WELLINGTON NOTES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVII, Issue 1363, 4 June 1895, Page 5

WELLINGTON NOTES.

[FROM OVA OWN CORRESPONDENT ] THE BANKS. Our chickens are coming home to roost with a vengeance. State farms are producing no rents. State labor agencies are looked upon with puch disfavor by unemployed carpenters, that they will not register their names for fear they will be arrested as vagrants with no visible means of support. State legislation of late years has made a once fairly contented population angry everywhere, here as well as other places and ripe for a row if they only knew on whom to fix a quarrel. And events of the day point to still further additions to the unemployed. Our State Bank, bolstered up by Parliament last year, baa again to acknowledge its weakness and an all round lowering of salaries of £2OO and upwards is decided on to take effect from June Ist, the position being accentuated by dispensing altogether with various officials who will be cast out on a cold, heartless world to shift for themselves. This is very sad for the officials and humiliating for the Bank, and as the man in the street asserts confidently, that both the Colonial and National Banks are to be absorbed into the State concern, Government being accessory to the fact, the total number of employees to bo thrown out of their means of living will be numbered by scores. Country people may say " What haß all this to do with us. Let the B. N.Z. sack its cashiers, reduce its managers' salaries, and swallow up opposition concerns ; we do not care a brass button." But country people will find that although they may not have their names on the register of the Bank as shareholders, they will have to help to keep the concern on its legs anyhow. Not in a direct manner by paying calls, but through the Custom house in an extra Is on every pair of boots and a little extra in every item where an odd penny cau be exacted by au ingenious and impecunious government compelled to raise revenue to keep the State Bank afloat. From a sympathetic and charitable point of view, it may have been a graciousactto Bet the B.N.Z. on its legs last year. All parties consented to- save immediate disaster. The benevolence of a two million guarantee was looked upon as a first and final help ; but it looks as if further aid will have to be providod to patch up the concern and turn it into a political privateering machine. What between the aßsets of the Globo being made a gamble of ; the absorption of the other two banks, the consequent scattering of a host of clerks, and the reduction in pay of those retained, it is perhaps a pity that the B.N.Z. was not left to its fate last year. When a decayed tooth is yanked out, the agony is short and sharp, but it is preferable to constant toothache. SENDING ROUND XHE CRIER. While ministers reply to applications for a road here, a bridge there, and a vote to assist mining in another placo, with the reply "no funds available," they can still lind the needful to advertise themselves. It struck people a3 curious, a few weeks ago, that the Melbourne Age should develop a sudden and laudatory interest in New Zealand finance, particularly with regard to the loan. The reason why, has come to light. Newspapers, in common, with everything else in Victoria, feel the pinch of hard times. The Age and Leader proprietary, therefore, had to look outside Melbourne for sustenance, and sent a smart canvasser to this colony to try his luck, and he has been fairly successful. It is a recognised custom with newspapers that a liberal advertiser is entitled to a favorable notice in the local columns, and anyone who goes on the principle of " give us notoriety, and d n the expense," may even look for a pat on the back in the leading columns. The Age cauvassing agent approached ministers individually and collectively, and iti exchange for a tonic, administered in the shape of favorable comment on the colony, authority was given by various departments to advertise this distressful colony to the extent of £4OO to £SOO in the Aqe and Leader. It is to be hoped that some member will bring the ministers to book who authorised this wicked waste of public money. Had this money been spent to relieve distress by finding work for the unemployed, or to aid prospecting parties, Government would have deserved credit; but to buy a few favorable notices in Victorian papers at such a price is a sin, which requires investigation and censure.