THE Manawatu Times. WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24, 1880. A WHOLESALE SLANDERER.

Manawatu Times, Volume IV, Issue 91, 24 November 1880, Page 2

THE Manawatu Times.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 24, 1880. A WHOLESALE SLANDERER.

"Words are tilings, and a drop of ink falling like clew upon a thought, produces Lhctwbioh makes thousands, perhaps millions think."

Until very recently that notorious character J. G-. S. Grant, Esq., First Rector of the Dunedin High School, enjoyed the verj unenviable reputation of being the only mendacious slanderer of j New Zealana. Another of the noxious weeds has, howevtr, taken root m the Colony, and may be found blooming m the White City m the person of its Congregationalist. minister, the Eev. John Foster. The n-lerical gentleman hails from the same shire as sent forth the Lincoln Delegates, and the object of the impudent libel — which was forwarded to a journal m that county — was to warn the intending immigrant against believing the report published by those gentlemen. He commences his letter as follows : — " In my jndgment, that man is acting criminally who holds out any inducement to any other than large-capitalled farmers to come to this country. ... I want to sare what few shillings I can lay aside from paying the exorbitant prices of the necessaries of life, to enable me to plant my feet on the old shore again as soon as possible " After giving utterance to a series of financial mistatennents he goes on as follows : — "Am I sorry I came ? No : emphatically no I To have discovered the delusive trap iuto which mv countryman were being lured is worth all the cost I have expended upon it. To have the gratification of one score of hearts saved from breaking up home and rushing 1 into a moral wilderness, without even the golden sand to redeem it, is reward enough for me. I tell you, my old neighbours and friends, stick to your land yet. . . . . Ah ! what a tale I coitld unfold of the evils, the debaucheries, the blasted lives, and the abject wretchedness of the voyage to many. What a heavr charge I could lay against the low-toned morality, the slipshod r-ligion, the substitution of honestish-like for the steia old honesty of the book better known at Home than here. But I will draw the veil over what must be to me a painful knowledge down to the very grave." Perhaps after the perusal of the foregoing our readers would like some information as to. who the Rev. John Foster is ! He is a gentleman who arrived m Chrixtchurch m January, but not finding a flock m want of a pastor, he next proceeded tQ Wellington, where he continued for Bam.c months. The letter from which the foregoing was extracted was penned on the 6,th July, and then Mr. Fostfr was snugly ensconced m charge of his congregation at t>.ama,ru. Five months have elapsed between, then and now, and notwithstanding that there has been ample opportunity for the saving of the coveted shillings wherewith to take his departure, the rtv gentleman still voluntarily lingers m this accursed colonial pandemonium. We have learned that the yearly stj pend which rewarded the spiritual labors of Mr. Foster m Lincolnshire amounted to £SO, while we 'hire assert that m Oainaru he will be. m receipt of fully three times that sum 5 so that it may be, that notwithstanding the altitude of the pedestal of godliness upon which he has taken his stand, his hunger and thirst for the com pa n} 7 of the righteous, has succumbed to his weakness and worship of Mammon. Men of the Foster stamp are not the materials out of which heroes and martyrs are made, and we feel we are not wronging that gentleman m attributing a leaven of selfishhess to his voluntary sojourn m a land which is so repulsive to his sensitive and sanctified nature. The spirit exhibited, and the cause of his desire to shake the dust from off his shoes, is m sad keeping with the- trim instincts of a Soldier of the Cross ; and the fact that the rev. slanderer has now no wish to take his departure can not be attributed to a resolve to act the Christian Clergyman and nobly do his duty, but that the pandemonium, has not been quite so bad and much more profitable than it had been painted. Mr. Foster is by no means the only new arrival who has drawn upon his imagination when inditing his Home correspondence ; nor is he the first who has been horrified to find his un van-anted assertions like curses and chickens " sent home to roost,"- arid brand him as an unprincipled, ungrateful, and untruthful libeller. 'He. says :— ' " Lincolnshire formers beware ! Grant and Foster are among you ; and I know not how much the hero worship they endured here may have made Hioir Imws and tenor harmonise with the alto and treble of the Airenfc-Gcneral and his well-paid boys. Reckon with ttiis tact before you move a peg towards a sale and a voyage. If small farmers here I m the past, with all the prosperity behind and t round about them couldl uot do, "and have, by the score, not only last their farms, but all thut they have put into them, on the deferred-payment system, h,ow are you going to do better when the g-'ain grown is next to useless for want of a market : when facilities for carriage are being curtailed : when competition will become keener, because of the desperation to which men are driven to undersell when the railway tariff is to be increased to pay the Colonial deot : and when you have to moot a condition' of heavy taxation from your land down to your wife's wedding ring and your baby's rattle?" ' Would be believed that the man who penned such statements, would when confronted with his treachery, seek to evade the odium of hfe conduct, by a

weak admission that he had been somewhat mistaken and a little rash. It is something more than a coincidence that while the fair fame of New Zealand has been blacksned and defamed by a Grant and a Foster — two men of exactly the same name, whoae honesty could not be impugned, bear suoh. willing testimony to its future greatness and prosperity.