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time the Reporter waits with pdised pencil to
take down the "ipsissima verba" of the reply.
"The Moving Finger writes, and having writ
Moves on ; nor all vour piety and wit
Can lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out one Word of it."
Thereafter the candidate's words will be misquoted
and distorted bv gentlemen who write
leading articles. If he says, "I believe in the
devil, and I believe in ttod," the caustic commentator
will accept only the first half of the
declaration. The leading article will declaim (a
week later, when people's memories have become
defective)
"Mr. K. N. Pidate has thrown off the mask.
He stands revealed in all liis hidoousness. Last
Monday night he avowed, with an unblushing
cynicism which the infidel VOLTAIRE could not
have surpassed"—(Voltaire was scarcely an infidel
but little mistakes like that'do not matter)
—"which VOLTAIRE could not have surpassed,
that he was a devotee of Satan. He said, 'I
believe in the devil.' His own words will be
found recorded in the verv newspapers which
are most devoted to his Interests"—(Memo—
Not one in 10,000 readers will trouble to refer
to those papers)—"and he cannot repudiate
them without shameless falsehood. Are we to
elect devil-worshippers to our National Legislature
?"
And so on. with many resonant words and
many hypocritical cries of mock horror.
Are the people deluded? Probably some of
them are, for Phineas T. Barnum remarked
that it Avas possible to foci some of the people
all tiie time, and all the neonle some
of. the e
million dollars at its back.
The Unshakable Purpose is a great card for
the candidate to play. "Loot at Me," cries
he, "I stand four-square to all the winds that
blow { mine is the Unchanging Mind"—as Robespierre
posed as The Incorruptible. To-day
Mr. Wise in Gippsland is the champion performer
in this attitude. "I stand where I stood
three years ago," he proudly remarks. Possibly
he does (there are two opinions about it), but
in the meantime the Commonwealth has moved.
The firm-as-a-rock declaration is no more than
a confession that the progress of politics has
left the declaiming person behind. Stonehenge
also stands where it stood, and to that extent
may boast itself a superior place of worship to
St. Paul's Cathedral, which has been built and
rebuilt while the circle of large boulders stood
as still as Mr. Wise. Randolph Churchill remarked
sapiently : "An unchanging mind is an
admirable possession, which I devoutly hope I
may nsver possess." These firm-as-a-rock fellows
are the sort who imprisoned Galileo, because
he wanted them to change their minds
concerning the shape of the earth.
The Financial Agreement has had some funny
consequences. It had three Victorian opponents
in the Federal Parliament—Sir. Harper, Mr. W.
H. Irvine and Mr. Wise—and they are all in a
peculiar predicament. Mr. Irvine is desperately
tired with explaining that he is the Fat/her of
Effective Protection, while the journalistic
apostle of Protection-and-super-Protection is
never tired of disowning him. Mr. Harper also
has something to explain—and must explain it
before an audience more critical than a body of
lectors. Mr. Wise explains nothing,
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