"DISFRANCHISEMENT."

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 261, 4 November 1890, Page 2

"DISFRANCHISEMENT."

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—l must express my astonishment at MrEwington's letter. 1 gave him credit for more common sense. He writes of 12,000 Civil servants; now, how many of them directly have their salaries or wages tixed by Parliament ? In reality, Ido not believe 200 of them. Are the teachers' salaries fixed by Parliament, or by the Education Boards ?—these, with the railway and telegraph employees (whose wages are not lixed by Parliament), comprise a great portion of the 12,000, and the same remarks will apply to the constabulary. We have a numerous liab. of petty postmasters ab £5 per annum—they are classed as Civil servants—are they also to be disfranchised for fear they should affect our political purity in favour of the idle, here to day-and gone-to-morrow man, who happens to have been in tho country six months, or the Chinaman, or, tho inmates of our charitable institutes ; nay, even the visiting sailor ? Why is ib that "our public men so pereistently ignore the fact that- if we want to reduce our expenditure and lessen the army of Civil servants, we can only do so by dispensing with many luxuries that we know we cannot at present afi'ord? There seems to be an attempt to humbug the working men by making believe we can retain all the advantages of free and higher education and everything else he at present possesses with less taxation and less Civil eervants. Those who know anything ab all about the real condition of the colony, know differently, bub we are certainly not going to benefit the country by disfranchising the most intelligent section of the community, who are precluded from otherwise obtaining a livelihood by the State monopoly of education, the railways, telegraph, life insurance, etc., according to Mr Ewington's theory. If the Government should monopolise the coal mines, as suggested a short time since, and a few other industries, there would not bo many lefb to exercise the privilege of the franchise.—l am, etc., Commune Bonum.