupidity manifested in Wellington is but reflected from the voters, will be found in the Science of that stupidity which is' certain to be made, The great blemish of politics is that men who meddle with them take ths side, not of truth and justice ss such, but of truth and justice as conceived by a side and as distorted by looking through party spectacles. And if it bo retorted that this is only human nature, and therefore has to ba endured as not capable of cure, a suffi. Blent answer is that all the abuses that have already been wiped from the earth (slavery, for an instance) were just as much based on human nature. Yes they went at the behest of those whose stock-in-trade was only the commodity—human nature—which had resulted in bringing into existence the evils finally abolished by Gp evolution of human natiire. When the latter sees a thing to be evil, proof of evolution of a progressive kind is given, and ews poljjjpiaus may safely promise themselves this—that the phase of human nature which is to dominate tbs Pacific will commence real work by wiping politicians out of existence , unless they quickly improve themselves. The people are Beginning ito feel weary of many things recommended is them as panaceas, and a spirit of rebellion against a Byetern which provides us with the farce at Wellington is permeating the community. 11 By their fruits ye eball know them ” is a good test, and we we agk any candid man, is it possible that what has been going on ftt Wellington for the last few weeks can be of any use to the gO'-jn-try? On the contrary it is actively nurtfhl, sod it becomes ths duty of all who wish New Zealand Weil fo ij.sw fioat td reform its politics and politioiana.