SALOON PASSAGES FOR 5000 MEN WITH £5000 EACH.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2122, 13 February 1886, Page 2

SALOON PASSAGES FOR 5000 MEN WITH £5000 EACH.

TO THK fcDITOK. When Sir G. Grey gave die members a free trip to the Dunedin Exhibition, and provided champagne lunches on the way, I thought this .vas playing iiigh jinks with the borrowed money, but this was nothing in comiKirison to the p'itigs on that is to be with tho ne\t £10,0^0,000 loan. Already, before the loan is voted or agreed to, already has the madness and mildness commenced by proposing schemes to make ducks and drakes of tho money. Mr Reid proposes to give" 5,000 men, who are each possessed of fi.'SOOO, a free saloon passage out to New Zealand. What a fine thing this would be for the N. Z. Shipping Company. I wonder if that Company have bribed Mr Reid with, say, £5,000 to work the oracle. But, Mr Editor, it may be that a freo passage will not tempt their rich farmers to come out here. In that case will Mr Reid be prepared to increase the bribe. Why not also promise them that I besides the passage the country will alao j furnish their drawing room and provide 1 them with a buggy. 1 think if those welloff men, so devoid of proper feeling, so devoid of tdiaine, as to cadge a free passage. We would be much, veiy much, hetter without them. Let the mean houuds stay at home, the cadging element is already high enough amongst us without increasing it. It was a bad day for New Zealand the day gold was found in Otago, The gold was much needed, but we paid to much for the whistle. If there had been no gold found Sir Julius Vogel would have remained in Australia. Ten times ten times the gold would not pay us for the curse of having him landed on our shores. It is not the money already squandered that we have to regret the most. This fine c luntry, for it is the finest country in the whole woild, just fancy you can so farm that the cattle in mid-winter can feed themselves <>n the fields and get fat too. Was home ever like ilmi Well this fine country, with prudence and windom would soon get over the alieady squandered millions. It is not the >ii»uey we have t»> regret, but what we h ive t . mourn is that prudence and wisdom has as a people completely fled from us. Sir .F dm* Voijel has morally, socially, politically dextroyed the minds of the people. I say, Mr Editor, that we as people are unfit to be trusted wish England* money, nay more than that, we are unfit to have political liberty. If the constitution was taken from us, if the Crown was to take possession of us, if we were governed as a Crown colony by such men as Sir Hercules Robinson, Sir James Ferguson or William Jervois we would be better, much better. The moment that our country ceased to be ruled by treacle yule politicians and ignorant voters, that moment would our wellbeing as a people commence.— l am, yours obediently, Habapifi. Harapipi, 11th February, 1886.