THE BLACK SHEEP.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 365, 17 October 1889, Page 2

THE BLACK SHEEP.

Mfi. Hislop, the Oamaru political martyr, has had his character cleansed by the electors of Oamaru, or by a small majority of them, and Sir Harry Atkinson has again received him into the fold as if he were a spotless political lamb just Coming to maturity. What the majority Of the electors of the col.ony will think of this bit of political dodgery |s what we should like to know. If they take the trouble to think at all they must be ill pleas’ed at an individual being foisted upon tb'ena in this OVThe Circumstances which led to Mr Hislop’s resignation must SfiU be fresh in the minds of the electors. He himself admitted that he was wrong in haying become so mixed up in what is known as . the Ward-Hislop correspondence, and nn independent Committee of the Council .made a strong report upon the matter. Mr Hislop not only admitted the injuriiciqusness of his action, but felt the stigma to be so great that he resigned his seat, after clinging to it for some time, possibly in hopes (hat ho would weather out the

storm. Then finding the feeling against him was too great he resigned both his seat in the Ministry and his seat in the 1 House. Nothing has occurred since to in any way palliate the judgment of his conduct, and it is impertinence to tell us that because a majority of the Oamaru electors are resolved upon being blind to the shortcomings of their favorite, tbe colony must therefore accept him as one purged of his faults. For the Premier to again offer him a seat in the Cabinet is a bit of bounce that is insulting to men of understanding and who have a rigid regard for honest principles. In times gone by this bounceable action would have been to the electors as the red rag is to the enraged bull. But unfortunately there appears to be such a dearth of statesmen who can be entrusted with the political helm that the electors have no choice but to allow the ship of state to drift on in its wayward course. The electors may chafe and grumble, but there appears to be nothing else for it than to submit tamely to their unpleasant position. It is bad enough to have had for a period to put up with a .Minister who stooped from his position to interfere with the action of a learned Judge, but when that Minister has, by resigning, admitted his own disgrace, things have come to a pretty pass when the electors must submit to his again being restored to tbe high office which he felt his own conduct compelled him to relinquish. And when the Premier is the man who with impunity forces this sort of thing upon the people, with what a feeling of shame must the electors consider their position 1