WELLINGTON LETTER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5335, 27 January 1906, Page 3

WELLINGTON LETTER.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

We have here in the Empire City a Gladstonian Liberal of the good old type. Strange that we should have to say that the type is old already. Such is fame, as somebody said when at a loss' for a repartee. Our Liberal is Mr Rylett, of the New Age, a journal of great reputation, of which the fame has reached here in company with nothing belonging to it except the title; page. Such again is fame, for the paper in question is a power in the land of the millions. I won't describe the gentleman at length ; 1 will only say that, having to refer to something the " Grand Old Man " had said in one of his inspired moments, he just dei clared of Gladstone that he was '• the greatest i man that has appeared in England, indeed, in the world, since Shakespeare." There you have measure of the men Avho followed: the G.O.M. with such fanatical fervour in the days of his great campaignings. I was present when a friend of mine referred to Gladstone as never having held his head up after the death of Gordon. It was a treat and a revelation to see the expression of the editor of the New Age. It was pain and sorrow, and anger and righteousness, and offended religious feeling, and, above all, disappointment that in a young country so admirably forward on the road of^progress, anyone could have permitted himself such license of blasphemy. I must confess that up to that moment I had never got anywhere near to the realisation of the attitude of his followers to the " G.0.M." It is a little bit of history which we who were present realised vividly on our own. The memory of the "G.0.M." is not dead by any means. "The greatest man since Shakespeal c." Veneration could not go much further.

Of course our friend is a pronounced Home Ruler ; he never conceals that opinion of his for a moment. He got a chance to talk what was in him at the Chinese meeting, and he came out on the Home Rule ticket with uncompromising force and most original vigor. " See what self-government has done for this colony," said he, with fervour. .Then he proceeded to tell the audience that he had been studying the people of this wonderful country, and he had, after realising their state of perfection politically and socially — perfection by comparison, that is to say, with the things that are to be seen and deplored elseAvhere — come to the conclusion that the Avhole thing is the result of self-government. It was a fine commentary on the old Liberal saying of Abraham Lincoln, "Trust the people." Then the bed-rock of the Liberal creed in the matter of Irish Home Kule is "Trust the Irish people every time." But Home Rule was o mere episode in the mind of this man observing the disaster that is falling upon the Tories and Unionists. He sees a new era dawning, feels that the regeneration of the British race is at hand, and he glories accordingly. That he knows the points in the game that is unfolding goes without saying. In that respect he is a mine of wealth to the journalists of the Empire City ; you see it in their articles, and when you don't the articles arc not worth reading, says the observant authority which thestreet is accustomed to follow. It is evident that this Liberal, who has so long been out in the cold shades of Opposition, revels in the idea of the millenium.

On the other hand Aye have a gentleman bearing the honoured name of Jebb : nephew of Sir Richard of that ilk. His instincts are Unionist Chamberlainite and of the trade preferential order. He is not a bit abashed at the disaster, Avhich he regards as no disaster but a mere episode ; just a swing of the idiotic pendulum which so many good people imagine to be the governing power of political destiny. Of course there will be a period of confusion, there is always confusion when out " Doxy " is kicked out by a dreadfully unthinking mob. But the right men will come to their own when the world has had enough of the confusion of the imbeciles and there will arise a party of preferential trade and militarism which will establish Protection and the Conscription in the midst of a dragooned Britain, and the British people will be happy without any of the things for which their fathers bled and fought and cut off the head of a king whom they could not trust in the land of the free. This gentleman's interview is amusing reading, but the street has not yet. been converted to Toryism of Chamberlain pattern. It rather prefers to shout Avilh the men who once addressed the " Pushful Joe "a s " Tildas."

Yet a third authority has arisen in the city to tell us the true inwardness of the Tory disaster. According to Mr Robert Hogg who as any one can see is a socialist by reading the evidence he gave before the Land Commission of happy memory, the disaster is common to both of the great parties who have ruled from time immemorial, that is since the Revolution in the interest of the oligarchy of. Great Britain. This is the winning game ol the Independant Labor Party of which Keir Ilardie the "Queer Cardie" of the comic papers is the uncompromising head. And he has given us some very interesting details of the manner in which that party under that guidance has faught and won ever so many municipal elections. It has always been a mystery to the faithful Liberals why the great constituencies which vote Liberal in their municipal elections so steadily and sturdily always go Tory in their political fights. But this is to be no longer, says Mr Robert Hogg, who at all events is very well furnished for the controversy he desires to wage. That he is probably right we may judge by the panic which appears to have seized upon the Times and perverted its oracles to the prophesying of absurd things. And when the stout old Daily News, the freetrader of the freetraders, declaims about the giant strength of Labor which has at last been put forth we must see that our local prophet at all events understands the situation. The probability is that he sees further than the rest of the observant critics of the developing situation.

In all this the street has its OAvn views. It looks broadly along the stream of English history, discerning therein one special thread making the fact from age to age, that through all the changes wrought in the sacred name of freedom, no change for the better came to the proletariat until the middle of the last century, and that the denial to them of rights obtained for them in common with Iheir " betters," was always accompanied hy the most ruthless cruelty of legislation, by the most systematic prostitution of representative institutions to the use of the lords of the pocket borough, by the most shameless corruption the world has ever seen. Things are better in our day, but we have the submerged tenth, the tramp Avho can find no man to hire him and the destructive doctrine of " Laissez faire" which deems whole districts to extinction. Governments come and go, by virtue of that wonderful fantastic absurd most foolish theory of the pendulum, but the poor get poorer every clay and drift further away from decency, pleasure, knowledge, plenty and all the things that make enjoyment in this world and hope for the next. The street therefore feels that it is time for Labor to move with independence and make its wrongs the only rights of the hustings. Therefore we are in sympathy with our friend "Queer Cardie." J3ut we have a fine contempt for the learned Robert Hogg, who has dared to brand the sterling Burns as a traitor to the Labor cause. It only proves that there is fanaticism everywhere even among the people Avho have been for generations the victims of fanaticism.

Word comes among the cable messages that our friend Tellicoe, the renowned lawyer of these parts has sustained a defeat at the hands of one of the Liverpool constituencies. The street is rather astonished that he should have polled so well — five thousand is good. He lost four elections here, and this makes his fifth defeat. He played the game for all it was worth. His aim was to break down the big shipping rings, his theory being that trade is strangled by the restraints of the rings of the shippers. He accumulated an enormous number of facts, as we know who heard him dilate on the subject when he was here last in the intervals of his defence of the voucher men, which did not add to his reputation. He worked up the case of the men fighting the rings with all the acumen he used in his professional work, Avhich Avas very great. That accounts for the heavy poll he got to his .credit. At the same time the magnitude ot the interests against him accounts abundantly 1 for his defeat. It was one of the many side

issues to which Chamberlain referred the other day in talking over the election development. Break down the rings he said, and trade will be free once- more. He has gone under, and we shall have him out again among the lawyers. They don't like the prospect. Our little meeting to support the Liberal Government in their anti-Chinese policy in the Transvaal went off very well. It is noticeable that the Government of this country did not take a hand. The thing was under the guidance of The O' Regan and Jack Hutchison, who made great speeches entirely. The great point was that their pro-Boer sentiments are now the public opinion of the Empire. They were assisted by the Liberal journalist aforesaid, who made that pronouncement about Home Rule, and he also dilated on the old pro-Boer prowess which has now become a virtue. The meeting' passed a very fine resolation. Cvi Bono ! Here is George Hutchison returned— no relation of the before-mentioned ' Jack — from the country, who tells us that the new Legislature of the Trantvaal which is to be established soon is sure to approve the continued importation of the dreaded alien. The I Boers don't care a dump, and the other whites | are sure to be dragooned by the mine kings, and there is no help for it anywhere. The only consolation is that the Chows are about to be organised in the Rand by a secret society, " which will put them up to any devilment that is open to a mob of 50,000 strong. Add a slump in the mines which represents a loss of fifty millions in the value at which the confiding British public has invested, together with the absolute impossibility of making the low grade ores pay at any price, and we have the elements of as pretty a situation as any body ever could wish to get away from. Nemesis, according to the ex-member for Patea, who seems to have got better ground to go upon than he had in the famous " Bun Tuck " case, is about to overtake the millionaires for whom the Empire gave its best blood in a war which everyone seems to see now had not too much to recommend it to the notice of honest men. The holiday of Richard the King has as usual rroduced a big political speech. The street has noted that everything mentioned in the speeches of the right honorable gentleman during the election has become a popular mandate backed up by a majority of forty in the House. It is noteworthy, says our leading oracle, that among those mandates there is not one for the reconstruction of the Cabinet. On the other hand there is one for a great policy of expansion. In the distant future we are to have, inter alia, a " band of iron" round the South Island. It was old Macandrew's favorite phrase for the railway system of the future, which found its way into the vernacular of politics in the old days. Everyone had forgotten it clean until it flew from its grave and perched at Kumara in the mouth of Richard the King. Thence it took rather a wide flight. Most people seem to agree that it may be left to fly awhile, without too serious reflection. Two other things strike the intellect of the Empire City. They are that everything seems to be braced up to concert pitch in the affairs of the Government, and that there is going to be a tremendous surplus again. Of the first we all leave it to the session to verify, and we do so hopefully. Of the second the figures are suggestive. Thus :—: — Revenue. Revenue to December 31st, as set forth at Kumara ... 2 7^j oo ° Revenue of the fourth quarter of the current year, placing it last year's and adding the profits shown by the three other quarters .. 2,322,000 Brought forward from last year 261 ,000 Total revenue £7,861,000 Expenditure. Appropriated against ordinary revenue ... ... 4,342,800 Appropriated under permanent charges .. ... 2,851,29s Total expenditure... ... £7,194,098 Surplus apparent ... ... £667,000 " If, 1 ' says the leading oracle of the stiect, " there is not here in this big revenue a margin of a quarter of a million at least for unexp ended balances, call me ' Ass. ' " For my part I think the oracle is right, and that the surplus will be nearer a million ; it will, in fact, be worthy of the big Government majority. The big policy lines forbid us to expect less taxation, but different adjustment there must be.