Our Wellington Letter.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1984, 16 April 1906, Page 5

Our Wellington Letter.

(From our own Correspondent) "WELLINGTON, April 12. As I returned from the Post after sending away my batch of last week, 1 heard that the Premier had returned from the Chathams, and that he had had rather a narrow escape. The Street sees in story the good moral that every steam vessel ought to be compelled by law to carry twin screws. Which is all very'well in its way ; but the idea has been, hitherto, that the twin screw was proof against racing and all the incidental evils. However, it is well to have one screw to fall back on when the other breaks

down. But that is not the real moral of the story. The irrepressible'one, •who always has a word of sharpness, announced that it was clear from the account of the accident that there was not a man at the governor when the screw took charge. The governor was not working well, as sometimes happens to governors, especially when they are not up to date, nobody was by to stop the racing, the screw w<v *■ to market, and when Hie Uont v-.ji-rJ back to her even keel, tl • screw got such "a shake from the sea that something had to go, and the shaft went. Now, in every ship of the King's Navy there is a man stationed at the governor, no matter how up-to-date and automatic the thing may be. If the Tutanekai discipline had been up to that standard the accident might not have happened. Luckily, the shaft broke outside the post. Had it broken inside there might have been a swinging, and the shaft might have gone through the side. Caesar is always lucky at sea. My friends hastened down the next day to congratulate the old man on his escape and say the usual nice things. These soon gave place to expectations of new departures. The restless Premier went off, at once almost, to Timaru to join in the jubilations of the railway men; and there were some so thoughtless as to expect him to declare the surplus for the year that ended on this day week. But the name of the Premier is not Daniel. The idea of getting the complete figures in three days is staggering. It

reminds me of the old days when the Budget used to be the greatest of all living mysteries. The whole art of finance in the days of old —say when Vogel first came to the front —seemed to be to conceal the result of the year's operations as long as possible. In those days it used to take the Treasury officers five months to get the balancesheet finished, and even then they had to work half the night of every working day. Any reporter unhappy enough to have to ask for information about those wretched accounts was treated as a pirate and a lunatic rolled into one. The first change was to leave the balances to the ordinary rules of accounting, and the next was to simplify the method of bookkeeping till it was understandable by the vul- , gar. This was denounced as a wicked encouragement of all the vices of dishonesty and bad spelling. No wonder, ; because only about three men in the country understood the books under the old system, and one of them was jn the House as Colonial Treasurer, and was always able to floor any |' opponent rash enough to criticise fie i , finance of the Government. Finance : and intricacy were the same thing in those days. W/n the ax? was placed • at the root of this system the outcry was amusing. Now that anybody : who runs can read the accounts and ■. all that they contain before the end of the first month of the new year . (financial) that old outcry is more ; amusing still. I remember ence a i journalist contrived, by putting two :

and two together, to make a very shrewd guess at the surplus, and he was denounced as a traitor to the Government he was pretending to support. But his prediction came true ; in fact, was under rather than over the mark, and the Government Party were compelled to unwillingly acknowledge his honesty and good faith. Sir Joseph Ward was the first Treasurer who had the last quarter's accounts published before the session. From that it was but a step to the fullest statement at the earliest time, and the present Trea*urer takes that step every time. The Street bets that the surplus will be found more than the usual threequarter million this time. In that case, the aid to the Public Works Fund contributed by this Government will be between four and five millions from revenue since the day they took office -under Mr Ballance. Naturally,

one thinks, under the circumstances of taxation, " Remit" is the word which sounding louder just now than it has ever done since the present I Government took office. " Protect" i« another cry in the air, and the things to be protected are apparently all the things used by the farming folk of this happy country. There is an idea abroad among the city folk that the farmers have been coining money lately. So much so that it is becoming the fashion to talk of the newly acquired and settled properties a« we used to talk of new rushes in the gold days. The Street is constantly referring to the " Flaxbourne Gold Rush," and the " Starborough Lead," and the "Waikakahi Mine," and so forth. We talk als« of the "Greenfield Deep Sinking" as if it were a far better thing than that of old ■' Gabriel's," that most of us have

forgotten about, and the other day we were talking of the " Rush" to Olydevale, but since the negotiations for that fine property were dropped i that talk has dropped into a whisper of suspicious surmise. But this by the way. Let us get back to the revtnue and the talk of remission and protection. Everybody one meets wants, and is going to head, a deter _ jained movement for reduction, an^

the movement for imposing a new and protective tariff is like to be combined and vigorous. All the manufacturers are getting together and inviting their workmen's unions to meet them in confab as to the best kind of pistol to hold at the head of the Government to make them get this thing done. It behoves the farmer and the miner to be prepared to say a few words at the right time in the right place—which, of course, is Parliament. A hailstorm or two, with an inundation and a few really hai-d frosts, together with an untimely snowstorm, would be very

effective at the present time. They would tend to modify that extreme idea of excessive wealth on the part of the farmer, and might engender some pity for him in the heart of the city worker who wants his blood. The workers of the city have other fish to fry just now. They have not heard of a certain cartoon of byegone days, which shows that even the workers don't know everything down in this " Judea " of ours, which is so good to them. Had they heard they might have" profited to the "xtont of taking thfMv --.•..",'.-. : thf-i best possible ■ : - is is the story. Cartoon represents two workmen discussing an ai-bitration award which had been given against them. Says one to the othe : " Do you call that harbitration ? "Why e's guv it agin us !" This is the whole sum and substance of the tirades against the award in the seamen's case which the President of our Trades and Labor Council is pouring into the newspapers and washing through their pages with his copious tears. The ' innocence with which he expects us to ' believe that the court decided against the weight of evidence is too funny for words. But the gentleman, in his [ wrath, has supplied the rod for his own back. Says he at every turn, " I myself have often settled matters between parties far better." Just so. [ You have been conciliating by not [ asking the Court for your pound of . flesh. IsTow why don't you people go '. to the Conciliation Board first every ' time ? You seem to have forgotten ; that the Act was passed to enable people to fix up matters between them i all right, while the Arbitration Court < waited as a possible authority in case \

anything went wrong with conciliation. Now that the workers are dissatisfied with the Court they might remember that in future they ought to make th©> most of the machinery of Conciliation, which was intended in the beginning to be the main motive power of the engine of arbitration a-:'1 :. ; -| 1 .--> 01-.nli-tion. Here we have the corrective tu the excessive use of the Court, which was only intended to be the last resort, not the first, as it has become of late yeai-s, mainly through the sharpness of the labor people. The Street is disgusted with the mealy-mouthed comments of a feeble Press on the Natal crisis. The bedrock is this : —First, What would we have said here if, some years ago, some trouble about the Maori dog-tax had been followed by a court-martial and death sentences? Secondly, When , New Zealand wanted to take up the position of constitutional independence as a self-governing colony within the Empire, we straightway told the Imperial Government to take away the Imperial troops, as we were prepared to take on our own Native difficulty. The troops went away, and we rubbed | on, with difficulty at first, and with success in the end. But these Natal people are still in the position of depending on the- Imperial Government to defend them in the event of a Kaffir rising. They have no right to do anything, therefore, to force interference with men and money without consulting the Imperial Government. Moreover, having claimed to be independent constitutionally when they are not so really, they coolly throw over their civil administration and let loose the militaiw officer who has no experience except of the practice which puts the Native in the wrong every time. The mealy-mouthed critics among us ignore the whole of this position, and pat Lord Elgin for backing down from

a very correct attitude. It cannot be said that the Natalese ought not to be expected to take on their own Native difficulty. The reply is (1) That is absurd, because the Boers took on their own Native difficulty when they were not half so numerous as the Natalese are now, and came out all right; (2) If the Natalese are afraid to face the music let them not prate of their constitutional independence. The principle of constitutional independence of a self-governing colony was never touched throughout the whole of this bad business. Now the Kaffirs are rising we shall hear less of this independence.