"SNYDER'S" VIEW OF THINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume X, Issue 2902, 17 May 1873, Page 3

"SNYDER'S" VIEW OF THINGS.

[FHOil THE " WEEKLT HERALD."] One of your red-hot politicians meets me at the corner of a street the other day, and, as is bi3 wont, button-holes me with a forefinger and says lie, ,c Now, Snyder, speaking candidly you know, do you approve of the preeent Ministry ?" u Speaking candidly," I reply, " I do not." " Consequently," lie says, " you would like to see them go out?" My answer is that I Bhould like to see nothing of the kind. Then he says, " You are an anomaly." I ask him whether he knows what an anomaly is, and why he is always going in for calling people out of their name. " .Look here, Mr. Weathercock," I say, " supposing a man comes and tells me that he can make me a grand picee of machinery, which will turn me in a heap of money—although it will cost a pretty considerable at iff price before it is finished. Supposing after a long talk over the matter, I say, 1 Cro on then, firo away, and I'll find the money somehow or other.' Supposing now, ho does fire away, and keeps drawing on mo every now and again for cheques upon my banker, which I honor. Well, you see, I am getting tired of this sort of thing, so I go up to the workshop lo see what's being done with the money, that's been going out, when I find everything in disorder —that is so far as looks go. There is an unfinished wheel in one room, a ditto crank in another, a piston-rod upstairs, and a cylinder lying out in the yard : everything looking higgle-de-piggledy. I say to the machinist, 'You've been and swindled me, that's just what", you have. You've been getting all sorts of money from me and all I see for it U a lot of things about that's only worth the price of old metrtL' Well, what does the machinist say in reply? Why he just says this : ' Don't you be in a hurry, Mr. Snyder. The apparatus is all in pieces just now; but you come and 10->k at it when they are all put together, and in wording order. If it don't do, all I yay, is, don't you ever give me another job. You can get another machinist if yon like and welcome ; but if you think I in going to show anybody else where the joints are to meet, and how the pcices are to lit into each other, you are most, confoundedly mistaken.' Well, tho explanation don't satisfy me by a long way. lam under the impression t.lu\t the fellow has been drawing my money and hum-

bugging mo nil the time, liut i think a bit to myself, and fay tlia* perlmpa niter nil I may be mistaken, and the machine will do nil thnt. the machinist, promised it would. At. any rale I find I urn in this fix. First —I am, on a point of honor, and in my own interest, bound to let the man complete the job. Second —If I don't let him go on, he can always turn round and Bay it was your fault and not mine. Third—The money lhive already spoilt will be thrown away. l*\>urlh--I know there are plenty of engineers that will come to me and say, ' Thut man has bungled his work and will never be able to complete it; let me take the job in hand.' Fifth—What guarantee have I that any of these fellows will be any better than the one I have got? 'No,' I say, ' I will let him go on now he has gone so far. Tlio idea is at least his own, and he has a better right than any one else to carry it. out. If he makes a mess of the affair he will be cooked to a cinder, and his reputation spoilt.. Old Weathercock is li.-teiiing to me very quietly all the time, and when 1 finish ho lets go i*y button-hole and fays, ■' And them s your sentiments, Mr. Snyder, are they ? I say " Tl'.em am." "Then," says he you are an anomaly and he walks away. There is only one thing fur which I biiouM care to be a Colonial Minister, and that is the Lhousand a-year hanging to it. 1 should amazingly like the drawing of it as the financial quarters came round, but I should not like to do the work that is required before it is paid. My bosom friend, Julius, toid me such things on the night of thnt interview I had with him, and which I havo already placed on record, that makes me feel thankful lam not that mail. '' .Look here, Snyder, he said, " vour vivid imagination, which i 9 in all respects so superior to your veracity,

could not picture to itself what r have had to endure during my term of oflice. At l.ie present moment 1 have nearly fourteen hundred applications from men, every one of whom is ou the electoral roll, beseeching me for appointments on the railways. Seven hundred have asked to be made inspectors of lines, three hundred to be placed over goods' departments, two hundred to be general malingers, one hundred to be inspectors of inspectorships, and fifty to be managers ol managerships. There have been applications ! for appointments on the railways to fultU duties which were never cdled for in any railways known to the history of modern civilisation. Thirty superannuated soldiers and dismissed policemen (every one with a vole) have applied to become watch-house-keepers, twenty names are on tli-s list f)r the accident department, ten to report upon collisions, and five to give their undivided

attention to boiler explosions. One man asks for the sole right of dispensing pork pies at the various termini ; another to sell blacking. One hundred and ninety odd are open to any appointment which may be offered, regal dless of the duties to be attached to the ollice thev may be selected for." Not one of them, Julius told rae, ever hail anything to do with 1 the management* or control of railways, but none appeared to think this of the smallest consequence. Of men who could drive a locomotive, or experienced brakesmen, or competent stokers, or men who had worked on railways, and hMd certificates of proficiency, ' thero had not been one application, "You 1 see," said Julius, with a shrug, "all these ' auplications have to be answered, and most of ' them we shall have to find billets for, or where f should wo be in election time, or when a ' a motion of no confidence springs up . Jvul- ' way patronage is nearly nil that is left to us. ' Then the ingratitude Ministers meet with on 5 every sido is enough to make our grey hairs 1 go down with sorrow to the gravo. ou > make a billet for a staunch supporter, with a 1 salary at six times more than he is worth, when he memorialises you to double it, or privately intimates to you to find billets for " two or three of his sons as an equivalent. ' What can Ministers do ? That man, perhaps, 0 commnndß three or four votes in the house. 1 Then comes another staunch supporter who 0 tells youtbat as you have appointed an inspector a of railway-ballast., you ought to appoint an l " inspector-in-chief for ballast-trucks. "\\ ell, ho 8 also can command another three or four votes, ;t and what aro fellows to do ? Why, wo have ?' just got to create the office and fill it up. '° And these, mind you," continued my friend

Julius, "ure only a tithe of our miseries. So long as we are in power the officials whoaa mouths wo have filled with bread buttered on both sides are humble and subservient to us ; but, only let ua be turned out of office, as we were in the last Bession for only one month, and they actually upon my honor, Snyder—they actually snub us, and bend the knee before a successful opposition. Don't you ever try to be a Minister without you desire to sea toadyism, ingratitude and thankleesneßß in nil their most glaring colors. If I had my choice now, I would sooner be making up bluo pills aHd black draughts for an honest livelihood than be a Minister of State. Pills and contentment, with an occasional game of 100 or billiards, are better than a ministerial office with contention and strife. The Man of Destiny—Waterhouse, I mean,—was, I fully believe, far happier when 1 he sold penny whistles in Tasmania than lie ' was as Premier in this colony.