The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, August 9, 1890. “IF THEY’LL ONLY BEHAVE”!

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 491, 9 August 1890, Page 2

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

Saturday, August 9, 1890. “IF THEY’LL ONLY BEHAVE”!

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at bo thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

A few days ago Mr Arthur made the confident declaration that if the Opposition would only behave WE would get a lot of good work done. At any rate tn,e statement was something to that effect: Mr Arthur has made so many strange statements during his short public career, that it is useless to attempt to keep a record, and whatever doubts there may be as to the various meanings, there is the never-failing solace that it will be “all right when understood." Certainly we must acknowledge that we vainly tried to solve the last problem that was set us, of divining what Mr Arthur meant by accusing his fellow-members of misbehaving themselves, and if the truth must be told> our conclusion was that the accuser himself was no better than he ought to be, and that he was not only making a ridiculous exhibition of himself in political circles, but was also doing what concerned the electors a great deal more—that by his unfortunate want of tact, and his shocking string of blunders, he was grievously injuring the district in alienating all sympathy from it. Still this is all a matter of opinion. Even in these days of boasted enlightenment there are those who will hold that the best way to gain the affection of an obstinate but faithful watch-dog is to kick him. The members of the Opposition will please excuse the simile, and they will also kindly note that the foot was not lifted within sight of the dog — that it was done from behind a screen hundreds of miles distant from the scene of action, at a distance from which one might safely bid for the applause of friends who admired the bravado, without risking the danger of retaliation. So much for the question of behaviour. Now as to the good work that WE will do when WE get the Opposition to relax its vigilance for the time. Mr Arthur has joyfully telegraphed the fact that the Waiapu Separation Bill “ has passed its third reading by an arrangement that the alteration of the boundaries ■ exclude the Harbor Board Block.” A pretty achievement indeed 1 We always gave Sir George Whitmore credit for being a master hand at the game of politics, and felt assured that block-vote gratitude had firmly secured an innocent apprentice, but our poorest opinion of Mr Arthur never would have deemed him so foolish as to triumphantly proclaim—his first and only achievement, by the way—that for which hejought to hide his head In contrition)

What has he succeeded, or nearly succeeded in doing ? Simply this, to relegate to slothful squatterdom, prolific sweet briars, and destructive tawini an enormous area of what is acknowledged to be the finest pastoral land in New Zealand. It was said that if our member were only given a chance he would soon show what he could do, and if this mighty retrograde and destructive achievement is to be considered as a sample of what he will accomplish, it were ten times better he had stayed at home and allowed the district to remain unrepresented. Truly the Whitmore element will be jubilant, as it generally manages to be, and there is little doubt it will continue successful to the end of the chapter, or until the great majority of the electors rise and say they will stand it no longer. Encouraged by their success in splitting up the harbor district, with the active assistance of the member for the whole district, their temerity has become unbounded, and now, with the active assistance of the member for the whole district, the pettifogging policy of splitting up the County has so far been triumphant. In other words the district has been shamefully treated by the alteration of the harbor rating radius, it has been the place worst dealt within the colony by the Electoral Boundary Commissioners, and now the County district is to be hacked and carved to suit a few people whose neglected sheep runs are a reproach to the colony. And as a kind of salve to the injured feelings of the ratepayers in the southern portion of the district, they are to have thrusted upon them the expense of making and maintaining roads to open up the Harbor Board’s costly endowment I Viewed from a local point of view the question pales into insignificance as compared with the importance of its colonial aspect. Past experience has conclusively shown that the disintegration of districts, and the formation of a host of petty governing bodies, are simply obstacles to progress, unless of course it can be shown that the districts detached cannot possibly be governed from the one centre. In this case nothing of the kind can be proved—at least with the limited funds the County Council has at its disposal, it is positive that the organisation of another body, with the additional expense, will not improve things. It is a great shame, looked at from the colonial aspect of the question, to allow this vast area to be monopolised as is now the case, and it is tolerably certain that the more powerful section of the proposed new County will have the weaker section at its mercy. Surely the Liberal party in the House must be dozing into a fit of inanity when they allow themselves to be ridden over in this way by a few individuals who are monopolising enough territory to support a great proportion of the population of New Zealand, land which, instead of being industriously developed, even as decent sheep runs, is allowed to run wild with sweet briar and what is known as tawini.