OUR POSITION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8375, 1 October 1890, Page 3

OUR POSITION.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —It would seem that the great cure for all our troubles is to dwell on them and magnify them ! What good purpose does ib serve to be constantly showing our impecuniosity to our neighbours while we v 111 not submit to retrenchment in the easiest and most practical methods ? I remembec an old and true saying, that "To be poor is bad, but to seem poor is a good deal worse." The value we place on ourselves is the valuo the world places on ufj. A number of political purists are seeking popularity just] now, by decrying the colony in every shape and form, giving a jrood handle to our enemies, and thoroughly frightening those who might be inclined to settle here. And one may well ask for what purpose? Where were our great advisers when loans were being raised and spent ? Echo can well answer where were their voices ? Now we have had the cake and eaten it, and pay-day-has come, great is the virtue exhibited of would-be doctors. Retrench, retrench, but not in our direction. Secondary, higher, and technical education must) be preserved, and the benefits (?) of elaborate education to a high standard maintained ; truckling to the workingmen's vote is the order of the day, while all our so-called retrenchments consist in reducing aome few salaries, and disgusting all our best employes, and rendering their positions uncertain. The peneions we cannot now undo. Reduce education to the fourth standard, consolidate the duties of the official class, bub give good men certain and good pay. Some talk of land tax or income tax being preferable to the property tax. This may be questioned, for certainly the poor workingman pays nothing of it at present. AH taxes are unpopular, but we have gob our debts to pay, and let us try to do so like men, and not bleed to death from a multiplicity of doctors who are always crying aloud in the wilderness, and finding improbable cures. The wor,kingman (noble institution) is well pandered to just now. It is to bo hoped he will be able to know who are his real friends and who are mere political quacks, who hope to foist themselves on the revenues of the colony by crying down others. Now is the time to support honest men, and not necessarily those who promise mosb, and, above all, let us cease decrying ourselves, for we are all alike, equally to blama for the extravagances of the past.—l am, etc., Practical.