A FINANCIAL FEELER.

Evening Post, Volume LVII, Issue 23, 28 January 1899, Page 4

A FINANCIAL FEELER.

The Premier, after much cogitation among the rural recesses of the West Coast, has. put out another financial feeler, this time at Greymouth. He wants warrant for a big loan policy, but, like the astute waiter upon political providence that he is, there must be sure sign that the country is likely to follow ere he commits himself to a career of open Vogelism. His Party organs have done their best to nersuade the working men that the time has come for a return to a great reproductive works policy — on the co-opera-tive principle, of course — but, as the manual worker is just now in much demand throughout the country, he has apparently neither time nor inclination to " barrack" for the latest Seddonian game. This is rather embarrassing for the Premier, who feels that he must go to the constituencies before the expiration of the year with a " broad, comprehensive, and progressive policy," and is waiting to be told, not what is best for the highest needs of the country, but what policy, without regard to the countiy's welfare, will best appeal to the selfish and unthinking of the multitude. And so it came about that last night the Premier put out another feeler for the borrowing and spending policy that he hopes the constituencies will demand, and place under his control. Let him but have these millions in his hands, and he will continue to rule New Zealand as absolutely as any pro-consul in the old Roman days, with his legions at his back. And here is the sign of his intent to grasp that power. "He said," we quote from the telegraphed report of his speech, " the Government was accused of making the colony's debt greater, but, he added, he intended going on doing so. He indicated the necessity for the extension of railways, and roads for goldfields, and the further purchase of lands for settling the people." The Premier indicated the necessity for the extension of railways. What railways ? We believe that the time haF come for the sanctioning of complete railway communication along the authorised line of route between Wellington and Auckland. That is a national work necessary to link the main trunk system of the whole territory, but what is the price the Premier would pay ? If his candidates for Otago and Canterbury can only be returned to Parliament by promises of completion out of loan moneys of the Otagc Central and Midland Railways, is it to be supposed that they will hesitate to pledge themselves to these huge commitments ? Certainly not. We shall be told that the time has gone by when a " selfreliant and non-borrowing policy " wa? good for the country, and that now, with returned prosperity, assured credit, a plethora of cheap money, and expanding settlement, the waste lands and the wilder ness now lying idle and inaccessible mus be pierced by the railway track, and con verted into smiling farms and pastoral homes. And once the great game of political log-rolling takes hold, what will be its course ? The millions will be borrowed and the constituencies successfully debauched to the will of Seddonism ; the even tenour of our prosperous way will give place again to rash speculation and inflated values, to culminate in the burst ing of yet another boom, to be followed by corresponding calamity and long drawn-out atonement. No ; rather than tnal the administration of a great public workf policy should be entrusted to the law'es? hands' of the present Government, we would have none at all, and, whatever line of action the Opposition may take, •their first care should be to prove in and to the country, as they can do if they will, that the Premier should above all thing? be debarred from the control of borrowed millions.