PUBLIC APATHY.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume I, Issue 12, 23 March 1867, Page 3

PUBLIC APATHY.

It has been our duty more thau once since the inauguration of representative institutions in this province to censure the public for their political apathy. It is however a disease which requires a stronger remedy than newspaper censures to cure. It is the result of easy circumstances and indirect taxation. Another poll-tax would raise another Wat Tyler; but bad laws and heavy taxes are complacently borne so long as the first are not felt, and the last are indirectly levied on a well-to-do population. We can supply this week more than one forcible illustration of the truth of these remarks. At Rangitikei Mr. B - Smith of Wellingon was returned a member for the Provincial Council, there being only his proposer and seconder present. At Masterton on Monday, Mr. Andrew by a like process obtained a like victory. The weather was so bad neither Mr. Revans nor e ven

Mr. Revans’ Masterton friends put in an appearance. But if our recollection serves us the weather was almost as bad on Saturday, and yet on that day, as will be seen from our report, half Featherston, could attend a meeting in which they felt either their purses or properties were directly interested. The conclusion is inevitable—the mis-government of the colony and province and the heavy taxes and worse laws which are sanctioned by the General and Provincial Legislatures are the unquestioned results of political apathy; but this political apathy will not be removed until the i./is-government grows so bad as to seriously effect our persons, and the heavy taxes become so great as to necessitate a portion of them being directly levied from eur pockets. The Stamp Duties was a measure therefore, in the right direction, a property and a poll-tax would both be equally sound in principle, and we doubt not would prove an efficacious remedy for the disease which is now eating silently hut surely into the vitals of the body politic. But would it not he better instead of waiting until the disease can only he removed by so violent a remedy to try if there are no other ways of effecting a cure. It is of that character that the very attempt earnestly made to remove it, would cause its removal. The evils which threaten this colony, which threaten this province, which threaten this district, are not unlike those which drove most of us from our native land; shall we by our criminal apathy allow them to grow until they become too strong to be subdued ? We put this question in the most serious manner to our readers, and we call upon them as they value their present privileges and their civil liberties to transmit them unimpaired to their children.