POLITICAL.

Observer, Volume xi, Issue 667, 10 October 1891, Page 12

POLITICAL.

Says the author of ' Cseaar's Column ' : - • There can be no equitable commerce between two persons representing two different stages of civilisation, and both engaged in producing the same commodities. Thus the freest nations are constantly pulled down to ruin by the most oppressed. What would happen to heaven if you took down the fence between it and hell ?'

'To the Editor : Sir, — In reading Filius Nullius' articles on ' How to Get Bid of Taxation,' I was much struck with it, because I had advocated exactly similar lines, in an essay, read before the Wairoa Debating Society on the 23rd May last. This is pleasant to know, as it shows that similar ideas in regard to the lightening of our burdens are percolating through the minds of the people. May ' Filius Nullius 1 ' articles become a wide spreading tree, producing good fruit. — I am, &c. Sam A. Browne.

' An Amused Listener ' writes as follows : — lf the late session of Parliament have done no other good, it will at all events 'add another word to our vocabulary. I recently heard an argument between two persons, whom I shall call A andß. A seemed to possess all the talking power and wouldnot allow B to get in a word edgeways. B remonstrated that he was not allowed to finish what he wanted to say. A replied, ' I know, my dear fellow, what your are going to say, but I assure you, you are altogether wrong in your opinions.' B : ' How do you know until you have heard me?' A : 'My dear sir, there is no occasion for you to finish, as I know well what yon intend 10 aay.' At last B'a patience was worn out, and he said, ' Look here, A, you are not going to ballance me, and I'll be d if I will be ballanced by you.'

To the Editor: Sir,— Has our moral back-bone entirely rotted out ? For everything we ' sponge ' on the Government. How can we expect just laws from such a man, say, as Dr. Pollen, who has the ' face ' to call himself an ' honourable gentleman,' after having asked for large sums of money from a poverty-stricken country, having fattened on it during plentiful years. And everyone who meets the slightest reversal, instead of endeavouring to overcome it, petitions Government for relief. Look at the vast sums of money spent in Charitable (?) Aid in a young country like this, mostly on ' spongers,' as the Bootmakers' Strike showed. Such revelations exhibit a disgusting, a horrifying, a disheartening la'.'fe of moral stamina. The scramble to become a State Pauper seems to be intensified every day. That it is nothing less than robbery does not strike some. — I am, etc, Sam A. Bbownb.