GRAFT AND CORRUPTION.

North Otago Times, 4 December 1911, Page 2

GRAFT AND CORRUPTION.

A correspondence has been going on in the Christohureh and other papers, as to the existence ol graft and corruption in the political life of NewZealand. If the words carry with them the Barae meaning as they do in tha United States,, where barefaced thievery exists, then they, havo r.o foroe in New Zealand. But hot-. 1 wuhJanding all that, Mr Isitt-who I-n ivs Citwrnely iit'tle about the ! 3uiijict-cjn say in proof of his I convict-lon that tbo Ministry which] lit-, slpports Is as pure as the drivensnow, ilwre exists a method of dls.rlautiag ,the loaves and fishes that has cost the Dominion hundreds of •thousands of pounds. A member of Sir Joseph Ward's Cabinet Is reported to have said to a deputation that waited upon him in the North Island that in tho nature of things those who supported the Government could look for more than those who did not, A principle Buch as this, if generally embodied in a Government's policy, is calculated to wreck th'e honjsty of political life. There is no charge against, the personal honesty of Ministers, but huge sums of the money of the taxpayers are wasted in providing, for a continuance of support to the party. The electorates were bribed last Parliament with money.borrowed in London, The Estimates bristled with bribes of this kind-roads here, bridges there, ditches here, drains there, some of them affecting only private property, but all with an aye to the future welfare of the Party, What is the distribution of the Government advertising but a despicable form of coercion? And why is the Upper House filled with those who havo bent tbo knee to Baal, instead of by tho.safest men in the community ? Here we find the spoils to the victors, just'as it is alleged it exists in Southland by the person wh'o challenges Mr Isitt to visit certain' parts of tho district, to to shown where the sum of £AM has gone in the advancement and promulgation of the doctrine that the spoils should go to the victors, In these distributions of public -grants and public billets we can tracg the cause of the rapid in:reas3 of the taxation of the country, the doubling of the cost of goHrnnjent, and the reason why only those candidates opposed to the Government should be elected to Parliament, No reflective man can como o any other conclusion than that the maladministration of the Government has landed the country in a qiiickßand, -from which it will be extremely difficult to extricate it; It matters not whether it is the Reform Party or Labor, it is essential that there should be a change in the Government, if only to make an effort to save the country from the reaction that inevitably follows a saturnalia of borrowing and spending,