South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1896.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8610, 27 August 1896, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 1896.

Mr Cecil Rhopes remarked after his interview with the Matabele chieftains* “This is one of the scenes that make life worth living.” Did be refer to the fact that he had been speaking with a whipped people, or to their having called him “ father ” and “ greatest chieftain” ? It could not be the latter, for he could not possibly be so dense as not to see the irony of beingcalled “ father” by the wretched men whom his soldiers had harried with the best of civilised weapons and the worst of uncivilised stratagems. To see in such a submismission, forced by such means, anything

to suggest that such a life was worth living—to experience an unusually elevated feeling at having finally whipped a parcel of ignorant blacks for protesting in their own way against persistent wrongs, their women insulted, their men thrashed, their cattle stolen—does not give one an idea that Mr Cecil Rhodes’s life is practically well worth living. If President Kruger got hold of Mr Cecil Rhodes, and heard him sentenced to a long term of imprisonment as the instigator of the Jameson raid, Oom Paul would have some reason, on witnessing the triumph of Justice, for saying, ‘‘This is one of the scenes that make life worth living.”

It appears from the tone of the debate that the Loan Bill will pass, and another £30,000 a year, or more, will be added to the taxation of the colony. There is a good deal of opposition to the Bill, but not enough to kill it. And though some of the Government supporters talk of requiring a schedule of the purposes for which the money is to be used, the probability is that they will not get it. and that the loan will be spent where the Government pleases. The Premier promises to complete the Ekatahuna-Woodville line, and seeing that this link between Wellington and Napier is so nearly finished, it should be got out of hand. The £200,000 to be devoted to the developement of gold-mining ought to be scheduled in the completest way, or it may all be frittered away uselessly. The expenditure of £50,000 to improve the facilities of the tourist business may prove profitable in the long run ; but it will need to be stingily expended to avoid waste. The worst part of the loan proposals is the half million for the purchase of native lands. The State has been buying native lands year after year for a long time past, but we never hear that the purchases “ pan out ” anything. Some of the bush settlements formed are probably located on such lands, and they are still a source of further expense, and likely to remain so. A return detailing the various blocks of native land pur* chased by the Government since such purchases were begun, the cost and the subsequent history of each, and the financial results, would be extremely useful. We have an idea that the total cost has been large, and total return very small indeed.