THE COMING JUBILEE.

Evening Star, Issue 7195, 25 April 1887, Page 4

THE COMING JUBILEE.

TO THB EDITOR. SIB,-Tn your issue of Thursday evening you cive a report of the meeting called by the Mayor for the purpose of taking steps to celebrate the Jubilee year of the Queen s reign. After reading your report I could scarcely credit the rumors that have been recently flying about as to the increasing number of unemployed, and the serious depression that exists in ill branches of trade. What, forsooth, do the unemployed of Dunedin, «ho are starving, or drifting into debt to avoid . 'h a state, cat e for the year of Jubilee ; or what has Her Majesty ever done for the starving thousands of Great Britain, that they or we should ere ite such a etir about it? As a private lady the Queen may be all that can be desired; but rater official capacity the working classes havo little to thank her for. She costs the people of Great Britain nearly L 600.000 per annum, and for the last few years she has done nothing for it. She is allowed L 60.000 a-year for her private purse, which for the fifty years she has reigned amounts to three,millions of pounds-a mere trifle no doubt to the workmen who have to pay the greater portion of it. Since the Prince Consort's death she has on nearly all occasions deputed the Prince of Wales-a deservedly popular man—to perform her public duties, and despite her immense wealth (almost iicr«lible) has allowed him so little for expenses that he has on more than one occasion strongly remonstrated with his Royal mother on the sublet. Working men should also note that onr enormously rich Queen did not object to accept for her own personal use and benefit the valuable loot cruelly stolen from the unfortunate Burmese people. ~, „ With regard to the progress of the Empire during the period of Her Majesty s reign, I cannot help thinking that the thanks of the working classes are more due to such reformers and statesmen as Gladstone, Bright, Chamberlam. Trevelyan, LaboucHore, and last but not least Broadhurst, Burt, and "the late Mr MacUonald, than they are to Queen Victoria It seems to me almost impossible that m such a democratic Colony as New Z-.alr.nd and sycophancy can exiat to such an extent. However, with your permission, sir, I wixh, as one of the toilers, to make my humble protest •gainst any expenditure cf t'..e public funds for the above objects. Private individuals can, of course, please themselves; but our local mag' nates must, as Cr Fish advises them, draw the line at that point.—l am, etc., _ Harry Warner. Dunedin, April 23.