LUCKY SPECIALS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10924, 13 November 1913, Page 4

LUCKY SPECIALS.

Many credulous persons believed when it was announced that the farmers and their sons'came hurling in by special trains to do a little roughriding in the cities that they were patriots, inspired with a love of country (tinctured by a hatred of the Red Feds.) and that they were making superliuman sacrifices in the interests of the greater butter and cheese interests. An Auckland "statistician discloses quite a different state of affairs. He says that the Auckland specials alone are costing tho country £2OOO a day in wages, in addition to which they are being " fed on a lavish scale. So hilarious are these lucky young fellows in view of -this bounteous and unexpected harvest that several of them are taking time off to get married, and their comrades, in the flush of the largesse garnered from the taxpayers' pockets, are handing round tea and coffee services as wedding gifts. Neither the casual wharf labourer nor the casual farm hand can rely on ten shillings a day as a regular thing, and it is no wonder that the messenger of these glad tidings also indicates on behalf of the Farmers' Union that "the defence force could be kept up to its present strength until tho end of the year," and that " another 750 men could be found to serve as special constables in Auckland for a further period of three months." Well, wo guess so! Which all goes to show that they axe much liver and more enterprising people in the north than we can ever hope to be in the south. Now if we had enrolled a thousand specials in Canterbury, given them money to burn, ifitroduced them to some of our best girls, fed them on a lavish scale, and sent them out in force.to see that nobody threw a bomb under tho Cup horses, things would have been doing, trade would have boomed, r.nd the biscuit factory would not have had to shut down. Of course doing things on j this lavish scale would have put pres- I sure upon the country's finances, and our incomparable Colonial Treasurer would have been obliged to make anI other excursion to our avuncular rela- ' tive in London, buty what would you P You cannot have it. both ways. The next thing we shall hear of is an Auckland deputation headed by tho inimitable Glover demanding—the Aucklanders never request—that the specials and their brides, horses, and other belongings shall be kept in the " Queen City" until the Exhibition is over—and in case another smallpox outbreak requires to be ptit down—and we are pretty sure that the acquiescent "foreigner" at the head of affairs will not have the temerity to say them nay. Yes, there is no doubt about it, we southerners are altogether too resouroeless—too slow! I