Mt. Ida Chronicle NASEBY, THURSDAY, AUG. 15, 1895. FINANCE.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume 26, Issue 1338, 15 August 1895, Page 2

Mt. Ida Chronicle NASEBY, THURSDAY, AUG. 15, 1895. FINANCE.

Through Mr "Ward's mission on what were really his own private affairs to London (and we most ferventlj wish he had confined himself to running his private .concerns there alone, even if the colony did pay the bill all the same) the colony has been overtaken by shame, humiliation, and enormous loss. There is hardly any longer the slightcstattempt on the part, of Government supporters to deny this. If ever remorse does overcome a politician (some people doubt if it ever does) it surely must have reached the very soul of Mr Ward as supporter after supporter got up and, with the utmost natural reluctance to say what might please the enemy on the Opposition benches, gave the only possible honest opinion of the Colonial Treasurer's proceedings. The disgust of his colleagues, though it will now of course be concealed and denied, could not be hidden while, the various terrible political exposures were going on; but this is of small consequence, for what the Ministers objected to was not the procedure of their colleague itself, but the wholesale manner in which he had allowed himself to be found out. Their own plan of avoiding such troubles—namely, the persistent suppression of returns, and the issue of totally misleading ones when suppression can no longer be maintained—has so constantly got them over similar troubles that they seem to have been enraged atthepunishmentwhich,partly through the unfortunate want of a subservient and Ministerially owned "New Zealand Times " in London, their unhappy colleague's contradictory utterances had drawn upon him. But Mr Ward's returns (and suppressions of returns) are just as much " up to date " as those of any of his colleagues, and the presumption is that when he floundered so hopelessly on being confronted with his own words and writings, it was simply because every resource of that kind had already been tried and had failed. The exposure is simply pitiable. It is not the political exposure of Mr Ward that is to be regretted, but the humiliation of the colony and the enormous pecuniary loss which has to Ibe made up in order to afford the I Ministry an excuse for Mr Ward's junketings about London, and his pretence of doing the work which the Agent-general is paid to do, and can do much better than Mr Ward can do it for him. As if to add to the humiliation the colony has suffered, and must yet suffer, over Mr Ward's now thoroughly exposed misrepresentations in London to the business people whom he wanted to induce to advance money, we now have the whole pretence of the South Australian and the Canadian "treaties" torn to rags and tatters in the House, and this country made a laughingstock by the two colonies which we were led to suppose we had yoked to our chariot wheels. With regard to the exposure in connection with the Canadian tariff, we really have not the heart to add to the humiliation which Mr Ward has already suffered over this deplorable business. We will let it severely alone, mere counselling Mr Ward, in a spirit of friendly advice, never again to use his favourite catchwords of " after . the most serious consideration," "upon the utmost exhaustive examination," &c, <fcc., lest, as in the present case, lie should again add to an overwhelming exposure, the irresistible element of the ludicrous, which the contrast of those expressions wiuh the truth about the Canadian tariffs must inevitably provoke. As regards the South Australian "treaty," the speech of the Premier of that colony to his Parliament was one long "chortle " of triumph over the New Zealand representative who signed with him; and unhappily his figures—coinciding as they largely do with those of the best critics on this side—set-Dou only too convincing. We have clearly been " had" all round; and unless it is any satisfaction to our people to have promised to subscribe £20,000 a year for the benefit of foreign capitalists engaged in the Canadian trade, or to have forfeited a large amount of revenue in a truly philanthropic manner in order to give the South Australian settlers a helping hand, we are afraid that human nature will assert itself in the way it usually does when the fact thac we have been "had" comes clearly'home to any of us. The Treasurer, after these lamentable experiences in tariff-tinkering in other lands, filially tried his hand at a tariff of his own, and at the wry first outburst of contemptuous criticism took it all helplessly back again and substituted a totally different one. Very likely even that new one will be knocked on the head, for it is nearly as bad as the other. This is what in these days is called " finance." Meanwhile more bank juggles are in the background for the benefit of that lucky band of principally Australian and London capitalists who through their astute representatives made the Ministers such helpless captives a year ago. The lottery juggle having collapsed, and some* of its authors even having made haste to curry favour with the public by voting for the summary execution of their own bantling, other juggles must be substituted, and other juggles will be. The Ministers are serving inexorable masters in this matter; once their heads were got under the I yoke last year, they became utterly helpless, and must' go on bringing forward the measures they are told to father or confess the whole miserable truth about the Bank of New Zealand victory of June, 1895. Mnanwhile, the colony has to pay the piper.