CORRESPONDENCE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1480, 16 March 1886, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

(We do not hold ourselves responsible for the opinions expressed by our correspondents.) WELCOME RETREAT LODGE.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —in connection with your reporters’ report re the open Lodge meeting of the Welcome Retreat Lodgs, 1.0.G.T., Geraldine, (here are two slight mistakes : First, The Lodge meets every week instead of fortnightly, as stated ; second, that “An amusing little burlesque upon Licensing Benches was the concluding portion of the programme, the characters being sustained by members of the Lodge,” I think your correspondent must be in error when he says that the members of the Lodge did in any way turn into ridicule, or make to look ludicrous (which is the meaning of the word burlesque) Licensing Benches, but on the contrary the dignity and intelligence of Licensing Benches generally was upheld in (be scene enacted. Doubtless some of your readers will be quite familiar with the dialogue written by T. A. Mingard, entitled “ Bill Barrel’s License.” For those who are not so familiar I may stale that the characters represented are as follow ; —The Mayor, with Mr Black, Mr White, and Mr Brown, magistrates. These form the Licensing Bench, with Mr Quill acting as their clerk. Bill Barrel, a tavern keeper ; Mrs Grey, a widow; Tommy Jones, a small boy, with others who compose the audience. The scene being a sitting of the Licensing Bench for the issue of licenses for the ensuing year, Bill Barrel applies for a renewal of his license. Mr Black (one of the Bench) asked the applicant a number of pertinent questions, the answering of which cause considerable merriment through Barrel, who is supposed to be ignorant, fencing the questions put to him. Widow Grey opposes the application in a most telling and affecting speech, and Tommy Jones follows in the same strain, which greatly influence the Bench—so much so that the application is rejected by the unanimous vote of the Bench. The Mayor concurs in the decision, and the meeting is dissolved. Now, sir, I ask your reporter where the ridiculous part upon Licensing Benches comes in, for I fail to see it. My only reason for writing is that if this was allowed to pass unnoticed our own Licensing Committee might justly feel indignant at the Lodge allowing such scenes.—l am, etc,, A Good Templar.

FREETRADE,

TO THE EDIXOB. Sir,—lf you did not actually advocate Protection along with your Cheap Railway Scheme you had them so nicely dished up together that I could see no way of discussing them apart, and I said quite enough to show that the Protective portion of your scheme was the only portion I took exception to. I am not such an uncompromising Freetrader as you appear to think I am ; but I am a Freetrader in a limited sense, and will continue so until Freetrade has been shown to be theoretically and practically wrong. You cannot have read my last letter very carefully, for in that letter I suggested what appears to me to be a better scheme fdr developing our industrial resources than Protection namely : Self-denial, Self-reliance, and Co-operation. I want the people to do for themselves what the Protectionists want the Government to do for them. And why 1 In the first place Governments are like lawyers : it takes about 75 per cent of all the money that passes through their hands to pay costs. Therefore by co-operation we could do about four times as much as we could through the Customs house; and again, before any man or number of men embark in a new line of business without artificial aid, they will carefully consider whether there is a reasonable chance of immediate or prospective profit accruing from that business or industry. Protection makes men less careful. Fortunes can be made at any industry that is protected before the bubble bursts, consequently in protected countries hamlets develope into large cities with mushroom growth; the statistician produces his figures and proves that that country is progressing by leaps and bounds. These statistics look very well, but they are like yeneering very thin. When reflecting on tfio Greatness of Great Britain, her commercial pre-eminence, her military powers, her civilization and religion, I have felt inclined to be proud of my nationality. But when on bleak winter mornings I saw her thousands of children of tender years proceeding barefooted through slush and snow fo her mills and factories, with their emaciated persons sparsely covered with a few tattered rags, and premature old age and death Imprinted in thoir little faces, I concluded that we had not much to be proud of afjber all. Sir, in Great Britain these are the dregs,of Toryism and Tory Protection, and yet our Tory friends have the presumption to tell us that Freetrade and Radicalism have caused the evils that after a forty years’ struggle they have not been able to wholly eradicate. You recentyly reproduced from an English paper an electioneering skit, purporting to be from the pen of a working man. Bah ! There are such curiosities in the world as Working-men Tories, even Working-men’sOonservative Associations, but I never met a working man with Tory leanings who knew anything about the traditions of Toryism, or _ who was at all conversant with the political history of the past, Now, with all the ills the British workman has to contend with—and he has to contend with real ills that many working men in Now Zealand have apparently forgotten—let us compare his state with that of his antecedent of .60 years ago, or his continental contemporary, The protected foreigner, this pseudo working man asserts, gets the best of the bargain, although with the next breath, or after a few more scratches | of his pen, he admits that they work longer hours for less wages. In Spain,

he says they work for Is 2d per day. How would our unemployed, jvho strike at 4s or 5s on a created job, like to work from 12 to 15 hours per day for as many pennies ? That is the condition of the. protected foreigner our protectionists would teach us to hate. I would say : Working men expunge the word foreigner from your vocabulary. The toiling, suffering crowds in other lands are not our enemies. Fifty years ago the British workman was similarly situated. At that time he was a serf subservient to tbe dictum of laws he had no voice in making or amending. To-day he has the political status of a man, and he is to be found on a free platform advocating a further reduction of his hours of labor to eight per diem. There are at present twelve direct representatives of labor in the British House of Commons. —I am, etc.,

Wm, L. Duncan, Kakahu Bush, March Bth, 1886.

GERALDINE WATER-SUPPLY.

TO THE EDITOR,

Sib, —The above subject has been discussed by several of your correspondents lately, and several ways of obtaining a supply suggested. One was to take a supply from tbe creek known as “ McKenzie’s,” but better known as Reid’s Creek another one was to lane (he water from a spring on the main road, a short distance above Mr Brisco’s residence. The former, I believe, would be too expensive for the Town Board to entertain, and as regards the latter one, the spring might not give a permanent supply. Now I would suggest, as the farmers on the Upper Orari are going to try and get a water-supply, which will run through Mr Wm. Postlethwaite’s land on the west side of the road leading up to the Orari Bridge, and as they do not intend to use it after it runs through the above paddocks, it will very likely run into the river-bed and be wasted. It is not far from there to the Geraldine township, and I do not think it would cost the Town Board much to bring it from there down to the town. There is a good fall all the way down through Geraldine ; it would have a very good run, and as It would not be wanted after it had run through the town very likely the farmers below Geraldine, on Shaw’s Flat, could make use of it for the same purpose as the farmers on the Orari Plains, and between the three districts they could get it at a very small cost. Of course they would have to get permission from the owners of the property between the Cress Roads and the town. Thanking you for inserting the above, and hoping that the matter will be taken up by the farmers and others interested, I am, etc,, G.H.P. Geraldine, March 15th, 1886.