AN OUTSIDE OPINION.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXV, Issue 4252, 26 June 1895, Page 5

AN OUTSIDE OPINION.

Under the heading 'An Antipodean Warning' the London 'Globe* has the following :— " In New Zealand those blessed boons— universal suffrage and payment of members — have been in combined operation sufficiently long to admit of judgment by results. Is the colony happier or more prosperous than it used to be in its regenerate days ? For, when all is said and done, this is the real test of the worth of political institutions. Judging New Zealand, then, from this standpoint, we fear that the Badicalisation of the island will not be found to have produced very satisfactory results. Trade has fallen into a very decrepit condition ; employment grows more and more scarce ; the pressure of taxation has become almost intolerable ; only professional politicians and their dependents appear to be flourishing. How has this deplorable state of things come to pass in a fertile country, endowed with a temperate climate, and peopled by a race second to none in energy and enterprise? The explanation is given in a letter from a colonist which appeared in a Lancashire paper the other day. It represents that the capital required for the development of the latent resources of the islands is scared away by an abiding fear of piecemeal confiscation. The Government, being wholly dependent on the labor vote, dare not refuse obedience to its decrees ; members of Parliament are equally subservient to it, by reason of their official salaries being at stake. The result is that when King Demos decides that one expense or another must be incurred, as the only way of increasing employment, the question of ways and means is invariably solved at the cost of the wealthier classes. * By similar coercion, all manner of obstacles are thrown in the way of immigration, lest it should cheapen labor. The wage rate has thus been maintained at an artificially high level even during bad times. But owing to the gradual withdrawal of capital, employment continues to shrink, while the high cost of production in New Zealand seriously handicaps that once flourishing dependency in export business. England would do well to give heed to this warning from the Antipodes before she adopts one man one vote and payment of members."