The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1883.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1264, 27 April 1883, Page 2

The Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1883.

Mr. Shaw and his supporters must be very hard up indeed for " arguments" against Mr.- Wakefield when they can produce nothing better than we have yet" been favored with. The first cry was started by Mr. Shaw himself,' and was that Mr. Wakefield was antagonistic to the gold -mining 'lnterest. This accusation was made at his Reefton meeting, and in the way in which it was put it certainly looked — assuming for the moment the authorship of the alleged offending article — as if there was really something in the allegation. We say "it looked "as if there was something in the charge, because we did not think at the time that Mr. Shaw would have the audacity — we were almost tempted to ; say meanness — to wilfully missquoto and missrepresent Mr. Wakefield behind his back. We have shown, however, by our own comments, as well as by the publication of the very article in question from the Timaru Herald, that not only did Mr. Shaw wilfully missquote, but that the article is utterly incapable of the construction Mr. Shaw placed upon it. Itwas naturally thought that Mr. Shaw, for whom such a lofty standard of mental exce.lence is claimed by some of his new found friends, would have hesitated to put forth a charge, the disproof of which would be rather humiliating; but in this, as in a good many other things, we have been mistaken. However, we think sufficient has been now said on this subject, and we will therefore allow the combatants themselves to settle the account. We now come to consider another heavy indictment against Mr. Wakefield. This time Mr, William M'Leau is the accuser, and the charge is that Mr.. Wakefield is an enemy of the working man. Fortunately, perhaps, for himself, Mr. M'Lean did not attempt to deduce any reasons of his own in support of his accusation, but contented himself for th's purpose with reading three lines out of the middle of a long speech delivered in the House by Mr. Wakefield about four years ago, and upon this flimsy evidence an intelligent audience was asked to believe that one lof New Zealand's most prominent public men, who for seven years had j sat in Parliament for one of the most pronounced working men's constitu encies, was an enemy to the working man? Could anything be more utterly absurd ? No wonder then that Mr. Wakefield, on being appealed to by his friends, indignantly repudiated the charge, denying that he had ever harbored such a sentiment, much less exjircf-'S it. and chrllengcd j iU'i\ l\i\Lt.:i.:! i.v aiiylmil^ else to the

proof of the accusation. Here is the speech from which Mr. M'Lcan quoted in support of his charge, and we will leave our readers to decide for themselves whether it hears out what is claimed for it. In order to thoroughly understand tlie d i;'t of Mr. Wakefield's remark, we may presume that at the time referred to Sir George Grey was especially full of "the working man." He had been stumping all tho principal cities in the. ..colony', infiatning the minds of the working classes upon the subject of their : wrongs. Nobody who knew him believed for a moment that Sir George Grey was sincere in his advocacy of the working man. His whole antecedents belied such a supposition. As Governor he was a Conservative of tho strongest tendencies, and as Premier he was an autocrat — stiff • and .unapproachable. Nobody therefore but knew -tlie hdllowiiess of his advocacy of the working men. And such working men ! — the crews of ships in port at Wellington ; the refuse of European cities brought out under the then immigration system ; and the vast nondescript class always to be found in large cities. This was tlie donii-god that Sir George Grey endeavored to arouse, and upon whose shoulders he hoped to creep back into power. On the night in v4,uestipu l^Gre.y v _had.jniadev one: of , his. customary speeches, and Mr. Wakefield in the course of his reply, said : — "It is not the Opposition who are keeping these Bills back from the people j it is that Government who advised a dissolution before these laws came into force ; it is that Government who prefer a few weeks' prolongation of their power of office to the interests of the whole people of New Zealand. That is the point. They might have had their Electoral Bills passed in no time if they had chosen • but what do they care about the Bills ? They care for nothing. They only care to be allowed to retain office a few weeks longer, with whatever chances a general election may bring. All their patriotism is as hollow as it can be : everyone sees through it. I do not think anyone isl deceived by- it. The Premier tried the ' working man ' dodge again to-night ; but that game is played out. Why, Sir, if anyone could be undeceived by anything, it would be by the action of the honorable gentleman himself. We are all aware that six hundred immigrants are to arrive within the next few days, and this while the unemployed are organising a system of relief, the employers of labor themselves admitting that they never had such hard times. And yet the honorable gentleman hurries on his shiploads of immigrants, without ever thinking what is to become of them. I never set myself up for a ' working man's friend,' and I ■hope I shall die before I do so as the Premier has done ; but, without affecting any such position, 1 could ■ demonstrate, in such terms as a working man could not fail to understand, that there is not a single man in this country who has less care for his welfare than the honorable gentleman. It is a party cry ; it is utter clap-trap. Of course one sees very well what it all means. He looks upon the working men of New Zealand as a class of people who may be made tools of for the purposes of autocratic government. He imagines that by crushing everything to the level of the working man he will be the only thing elevated above it. He is the tower of autocracy on this level plain, which is to be crushed down to the level of tho working man. But he entirely mistakes tho working man of New Zealand, they are looking forward to. the time when they will no longer be working men. Why, Sir, where are the working men of twenty-five years ago ? In this House, in the Legislative Council, on the Government benches, in every position and in every class of society; some of the most wealthy and prosperous mon in New Zealand belonged to the working classes twenty five years ago * but it was not by being pampered as the honorable gentleman would pamper them that they rose to their present positions. It was through their own industry, through the advantages offered by this colony, through the freedom of those very institutions which the honorabls gentleman would crush. There is not a country in the world where the working man lias such a chance as he has in New Zealand, as long as he keeps out of the hands of these autocratic demagogues : as l-ng as he sees through their wiles and understands their trickery, he need not have the slightest fear that he will be a down-trodden serf, or ever sink to the position of the poor manufacturing laborers of Belgium and Great Britain, or that ho will ever be sent to the wars to be shot for his country's glory, or, if he returns from the wars, be starved to death, There is no fear of that iv this laud of mut ton and flour. The honorable gentleman is thoroughly understood, and it is no use exposing him further ; but I do say this : that it is a pity that, on occasions of this kind, he should come down to this House and waste the material for which he will have so much need during the next four weeks, which I understand he is going to spend in taking the Hinemoa about the country stumping the constituencies in the ' great Liberal cause,' "