OUR CANDIDATES.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7956, 29 August 1887, Page 2

OUR CANDIDATES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — Tho prevailing opinion up country seems to bo that not one o£ tho candidates now before tha electors go far enough in reforms, and it is generally thought that even at this late hour if a fresh üßpirant was to oomo forward holding broader and more radical views than those already expounded to the electors, other qualifications being equal, he would head the poll at the iorthcoming content. It appears to me that nearly all tho geutlemen now striving for seats ia tho next Parliament o£ this colony are only walking in the deep politic.il ruts made by past legislators, who ia their turn imported the said ruts from our mother country. The present etato of thia colony demands a radical change iv our form of government if tho sad cviJa now oppretjsiup us are to bo remedied. The diro depression now upon us cannot be charged to one set of Ministers more than another. It is the system which is bdil to tho core, that is us it affects the masses — tho working bees — and waatß rageueratiag. A writer ia a Scotch paper, referring to the Imperial Parliamonr, cays : — •* Parliamentary governim-m. is becoming every day more oi! a farce." Such bus been my idea ior years past. A farce of our system oC Government is now being enacted at a cost of £3,000,000 to the country. \Vlmt else but a iarce can it be whun, as in times pußt, we have a Ministry turned out on so small a mujoiity ? and by pure accident, uu acciticm nrisiug from abaonct) ol uitmutrs, whom, hud they been present at the divibion, would, together wilh thoso wnverere bu^on-holed ip {h^ JobDiee,

have turned the scales in favor of the Government.

The absurdity of ibis present political commotion will further appear when we remember how evooly divided^ is tho House on a "no confidence" motion. A fact from which it is easy to see that no .perceptible benefit can accrue from a change of Ministers, with an expenditure of £30,000. We have evidence of this from the past history of New Zealand. This denouncing of Ministers by leaders of the Opposition, and turning out Governments, invariably on trifling majorities, has been going on erer since I arrived in New Zealand (over thirty years ago), and results show a lad form of government, and the need of a radical change. The moaning cry of the masses all over the world calls aloud for a mighty change in all tho various systems of governments now prevailing. Tho depression now obtaining in our farming community calls aloud for a vast change, and as a natural consequence, all other industries follow suit. — I am, &c, Thos. G. Leech. 4