A HOPEFUL SIGN.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 181, 11 August 1888, Page 2

A HOPEFUL SIGN.

The Onehunga ratepayers have, by a emalj majority, set their foot down on a propose) to borrow £2OOO. In announcing the result of the poll the Mayor stated that he had to declare the proposal lost, and he did so with great regret. That day woulfi, ije predicted' bs a black letter day in their history, and the advancement and welfare of the inhabitants had received a blow such as would take them a Ipng time to recover from. The announcement was redieyed in silence, and many were the regrets expressed. It is a common failing that men never know when they are well off and in this instance the disappointed ratepayers are really to be congratulated. It IB a hopeful sign that a more healthy feeling is springing up when we hear of a cheek being placed on these leech-like little loans. The taxpayers may yet have their eyes opened to the evil of borrowing which is being perpetuated by every successive Government, and there is still a chance of redemption, but as the people have ever been so apathetic in these matters the most certain way of arousing them to action is by bringing pressure to bear on their pockets. Therefore the little incident under notice has an importance which can only be recognised after rcfiectiou.

MISGUIDED CHARITY. An Auckland lunatic, named Richard Feltu some tinic ago made his escape, and eluded the authorities for more than fourteen days, after which time it is necessary to have another medical examination ami commitment before a lunatic can be returned to tire ayslum It was not thought necessary to place further restraint on the unfortunate Biehard, and a kind gentleman gave him employment. But Richard had his heart set on going to Sydney, where he said he had friends who would give him a helping hand. On this being put in its best light to the Charitable Aid Board, that body agreed to pay half the passage fare and the friend procured the other half. Now Richard has been arrested at Sydney on suspicion of being a lunatic, and has told the authorities there that he was sent over by the Auckland Charitable Aid Board, with the result that the N.S.W. Government has taken the matter up under the impression that incorrigibles are being shunted on to Sydney. The circumstances can of course be easily explained, and one may well reciprocate the kindly intentions of the Board, and especially of the gentleman previously alluded to, but this incident must be taken as one more illustration of the misguided charity which characterises so many of the actions of these Boards. The intention was good, but many such indiscreet actions would amount to little short of a crime. Instead of spending the taxpayers’ money, possibly to bring down a most undeserved odium upon the colony, the Board might at least have made enquiries in place of relying on the word of an unfortunate imbecile.

blowing bubbles. The Australians are notorious for the : * “ blowing ” capacities—unfortunately we hav” nothing to blow about but our big. loans and shameless politicians. As a whole Australians are like a vain woman who will believe, or ap preciate though they may know it to be false, any ridiculous flattery that may be heaped upon her by a champion of sophistry. AMr R. T. Booth, who is now en tour in Australia, quite out-Yankeed the Yankees in the course of an address at a suburb of Sydney the other day. He said that if any twopenny-halfpenny country went to war, the Australians, English, and Americans are in a position to give them a cuff and put thAn to bed. The Eng-Hsli-speaking nations, notably England, America, and Australia, number nearly 100 000,000 souls. He regretted that men thought so much of building forts and firing guns; but let the Russian bear put his paw upon the fair land of Australia, then the British lion, the American eagle, and the Australian kangaroo would rise up as one man, and drive him ignominously to his lair. The utterance of these words caused cheering that lasted fully five minutes. The picture of a lion and an eagle and a kangaroo rising up if as ope man I” Yet these silly colonials raise enthusiastic cheers that last fully five minutes. We have neard a political orator cheered tor that length of time, but the enthusiasm was very often a gentlemanly kind of sarcasm. If it were not so in tfiis case, then we guarantee that we have not an eight-year-old schoolboy with less sense than that Sydney audience. NEMESIS. The Hon. R. Campbell’s action in connection with the Otago Dock Loan has not met with favor in Dunedin, and some of the comments on his conduct are disgusting enough to show that the people who make them are hardly fit to think for themselves. “ The punish, ment for certain offences under the Roman law was to sew up the scoundrel in a bag with a cock and a viper, and throw him into the Tiber. This, hints a Dunedin paper, is what should be done to the Hon. R, Camp, bell for his action against the Otago Dock loan.” But no matter what these people may say or think, nothing can be more plain to an impartial observer than that if the Hon. Mr Campbell has succeeded in frustrating the proposed loan, he will have conferred a lasting blessing on Otago. They have madly rushed on the money market for a loan for which there is not the least necessity. They have all the dock facilities that are required, but are not oontent because Auckland has a better dock, which they are pining to equal. This is one of the most shameful examples that could be given of the insane infatuation for borrowing that has smitten the occupants of this fair land. And yet the man that has the courage to speak out the truth (and not even the whole of it) is compared to a scoundrel who received the worst punishment the Romans could inflict. Is New Zealand to be ever blighted with this borrowing lunacy—are the ehackles always to remain clinched upon us ? The colony has brought upon itself a curse which it prefers to increase in intensity and evil instead of making a supreme and persisted effort to throw off. It is not often that one hopes for failure, but we do earnestly hope that such a result will be the fate of this scandalous loan proposal.