LETTER FOR HOME

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 838, 18 July 1879, Page 2

LETTER FOR HOME

By Snyder.

Dear Bob, — Since I wrote last mail recommending you to come out here as the nephew or cousin of a Lord, I hay.--been considering over the matter, and I don't think it would answer. You see, Bob, you are vulgar m your ways, never having had the opportunity of learning manners. You smoke short pipes, and when you are the least excited, you swear dreadfully. You have a propensity for loose company, and have a funny way of turning up the big bower at euchre. Now, these qualities though ' very excellent m themselves, will hardly do for the near relative, of a Lord or a Marquis. But don't despair, Bob, I have just thought of one or two things which will suit you to an autography. Look here, my dear boy, you will make a splendid member of our Colonial Parliament. I know you have the gift •>f the gab most gallopin', as old Tony Weller would say, and you can lie, Bob — lie with ease and facility without even so much as a wink of the eye, which makes you the envy of your friends. I never knew a man who could say one tiling and mean another like you, Bob ; and when caught m the fact, you are ii«ver staggered or pushed into a concur. You face it out iv the sweetest and loveliest manner it is possible to conceive. Yes, dear Bob, Parliament is your little game when you land here. All you have got to do is to live somewhere, upon some one, for the matter of six months, when you will be qualified • is a residential elector. If yon [jut up for a gold-fields constituency, all that you have to do is to call the diggeis to meet you at some hotel. Treat them to plenty of drink, vhich you will tell the lmdlord to charge to your account. When you have put three inches of whisky or rum m tnem, then's your time for a speech. Te.l the diggers that your first effort, when you are returned, will be to see that the duty is t iken off gold. Tell l limn that if it was not for the hardy, brave, and plucky gold-digger, New Zealand would be bmkrupt to-morrow. Tell them that they are the pith and marrow, the bone, sinew, and muscle of the land. Tell them that you mean to have the duties taken off everything they eat and drink, and tax the rich man m their place. You must call for a cry of down with the bloated capitalists ; the total extinction df the civil service, the reduction of Ministers salaries, and selling their mansions. This is the sort of thing that goes down here, Bob. The day after your speech, go round to all the public-houses and treat every one you come across, not forgetting to tre;it the landlord. You must ( tell these fellows that when you get into Parliament you will move for their license fees being reduced onehalf, with the privilege of keeping their houses open till one o'clock m the morning ; and further, you will get the

duty taken off spirits consumed on a gold field — spirits being necessary to the hard life of a digger. The publican will book all the drinks you have " shouted" for, m the belief of what you are going to do for him. I know a member of the House who got into Parliament on this ticket to represent the diggers on a West Coast Goldfields, and he hadn't half your gift for lying, Bob Now, the beauty of being m Parliament is, that you get two hundred guineas as honorarium for the session, which don't last more than four months. The remainder of the year you can loaf about at public-houses upon the strength of being an M. H.R. You may also earn the matter of fifty pounds or so, which will keep you m pocket money, by promising poor subordinate clerks m the Civil Service that you will get them a rise m their screws when you go down to Wellington. I can tell you, Bob, there are many worse things going than being a Member of the Assembly. Of course, if you stand for an agricultural district, your talk will be quite different; You will tell the farmers how the wealth of the country comes out of the earth. How the man who can make two blades of grass grow where one grew before, is more vainable than a thousand diggers, who merely take the gold out of the earth and leave large holes behind for people to tumble down and be killed. You must tell the farmers, above all things, that they shall have land on deferred payments. That the large landowners shall be made to disgorge their ill-gotten wealth. That every man who wishes it shall have his own smiling homestead, with his fields waving with the golden harvest, arid his chubly children shall be the inheritors of their father's estate. That there shall be peace, and plenty, and fullness through the land, and that every man shall be able to plant his foot on thesoil, and looking around him' with a tzladened heart, shall say " Behold ! this is mine." That's the sort of palavei for 'em Bob. It's quite as cheap for you to put up for an agricultural constituency as it is for one on the gold fields. In the latter you treat the diggers but don't pay the landlords. In the former the farmers 1 will treat you and probably they won't pay. But that you know is neither here nor there, as far as yourself is concerned. When you get inio Parliament, your first business is to ascertain what party is likely to. ,be m power, when, of course, 3 ou stick to that party ; but the best times are when parties are evenly balanced and a vote counts as being valuable, by which you may get somethirig from both sides if you work with r.act. Never mind what people may say about being a turncoat, and calling you all sorts of blackguard names. Write to the newspapers, and say that you have never changed your opinions as Sir Robert Peel did once, and Ben Disraeli has done half-a-dozen times. If you. drop into anything good m the way of a Commissionership— say of Government Life Insurance, for instance, you must tell your constituents that it was m their interests and m theirs alone you accepted -office. Yes Bob, you would make a very good apecimen of a Member of Parliament. But should you fail m this, dear Robert, there is another enterprise suitable for your talents. This is the getting up of bogus companies as a pran_< .er. It doesn't matter .what you promote. You can give out that you have discovered a coal mine, or ah auriferous quartz reef ; or you can hire an interpreter and go among the Maoiies, and 'tell 'em how you can get them back their lands which they parted with years ago ; or you can get up a water company m the hot summer months ; or a drainage schofne when the rainy season sets m. There's scores of these sort of enterpi ises you dan launch out upon with a certainty of making enough to keep you going till the bubble bursts. The oftice furniture you order and don't pay for, until "the company is formed;" and the deposits you will get "upon application for shares," and the money you raise by promising one man that he shall be made secretary, and another that you will recommend him as treasurer, and a third that he shall have the billet of messenger, will all help to make up a little pile of onepound notes. No, Bob, the more I think of it, you will never do for the nephew of a Lord. But you will außwer first-rate as a member of Parliament, or " Promoter " of a Company. Come soon, Bob, before all the field is worked out. I have not very much news to tell you, my Robert. The Banks here have been hard upon us of late, and we dread the sight of a Bank Manager more than we do the sensation of an earthquake or a hurricane. What I say is this, where's the uge of f a Bank if they'll only take your money and lock it up m a safe to keep.: Why, we can do that for ourselves. And this is all the Banks do do. Still I pity a Bank Manager greatly. He is at present an object for our deepest sympathies. " Never," Baid one of these officials to me, only yesterday, " Never, Mr. Snyder, put a son of yours behind a Bank counter ; and for two reasons — he may become immoral and bolt with the cash and a barmaid, or he may keep steady until he is made a manager, when all hope of future happiness will have left him. He will be badgered m office h< >urs, for accommodation of some one kind or other. Either to allow an over-draft, or a cash credit, or to discount a bill, or to draw against coining remittances which never come. If he refuses, he makes an enemy. If he complies he gets hauled over the coals from head-quarters, and is threatened with being sacked or disrated. Five years m the life of a road laborer is no more than one year m that of a Bank Manager. A laborer can go to the bar of an hotel and call for his pint of beer, and drink it m peace ; but if a Bank Manager was to be seen taking a glass of sherry and bitters, he would be touched on the shoulder, or nudged on the arm, or gently pulled by the sleeve, and he will be asked to do some little Bank favor, which is more than his billet is worth to grant. Its all very terrible, and preys on a man's constitution which all the glasses of sherry and bitters m creation will not make up for. There is a peculiarity you will observe, Bob, when you come to this Colony, which I will explain to you m my own way. You see I am living m a town built on sand, between two shallow, worthless streams, and a sand bar m front, making an entrance Jto the town from seawards intricate, and, at times, dangerous.* We could have settled

down where there was good soil, and a wider and a deeper river ; but we didn't. And why ? Well, Bob, I will tell you why. You may have seen a man stand iv a crowded street and gaze intently up m the air or down a hole m the ground. Presently another man stops and looks intently where the first man is looking. Then a third, and a fourth, and a fifth. Finally a crowd is formed, and they are all gazing where the first man is gazing. This is a specimen of the force of example m human nature. So with us m Gisborne. One man built a house on the sand, between two worthless shallow rivers. Then another did the same, and a third, and so on until a township was formed. Then because the Government would not 1 make the people a port, and do a great many other things that was wanted, the people blame the Government for all, I and not themselves m the least. We, all of us, think that there is no place m New Zealand like the place we live m ; but still, we think, the Government has used us most shamefully. I leave Gisborne, and go and live m another part of the Island, and there I find the Government is abused and written down, and called to account be cause it has not done for that town what it ought to have done. X, m my new locality, I hear that Government money has been spent m Gisborne instead of spending it m Sommerville town, or the name of the town, whatever it may be where lam living. And if, after a time I go to some more distant centre, I am at once m favor of everything being done for it to the exclusion of every other town m New Zealand. Well, Bob, something of the same 8orj; of thing may be said of colonial society, I give a tea party and I ask Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Jones, and Mr. and Mrs. Robinson ; but I don't ask the Browns, or the Greens, or the Whites. I say they don't belong to my set. The consequence is, that the Browns, Greens, and Whites, have tlieir set, who don't admit into it, the Evans's, the Davis's, and the Stephensons, who, m time, form their own set. And while the first set — the Smiths, Jones's, and Robinsons, think their set superior to the others, the others think themselves quite as good. This is what ' goes on where I live, Bob, and it is the same m other towns and cities. It is very funny, and very absurd, and very ridiculous, but at the same time . very, laughable. "There's Mrs. Robinson" (the premier set) says Mrs. Evans (of the Gunny Bags), "walking about the town m a dress bought with money which her husband owes to my husband. " And so on, and so on, arid so on, my dear Bob. All vanity and vexation of spirit and indebtedness j for if you only come to pull any of the "sets " to pieces and analyse them, you will not find two penn'orth of difference between the lot. Let me tell you, Bob, that we are awfully exclusive people where I live. There has been what is called a Gaelic Club formed here, which is held iv a snug, comfortable upstairs room of an hotel, and is fairly supplied with periodicals and newspapers. It is a reading-room m fact, Bob, and nothing more. Well, as you know Gaelic blood runs m my veins, and I am, as I have been told, too proud of my forebears and the grand fighting family I came from. So, I made humble application to be admitted to this reading-room club, and was quite willing to hand over my two-guinea annual subscription. But, Bob, they wouldn't have me. There was a crowd of white balls, but two little ugly black ones put me out into the street. I don't think the members believed I would steal the periodicals, or get drunk, or use bad language, although I really Have an unfashionable way when, m a readingroom, of setting m one ohair while resting my feet on another. No, Bob, the blood of the Snyders would not prevail. I must not enter the hall of Ossian, but, sinner as I must be, am compelled to write this letter to you by my own solitary fire, and nothing to comfort me but some really very fair whisky. Is it not sad, Bob ? If a hoar frost is fast settling on my pow where is the wonder ? Parliament has just gone into session, and the Opposition has been organized. Do you know what that means here my, Bob ? I suppose not. Well, there are four or five Members of Parliament who have got to be Ministers, just as you may be a Minister, Bob, if you come out and stand for the Assembly. Well, each of these four or five Ministers get fifteen hundred a year, the use of a splendid steam yacht to take them to the bosoms of their families, t a rent-free mansion to live m, with * coals and candles besides travelling expenses. So, »you see, Bob, when Parliament opens, the men who are not Ministers want to be Ministers, but they can't be until they turn those out who are m. So soon, then, as the Parliament opens of an afternoon, and the Members have heard the Speaker read prayers, they immediately set to work to turn the present Ministers out, m order that they may take their places. As soon as they do this, the Ministers who are turned out do their very utmost, not minding the least how they do it, to get m again. Dear Bob, I must now wind up until my next, and still continue to remain faithfully your affectionate — SNYDER.