The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, November 27, 1890. POLITICAL MATTERS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 537, 27 November 1890, Page 2

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

Thursday, November 27, 1890. POLITICAL MATTERS.

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

The General Election will be decided in a little more than a week from today—December 5th —and it will then be the duty of the East Coast to do its part honorably in the matter of choosing a representative. There are two candidates in the field, and the electors have now an opportunity to judge between them. In the early part of the contest an attempt was' made by one candidate to set localism in the foreground, but he changed his, tune on going over to Opotjki, and being promptly nailed he has had to keep to that declaration. Therefore both candidates ask to be judged on broad grounds. Mr Arthur’s delay in addressing the electors in the southern portion of the district does not seem to have availed him much, for his speeches have been such feeble efforts as to be quite in keeping with his former /self. As we have stated,* in one point hi has decidedly improved. He treated his opponents with respect, and judiciously avoided the silly bluster he mad 6 on " the other side of the, range,” when he. asserted that Sir George Grey the masses. Jove and admire .even if they do not always agree with, him) should retire from politics. The grand old man has now unfortunately had to retire, but from very different reasons to those given by Mr Arthur. On political questions Mr Arthur is still a novice. It is only a few months ago that he by inuendo referred to an opponent as a promulgator of “ wild-cat schemes,’’ but now'we have Mr Arthur'himself coming forth as a faddist of the first water, and tickling Oiir ears by letting us know he is on confidential terms with Ministers and has the power to get his fads put into practice. Thus he is a far more dangerous character than a man who only counts as one among g;. We do not class ourselves with those who sneer at “ faddists,” because we know that history is pregnant with lessons proving how what have been condemned as fads have before many years have passed been regarded as blessings. But in Mr Arthur’s fads there is a method that convinces us they are hatched by no dreamer—they are suspiciously favorable to the interests of a privileged class as against the interests of the masses. His proposal to hand over to speculators the choice portion of every block thrown open for settlement is about the most impudent thing we have ever heard from a public platform. Any person with a grain of sense must know that no speculator would pay more than he thought would allow him a handsome return, and unless the State is on the verge of bankruptcy it would be madness thus to sacrifice the property of the people. Then Mr Arthur’s other fad in regard to native lands has an equally suspicious flavor about it /;' it is nothing more nor less than a proposal to confiscate the native lands for the benefit of speculators. We have patiently waited in the hope that some radical improvement would be made in the native land laws, but the -people will be quite content to wait longer, if no better proposal is offered than that made by : Mr Arthur. That gentleman tries to conceal the truth by throwing on the lawyers the blame for the present-state of things: it seems to him that to be a lawyer a. man must also be something worse. He is entitled to hold that opinion, and to publicly proclaim it if he believes it to be true; _ but it will not serve as a-blind Ho the true state of things, which goes to prove that the bad native land laws tire the outcome of having in the House so many men mixed up in native land transactions —men who do not scruple to return to their constituents and boast that they have succeeded by “ fluke”in getting through clauses that were strongly objected to by the House. Such “ cleverness” throws the cloak of suspicion over everything that is attempted in the way of remedial measures. The other points in Mr Arthur’s speech are worth only scant notice. He reiterates the assertions about what has been done by the present Governmeßt, but .he coolly omits to toll that what retrenchment there has been was [forced by a roar” from the country, and he also omits to tell about the enormous export of grain during the /Australian drought, of the great help given by the frozen meat industry, and other natural aids. On the question of Unionism he gave a long disquisition, apparently without seeing the ridiculousness of the position he was taking in setting himself up as an authority on such matters—after the strike, too 1 Intelligent men went to hear Mr Arthur's views on politics, and pot to be dictated to as what they ought to do in the matter of Unionism. They are quite as able to judge as one who only recently from the public platform favored government by autocracy, tempered with dynamite. The claptrap about Capital and Labor assures us of one thing, that Mr Arthur is an admirer of the grinding monopolies that exist upon the flesh-blood of our fellow-creatures. All men, he says, in their turn become capitalists. We are astounded at such ignorance, and in all seriousness would advise Mr Arthur to read even contemporary history, and try and place himself on a level with the audience he addresses.