POLITICAL ITEMS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10621, 17 March 1896, Page 6

POLITICAL ITEMS.

"A Mr Lewis, in announcing his candidature for the Inaagahua seat, said he presumed the present member would seek another teat.

Mr J. M'Luchlan, in addressing his constituents at Aahburton, ventured the suggestion that the nucleus of an old age pension scheme could be provided if the exemption of £300 were removed from the direct taxation of the country. This, he thought, might bring about a fund which would allow a sum of 10a a week to be paid to persons who had reached 60 years of age.

This is what the Mauawatu Standard, a Government erg»n, has to say about special settlements:—" It is no u«e pretending that the system of special settlements has proved anything but a partial failure during the last three years, and that if it is continued on the present lines anything but disaster is sure to attend it. We do not need to go iuto figures to prove our contention, but we know that the estimate of the member for P*lmerston some two years sgo, that at least 50 per cent, of these selectors would never go upon the land, has .been amply borne out by the results." It is repotted (says the Wairarapa Times) that Mr Hogs;, M.H.R., has received intimation that at a meeting of the Advances to Settlers Board on Friday it was decided to send np Mr T. Kennedy Macdenaid -(the superintendent valuer) to inquire into the whole of the cases where loans hava bean refused in the Forty-mile Bush. Those, therefore, who are aggrieved, will have »a opportunity of placing their grievances before him. Thn Advances to Settlers Board is evidently taking steps to revise its own decisions. If this possesses any signification, it means that political pressure has been brought upon the board to aceept hazardous risks.

As pointing in tha same direction the Oamaru Mail, suppossd to be iu the confidence of Ministers, says :—" Although the administration has beea rocs, unsatisfactory, that; is not the fnult of the principle, but of the officials to whom the administration was foolishly entrusted. Those officials seem to think it to hs their duty to refuse rather than to grant applications for loans. They seem to have m»de up their minds that it is their duty to bring disaster and contempt upon a. scheme which interferes with their preconceived, fu«ty notions o£ what thing? ought to be. Mr Warburton and persons over whom he has control ought never to have h»d positions on the lending board. They have beea the occasion of tha absolute failure of the act, nnd recourse must be had to local boards of reliable men who would treat all applications in accordance with their merits, and who would be the only intermediaries between the applicants and the Government. This, we believe, is the reform which will be proposed to Parliumeut during next session, and which, we hope will be passed into law."