STRATFORD.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143766, 15 April 1912, Page 2

STRATFORD.

(From Onr Resident Assent.) April 13.—Several of our citizens availed themselves of the invitation of the Kaponga Town Board and motored through to that rising township last night to hear the Hon. Thos. M'Kenzio lecture on early exploration in Otago. They enjoyed both the feast of reason provided by the Premier and the subsequent flow of other good things. The railway route question, being now, so to speak, sub judioe, was barely touched upon by tbe various orators that improved the shining hour at the supper table. That Stratford’s interests are identical with those of Kaponga in this matter is, however, well known, and this fact binds the two places together by ties of sentiment which we hope will be strengthened, as one of the speakers remarked, by the more material ones of steel rails. A candidate for the Mayoralty has now declared himself in the person of Mr. K. McK. Morison. Perhaps wo shall find that several others have just been waiting for alead. It was not to bo expected that your editorial comments on Government methods of carrying out public works would pass without protest from some of thosp who are more than a little blind to faults in the powers that be. It is a misfortune of the party system of Government that it tends to produce this kind -of atrophy of the perceptive faculties. Occasionally, in the strictest confidence, people on the Government side of politics, and in a position to -know, will tell you of tilings that, if repeated by an Oppositionist, would bo denounced as tbe basest or calumnies, and probably publicly repudiated by the original informant.

A borough councillor has given notice to move that the wages of surfacemen be increased to 9s per diem. As the pay is practically unaffected by weather, it is a very good billet, and the borough should get the pick of the shovel-artists in the distntt. No one objects to good pay for good work. The whole trouble in the labour world arises from the inefficients, who will neither make themselves competent nor accept proportionate wages for inferior service. The mischief is that these people, though individually weak, are collectively strong, and have power under clever exploiters to control tho unions, and through the unions, the legislature. It is not improbable that the rise in the cost of the necessaries of life is due to some extent to the nian of the day being better as a consumer than a producer.