TWO GOLDFIELDS CONSTITUENCIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1866, 26 August 1887, Page 11

TWO GOLDFIELDS CONSTITUENCIES.

THE constituencies of Dunstan and Wakatipu ar e showing their opinion of the present Government pretty plainly by- offering no opposition to the return of two of the most persistent members of the Opposition party. Vr Pyke and Mr Fergus, each from a someff hat different platform, have rendered the Colony good service' during the late Parliament by offering a steady resistance to all the borrowing and. taxing schemes of; the Government, and industriously hunting up evidence which exposed r their true nature aa d danger. Mr Fergus is a staunch party man, who believes thoroughly in the leader of the. Opposition, and acts consistently with him. Mr Pyke belongs, as he himself has .said, to the " independent nuisances " who ' ff ent up to "Wellington at last election to torn out the Atkinson Government, but, to the great surprise of the present Premier and Treasurer, refused to allow the new Government to do what they would not have permitted to their predecessors. In constituencies where members of the late Opposition party are meeting with opposition, we trust {be electors will remember how much these members have saved them from. If it had not been for men like Mr Pyke and Mr Fergus, the taxation would have been increased tao years ago, we should be "paying £97,000 a year to Messrs Meiggs and Co., and £300,000 a year to local bodies, whilst the late tariff would have been imposed without any retrenchment taking place. It cannot be too strongly borne in^mind that the mischief the present Government have done is nothing to what they attempted to do, and that but for their defeat last May the roar for retrenchment would have bellowed to deaf ears — though for that matter all the promise of retrenchment we • have now got from Ministers is Sir Robert Stout's bare word for £100,000, as to the manner and direction of which he is siis-' piciously silent, as against which we have his strenuous defence of every proposal for reduction that is submitted to him, from the Governor's salary 'downwards. " But, turn we from those bold, bad men," the Ministers, to the speeches of Messrs Pyke and Fergus. And we will first call attention to the very valuable remarks made iby Mr Fergus, himself the representative of a mining constituency, about the extravagant expenditure of the Government through |he Mines department. No less than 22£ per cent, of the £32,600 voted last year was spentuponsalaries and travelling allowances ! When to this we add £10,300 for the maintenance of four water races on the West Coast, £3000 for compensation to the owner of the Shag Point coat pit, £3700 for the Geological and Meteorological departments, and £1500 for the Tarawera sufferers, there Knot much left, and we do not wonder at Mr Fergus saying that" the gameis not worth "the candle"," and wishing to see "the whole thing swept away.',' He adds an opinion that the best way for the Government to aid the development of mining resources would be "by abolishing obnoxious restrictions, simplifying the mining laws, and following up "the miner with decent roads and tracks so "as to make his claim accessible." This is perhaps the least objectionable form of aid to mining enterprise, as has been pointed out by the Surveyor-general ; but already some £20,000 a year is spent out of loan in this direction, and ib is quite impossible to continue giving assistance at this rate. In any case one of the most desirable economies to be effected by the new House is to cut off the corrupt expenditure upon West Coast sludge channels, and put a stop to Ministerial and other holiday tours upon the pretense of getting information about the condition of the mines. Mr Larnach a few nights ago boasted that he might have been elected for a West Coast constituency if he had wished. We can quite believe it, and the reason is very plain and very disgraceful to him and his colleagues. The whole department is a sink of extravagance and jobbery. We wisli candidates and the electors generally were more alive to the fact that borrowing is the root of all our extravagance ; that so long as we keep on raising loans, retrenchment in the expenditure from the Consolidated Fund will do little to avert an increase of taxation. Mr Pyke speaks out well on the subject, and Mr Fergus quotes some useful figures showing that our recent railway construction has been more and more unremunerative year after year. But "the nearest paying point " is a convenient phrase, which may mean anything or nothiug. We greatly fear that there will be no very great improvement in the policy of the Colony in this direction in consequence •f these elections ; that whatever Government conies into power will merely slacken the rate of expenditure till times improve, without making any real effort to make an end of the whole system.