THE POLITICAL TREADMILL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume II, Issue 315, 15 November 1864, Page 5

THE POLITICAL TREADMILL.

To the Alitor of fcho 2S t kw Zkai.axu HfiitALo. Silt, AYhencver a Superintendent requires castigation, Uit! Council lui a a very easy method of indieting punishment, upon him, if its credit. bo only good enough to raise ;i loan and issue coupons. Instead of issuing £59 debentures, .€lO or oven £5 debentures might be issued, and the punishment of a "anally Superintendent he thereby increased, or, us toe case might be, inflicted by means of a smaller loan. I lie coupons for the present, loan of some .C 330.000 raised by .£SO debentures, will require no less t him -100,000 signatures of the Superintendent. It he. average ten signatures per minute, it will take ium C(] •; (lays incessant- writing during ten hours each day, to sign them nil ; this would he almost, as satisfactory to lite "Opposition" ns the commital of his Honor to two months' imprisonment witli hard labour. How far it is worth the while of the province, that its chief officer and magistrate should be used as an automaton for signing coupons, is another thing. There are those, f dare say, who think that mind and body might be put to better use than doing the work of a bill stamp. If the honorable gentleman who refused his assent to the "Coupons JlilJ," (which sought to give the Superintendent, power to stamp the coupons, instead of sign tluan) because 110 thought the " Superintendent, had sullicient time to sign all the Coupons," will himself take a single day of ten hours, and sign his name incessantly from eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening, he will find out how muck easier it is to talk by the yard than write by the hour. 3 think that it should only be for very grave peccadillos indeed, that a Superintendent should get "two months"—such as spending thousands over an impracticable trunk road,for electioneering purposes in handing over a wharf job to a political friend, or issuing two writs for the return of one member. For my own part, us regards prevention of forgery, I think an ordinary tradesman could as easily execute the written signature as the printed stamps of the Province. Yours, &c., Stunk JIG. Blount Tulen Stockade, November 11th. [It is just possible tor a (puck writer to sign his name ten times in a minute, on the same piece of paper. The signing of the Coupons, would take nearer four months than two of incessant writin< r . Ki>. N. X. ll.] To the Kditor of the Tskw ZkaTjAND Sik, —As the father of a rising family, 1 cannot but express my sympathy with the honest indignation of Mr. AV. Kast wood,- on account of the treatment experienced hy his son. 1 take it for granted that the master who exercised his j«s with such sublime recklessness of consequences has some excuse t<> oiler which decs not appear; hut what can possibly exeiue the unfeeling haisbness with \vh icli a respectable youth, whose crime consisted of an attack of bile, was thrust into a common prison. Surely, sir, there must be some remedy for such a state of things. At ;iiiv tate, such a calamity could not so causelessly have happemd at home. Ycur obedient servant, Patkhtamilias.