THE TAIERI CAMPAIGN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14355, 27 October 1908, Page 2

THE TAIERI CAMPAIGN.

Silt,—One may envy tho electors of Tuapeka with three good candidates in tho rieid, two of them at least (tako your choice) excellent men, and any of them a worthy representative of an agricultural constituency. But Olutha, Bruce, and 'l'tusra- ara in the position of not having heavy enough metal on both sid« to striko fire, and create the election furore we all delight in. Mr Malcolm has nobody against him, and it can bo. said of Mr Alien that, with the present regrettable retirement of Mr louden, he has no real opponent, and in Taieri it is not much better. Asa country voter I would like to have 6een a, gocd light in all these electorates. Stagnant waters grow stale; nothing liko tho rushing, bubbling stream, and waterfall, to keep things sweet and clean. I cannot' at present comment on the campaign (?) in Clutha,. where Mr Malcolm has it all his own way, nor in Bruce, where Mr Tyndali's deliverances do not make a ripple in tho political waters, and will, appropriatolv come to the political currents in the Taieri. Here plain ''Thomas Mackenzie," as ho announces himself, has not sufficient opposition to make a gurgle in tho stream, to say nothing of a waterfall or cataract. Mr Johnson, his opponent, does not appear to have the least likelihood, even in his own expectation, of forming, a barrier to Mi' Mackenzie's success. \ That gentleman's political faith is very fully reported in the Tuapeka Time*, and some of his political notions are undoubtedly "advanced," if not crude. For instance, ho advocated paying tho farmer a fixed price for hie grain. With respect to arbitiatkn, he declared that when,the court increased the wages from 8s to 2s per day the local stcres raised the prices of the commodities forthwith, "and so deprived these coming under that award of the ■benefit, of the iv•orease." . . . "To euro that evi'Uie advocated the widening of the basis of the Arbitration Court to cover prio?s as well as wages." This is a protty big order—-to set up a so-called "arbitration" court which should "fix" the prios of pretty well everything in th o community. Dealing with the graduated land tax, he'urged that the act should bo amended so that graduated taxation on land should reach a great many more owners, and ho advocated that "a substantial increase of the land tax should be mado in order to force land into tho •market." To obviato tho excess of land for sale by ibis " bursting-up" taxation, he suggested that the owner, oil registering an agreement to sell his land within a year, would, on complying, be called upon to pay only tho ordinary land tax. It is, indeed, astonishing, what some mon deem to be statesmanship and a. way of adding io tho happiness of mankind, in tho words of a poet) "They mend tho parts by I .ruining the. whole." My Johnson disposes of the Opposition in a 7 somewhat contemptuous way, but it is to be fcarc,-! that to replace the Opposition, so 6ay nothing of the Government especially in agriculture districts, by the Johnsons and Tyndalls, would not add anything. to tho political wisdom or stability cf Parliament. Plain "Thomas Mackenzie" is on© of the, soundest and san«st politicians an agricultural and ■manufacturing eonsttuency could possess. Ho is thoroughly Liberal, ami has been so jnJl his days," ho is a man of tho people, a man of grit, a traveller and explorer, a thoroughly healthy, man, a politician, in the bii&t sense, thai any constituency might be proud to elect. At the same time, "do not d«spis« your enemy" is a good electioneering .motto much commended to politicians and polilical parties frith an "insignificant" opixment in the field.—l am, ele., KiEC'i'OK.