LAWRENCE FINANCIAL REFORM.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 7927, 19 July 1887, Page 4

LAWRENCE FINANCIAL REFORM.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The meeting and the formation of a Financial Reform Association in Lawrence on Wednesday night proved a veritable fiasco. As your correspondent pointed out, with good reason, in Friday's paper, no practical good can result from the meeting as carried out—unless perhaps I -may except the fact that it afforded an opportunity to some ex-members of the detunct Parliamentary Union to show off their progress in crude political study and to !lir their amateur oratory. The audience must have been reminded of a body of gentlemen who used at one time to meet in Tooley street, City. The resolutions were of a most vague and impractical nature, each mover declaring apologetically before speaking for his proposition that he had been entrusted with it." This gave the meeting quite a Nihilistic cast, and suggested the idea that the poor fellows who fired the various bombs had "had them placed in their hands " by the head-centre, or the chiefs of the inner circle. Some of the promoters at nrst disclaimed any intention to make the association a party movement; others, however; went not through the powers that be, demolish, ing the whole fabrication of the educational system; the bivil service, the honoraria, the Legislative Council, and everything else either ' in Heaven above or in the earth beneath," until the audience felt that the "Prince of Radicals" had here some doughty rivals for his title. The whole national system was rearranged, the Government completely reformed, the Governor's and the Premier's salaries were docked, the number of Ministers reduced to four, £150,000 deducted from the education grants, the honorarium of anM.H.R. lowered to £150, and of an M.L.C. to £100, additional taxation was vetoed, further borrowing stopped, and amalgamation of duties and departments in the public service determined. Members are no longer to be "blown about by every puff of Ministerial wind"; nor are they to indulge in fits of unpremeditated patriotism purposely to deceive"; and lastly, the Government are to be instructed to " out their coat according to the' quantity of cloth supplied." Sir, your paper has not hitherto recognised the fact that Tuapeka is the hub of the colony; in future: beware! A ukase has gone forth from the headcentre of the Lawrence Financial Reform Association, and the great and bloodless revolution is already half-achieved. We shall see the results!—l am, &c, RsroßM. Lawrence, July 16.