Taupeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1892. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1869, 6 February 1892, Page 2

Taupeka Times. AND GOLDFIELDS REPORTER AND ADVERTISER. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1892. "MEASURES, NOT MEN."

If the intentions of the Ministry can be successfully carried out, the colony will then be at the mercy of the class who claim to be and who are in reality the real rulers of the country. In one branch of the Legislature the Government have a majority strong enough in numbers and weak enough in independence or selfassertion to be dragged or driven into the perpetration of any folly or rashness. Precisely the same state of things —the same servile and truckling spirit, the same abnegation of independence, of thought and action —are desired in the Legislative Council in order to complete the helplessness and enslavement of the country, so that it may be, as it were, thrown bound and incapable of resistance into the councils of the trades unionists, the Knights of Labour and the other half score of political organisations in the cities whom the events of the last few years have called into existence. The Government have made it known that before any measure is brought into the House it will first be submitted for the approval of the National Liberal Association ; while the labour councils have laid down the principle and mean to force its acceptance on the Government that they must be allowed an opportunity of making appointments to the Legislative Council. Such a method of governing a country, a country where the privileges of all are supposed to be equal, has never yet been recorded in history. The National Liberal Association is mainly composed of the trades unionists in the towns, and to these not only will be submitted the measures intended to be brought into the House of Representatives and passed into law, but these men are actually insisting, and no doubt they will be allowed to have their way, to be allowed to control and run the machinery in the Uj>per House. This is surely something more than double-barrelled representation. And yet we are told there is no such thing as class legislation. Mr Seddon told us at the Lawrence banquet that the Government was legislating not for a class but for the country. But how can that be when a single class, the trades unionists in the towns, have captured all the legislative machinery ? What, after this, is. left for the country settlers? Nothing, absolutely nothing, but submission. As things now are the residents of the country districts — the producers and the revenue contributors —have no representation, no voice in the making of the laws. How can they when the National Liberal Association directs what shall or shall not be introduced into the House of Representatives, while the same or largely the same influence in the trades councils intends to have the ordering of appointments in the Upper House ? But what purposes do the Government of the country fulfil under circumstances of such unparallelled strangeness ? They have, as we see, completely abdicated their functions, delegated their highest and most important powers to an irresponsible and, as the history of the last year or two has proved, a most selfish and tyrannical body. How is it possible to expect that the country settlers can. be favourably disposed towards so pernicious a system of Government ? Is it not as natural to expect class legislation of the most pronounced and aggressive type under such a system of government as to expect that night follows day? What is the good of the Minister of Lands preaching peace to the country settlers when he knows that, instead of conserving and protecting their interests as by right they should do, he and his Ministry have abandoned them to the tender mercies of the Socialistic agitators in the towns? It is a striking case of imperio in imperium; but the real power is to be found in the labour councils. The Government only exists on sufferance ; they represent only those bodies, and their legislation has to be shaped to suit their ends A letter appeare 1 in last Tuesday's « Daily Times," in which serious imputations were made against the proprietors of licensed public houses in Lawrence, against the 1 manner in which these places are conr ucted,

t against the police, and iuferentially against the morality of the town. Under ordinary circumstances it is scarcely a proof of wisdom to notice the class of writers known i as the anonymulculi of the Press, the writers who shoot from under cover, who avoid the open and do not give those against whom their attacks are directed or the public generally an opportunity of judging by their identity how much value may be placed on their charges, or the motives by which they are inspired. In the present instance, it is as well, perhaps, that an exception should be made to the rule we hnve mentioned, the chief reason being that public officials are attacked, men whom we know to be most zealous and active as well as impartial in the discharge of their duties, but whose position precludes them from replying in their own defence. This is where the unfairness— the cruelty, in fact, —of those anonymous stabs comes in ; not that we believe the police or any other public servants should be exempt from stricture under certain circumstances, but Avhere serious allegations are made they should, at all events, bear the name of the writer. As regards the drunkenness, and, particularly the Sunday drinking referred to by the writer of the letter in question, we are not in a position to say that no case of drunkenness is ever seen on the streets on the day named ; but we certainly can say that it is a gross exaggeration to assert that the practice is common or even noticeable, and the statement is just on a par with that charging the publicans with per. mitting wholesale drunkenness and the roaring of bacchanalian songs in their places on a Sunday. Such a statement brings its own refutation with it. We believe the public houses here to be as well conducted as they are in other places, better than in many places, and, as far as the police are concerned, we are confident that no more efficient or capable officers could be found in the service. It is the first time that the sobriety or morality of the town has been publicly questioned ; and when next it is attempted, it is to be hoped that the name of the defamer will accompany his slanders. I .