The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, November 6, 1890. A FALSE ACCUSATION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 528, 6 November 1890, Page 2

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

Thursday, November 6, 1890. A FALSE ACCUSATION.

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

On Tuesday we referred to the use that a certain political party was trying to make of the examples of rowdyism given in some places, during the election campaign—that instead of joining in condemnation of the rowdyism the party referred to was condoning it by simply trying to throw the blame on their opponents. A full report is now to hand of Mr Macdonald’s meeting at Wellington, that gentleman having spoken on the night following Mr Duthie’s meeting. In referring to the previous night’s proceedings Mr Macdonald said:—The labor party of the city of Wellington and the labor candidates had been charged of being guilty of the exhibition of rowdyism last night. On behalf of the labor candidates and on behalf of the great mass of laborers in this city, he absolutely denied the charge. (Loud and continued applause.) No one regretted .more thanhe did the exhibition of last night. It was unfair to the candidate and it was unfair to the labor party themselves ; that because some 40 or 50 men had a great antipathy to the candidate, and they chose to express it in their fashion that the Labor party should be charged with the row. (Cheers.) He would say this, however, that it was good humour and not a vicious one. But. because certain gentlemen in a meeting may choose to take possession of it, was the great mass of the labouring people of this city to be said to be guilty of ruffianly conduct ? (‘No!’) The morning journal had said that the exhibition proved that the labor party were the enemies of free speech, it hated fairplay and it was a stranger to courtesy. Now it has been reserved for the New Zealand Times to tell them that the labor party has ever been the enemy of free speech. He wondered where free speech would have been, but for the labor organisations and the labor agitators of the past 50 years. (Cheers.) That ex pression, he thought, must have been made hastily and without consideration, and without reflecting upon the benefits which civilisation had achieved through the men who had risen from the laboring classes, and who had developed labor into the position which it enjoyed to-day. (Loud cheering.) These remarks and the way’ they were received show how utterly baseless is the accusation that has been made against the Labor party. It will be discomforting to the Conservatives to think that the little dodge of trying to make capital out of this rowdyism has about been played out. Taking up their line of explaining from cause to effect they were responsible for the rowdyism at Mr Duthie’s meeting, but then their line of explanation is not a genuine one, and the fact remains that both parties should strive to check the rowdy element that sometimes surges to the surface during heated election contests.