LETTER FOR HOME.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 864, 15 August 1879, Page 2

LETTER FOR HOME.

My Dear Bob, — We are just now m the middle of so much fun, that I have not much time to write. Still, I would like you to know what is going on m this country. Bob, my boy, we are m the very heart of a general election for returning members to a new Parliament, because, wanting a change, we have tnrned the old one out of doors, and put up the shutters. Now, Bob, just imagine an advertisement appearing m the London Times very much as follows : — " Wanted. — Eighty men for three months. Salary for the term, £200 with travelling expenses allowed, and board found at half "" the usual charges." Character not at all necessary, while the duties are to sit upon stuffed cushions, and listen to what one speaker from the eighty has to say to the seventynine." I say, my Bob, supposing that such an advertisement appeared m the London Times, do you think there would not be any number of applications ? Of course there would ; and so there are here. We want eighty men to represent us m Parliament, with the full conviction that if we send them there, instead of representing their constituencies, they will represent themselves, just as you, Bob, of all others, would do under the same circumstances. You know, my boy, there are men of the -present day, like' those who lived m the pre-historic period. They cannot dig ; to beg they are ashamed. Therefore, they get. into Parliament, and draw their £200, which goes by the classical name of honorarwn. It is a sort of billet that would suit you to pieces, my Robert. All a man has to do is to put a notification m the newspapers that he is a candidate to represent a constitneney m some particular electorate ; and then announce that he will address the electors on some

particular night, at some particular place, where he will enunciate his views. Then people flock to hear the candidate, and the fun begins. The candidate has taken some little trouble to ascertain what his constituency most requires, and at intervals asking them what is their favorite liquor. If it is a railway asked for, from somewhere to somewhere else, and it is really of very' little consequence if it goes to nowhere m particular, the candidate promises that the railway m question shall be made. It is tho same if a bridge is wanted, or a public building, or a harbor, or a wharf, or a canal, or a dock, or a loan or anything else which will cost a lot of money and cause it to circulate m the district. The candidate promises that it shall be done. His way of doing the " come hither" over the electors is to fiud out what they want, and then to tell them they shall have it. He does not tell his constituents, and they don't take the thing into consideration, that what he promises it will be quite out of his power to perform. Because, you see; Robert, there are some six hundred candidates m all parts of both islands making similar promises, so that if they were, all or only half fulfilled, we should have thousands of bridges, hundreds of railways extending from nowhere m particular to somewhere else, the somewhere else being of no consequence so long as there wa9 labor employed and money being snent. We should have harbors and breakwaters, costing tens of thousands of pounds m every little settlement m the Colony. We should have grants raado U3, which m the aggregate, would amount to millions. We should have reserves everywhere for every sort of object. We should have — oh, my dear Bob, if you could get at some centre, and with telephonic ear listen to what six hundred candidates will do, ov say they will do, if only returned to Parliament, you would wonder how the devil it is all going to be done, and where the money is to come from, and the men and the material to do it all. If I could gather together all that is being promised, and will be promised to the constituences of New Zealand within the next fortnight, and if all the promises could be carried out to their complete fulfilment, the whole sum of tho National debt of England would not be sufficient. Still, Bob, we believe m these statements. We never think of the possibilities. Those who promise most have the best chance of being returned. Sir George Grey, our present Premier, is a fair specimen of what a splendid humbug m promises can accomplish. His forte is little children, and the working-man, and the down-trodden artizan, and down with the bloated landed estate-owners, and the capitalists. Listen to this man at a pnblic meeting, and he will tell you how he loves little children, and that as Premier of the Colony all the lives, and happiness of little children are committed to his care, and that the life of the smallest child is dearer to him than that of a sick Marchioness. And so he can't spare the, Ministerial steamer to convey across a few hundred miles of water a Governor who is leaving the Colony to rule m another, because, you see, my boy, some little child may require the services of a Government steamer, although there are scores of other steamers at command enough to carry all the sick little children m the Colony. Then he tells the workingman how he (the working-man) is ground to the dust, and trodden upon, and ridden over, and crushed out of existence, and is lone, and desolate, and forsaken m a country ruled over by landed despots. And all the time, Bob, the poor crushed, ground-down, troddenupon working-man is calling for his beer, one glass upon another, at sixpence a glass, and is smoking aromatic tobacco of the best brands, and eats meat three times a day, and goes to every theatrical performance and entertainment that comes off, and dresses his wife well, and gets his children educated free, and his boys, before half-grown up, earning from twelve shillings to a pound a week m a shop or store ; and this is the man, Bob, that Sir George says is downtrodden and ground to the earth, and that sort of thing. Yet, Bob, believe me, there is not a greater tyrant to those who are subordinate to him than this very same Grey. If he were tp ask you to dinner, you must only drink just as much and no more wine than he does himself. As his own allowance is just one glass, that would have to be your allowance ; and you would be required to sit below the salt. If he is going off to a steamer he expects his private secretary to carry his carpet bag, and his despatch box, and his cloak. In his private life he is an autocrat to his equals. He looks for his servants to bow the knee before addressing him. i He is "my lord, the King," to every one. The man is wealthy, and has large sums out upon mortgages at high rates of interest which he is particularly careful shall be paid the day and hour the liability falls .due, He is grasping, selfish, and overbearing ; greedy alike for place and power. He knows nothing of the enjoyments of social or wedded life ; and this Bob, i» the lover of little children ; the working man's friend j the advocate for liberal measures." Well, my boy, it is good that we at last succeeded m ousting him from Parliament. But he will stand again, Bob, and he* will be returned ; because, my boy, your true Briton is so easy to humbug. You cannot do anything with him by bullying or bouncing, or threatening, but you can coax him and bamboozle him with fair words easily enough. That's what Sir George will do, and that's what many of the candidates will do. You might be interested m learning, my Robert, how a new coantry, like New Zealand can live m luxury and with the many costly enjoyments with which we surround .ourselves. The early settlers m the North Amerijan continent, a century and a half ago, hadn't learned to do what we are capable of. They toiled hard and lived abstemious lives for many years. They rose early and worked through the day without ceasing. They trusted m themselves, praying God at the same time to strengthen them. They did nob get up thousand guinea sweepstakes ; nor build hotels, costing thousand of pounds to furnish ; nor go m for land swindles. They did not give those, who directed the governing of the people, splendid mansions to live m, and fat salaries and allowances. No, Bob, they did none of these things ; yet, they built up a great country for

themselves, and those who came after them. Then, how is it you ask, Bob, we live as we do with all the elegancies of advanced civilized life ; and these m a new country where only half a life time back hardly a white man had put trie sole of his foot on the soil. Well, I will tell you, Bob. jWe do it by borrowing money. We borrow from every market that will lend. The Govern^ ment borrow. The Counties borrow.' Road Boards, and Harbor Boards, and Improvement Commissions borrow. It is borrow, borrow, borrow, everywhere, with everyone. Merchants borrow ; tradesmen borrow ; dealers and speculators borrow, or if they don't borrow, they obtain credit, which is the same thing m another shape. Our rulers set the example of borrowing, and it is copied to this extent, my dear Bob, that I now see a man passing by my window from whom I want to borrow half-a-crown, and so wishing you would come out as soon as possible, I must finish up for the present. 'SNYDER.