Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price 1d. FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1887. The Queen’s Jubilee.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XX, Issue XX, 6 May 1887, Page 2

Wairarapa Standard Published Tri-weekly, Price Id. FRIDAY, MAY 6, 1887. The Queen’s Jubilee.

It is plain that the colonists ot New Zealand are not very enthusiastic over the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee. However much we may respect her and feel thankful for the blessings enjoyed during her long reign, we do not see why we should put our hands in our pockets—especially in our present financial condition as a colony--to celebrate the fiftieth year of her reign. It is not because we lack in loyal feeling or do not esteem our Queen that we say this, but because we consider it would be a foolish proceeding to squander large sums of money in celebrating the Jubilee, when we are so weighted with debt. “ Charity begins at home,” and we confess to a feeling in sympathy with the views expressed by the Sydney Bulletin in the following words“ The benefit arising from this fifty years’ engagement as Queen has certainly not been confined to the nation. Her high salary has been regularly paid, and she has no reason to complain of national unwillingness to provide pensions for her sons and daughters. Ascending the throne in 1887, without anything whatever to call her own, the Queen has since then saved a huge fortune out of ten grants made to enable le i- to maintain hor position wiih <ligi ry ; she hu , how-' ever, lived a life I' many years past of comparative i-.'c-iasion e.inverting to her own u-e bio surplus grants so freely mi. la to her for Statu purposes by the nation. She has ever received a Queen’s subsidies, but even the staunchest Tories admit that she has not for many years performed the Queen’s duties. England has advanced in wealth under her reign, but that cannot be even remotely attributable to the Queen’s exertions. During those fifty years the burden of raising halt a million a year has pressed heavily on the British taxpayer. That huge sum, for which there is practically no return to the nation, has had its share in the depression of tho people, and must be held accountable for the destitution of numbers who will hear of the “ Jubilee,” and have to help pay for it, without knowing why or wherefore it is celebrated. The Jewish Jubilee was a time when mortgaged lands were returned to their owners free of debt, when debtors were relieved, bondsmen released, and the burdens lifted from the poor and distressed. What will the Queen do that similar succour may be given during her jubilee year to those of the poor who are in the bondage of crime because they cannot get honest work, or to the millions who are destitute and in distress ? Assistance to such a world would be the noblest incident of a national “ Jubilee,” but it is not that which the Queen will give. She will give garters to imperial crawlers, ribbons to wealthy oppressors of the poor, and K.C.M.G’s to obsequious representatives of bumbledom She will give anything that costs nothing, but will take anything from a big African diamoud to a child’s penuy donation to the Imperial Institute. If the people want to celebrate tho “ Jubilee,” let them do it by inin,-:.cling their style of living. Let the “ J übilee ” be marked as the year that everyone commenced to live within his income; let it be the year that economy in public matters as well as in private life was started. Let it be the year the break was pul on to artificial life, and that in future persons lived as if they were free and indepen dent, and not slaves to what is called " society."