Fifty Years Ago To-day

Southland Times, Issue 22873, 24 April 1936, Page 6

Fifty Years Ago To-day

(From The Southland Times.) APRIL 24, 1886. State Aid to Farmers. —The question of State aid to the farmers of New Zealand is not to be set aside by a wave of the hand, even although the hand be that of Mr Stout ox - Sir George Grey. And let it be said in passing that the treatment of the mattex - by these statesmen. is at the same time characteristic and an odd comment on their politics and professions. People’s men both, they have yet been able to shut their eyes to what is eminently a people’s question; and, theorists both, they have shown that however great in theory, they fail utterly when brought to the test of practical legislation. The present opportunity would seem to have been made fox- Mr Stout, the coryphaeus of land nationalizators in New Zealand; and for Sir George Grey, who in his old age has been stumping the colony to prove that by the State’s becoming the universal landlord peace and prosperity were to flow through our streets like a river. But to convert the agricultural settlers of New Zealand,, now in the very slough of despair, into a flourishing portion of the body politic would be an achievement superior to any other within the reach of legislation. From Oamaru. —The town is full of visitors to witness the volunteexmanoeuvres. All the principal officers have arrived and the turnout of men is expected to be very large. A Garston Complaint.—Like many other places we possess a public school and a committee, the latter consisting of individuals, old and young, from which one could conclude that they possessed both energy and experience. Unfortunately they lack both; or one would imagine so from the fact that business which should long ere this have been completed is still left undone. Timber which, should be standing upright forming a fence to grace and protect the school lies wasting its goodness upon the ground. I fear it is likely to remain there as long as the same gentlemen are in power. Fortunately their race is nearly run.