The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 435, 21 September 1880, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21.

In discussing the barrenness, or otherwise, of last session's proceedings, it has been claimed by most of the lending journals of the colony that the retrenchment policy stands out as an oasis amid the general sterility. There is, howetei , ?

one view of this policy, as inaugurated, which seems to have been either overlooked or else purposely avoided as being a point of observation calculated to mar the general aspect by bringing an objectionable feature too prominently forward to the detriment of the whole. Such reservation on the part of those whose duty it is to give free vent to, and, in no small degree, guide public opinion, is equally reprehensible with an exactly

opposite course, viz., the rabid expression of mere party feeling purporting to bo the popular sentiment. The view of these retrenchment measures alluded to is their immediate severity of action, and the probable effect of so sudden and vioi lent a remedial treatment on a country not only unprepared but already enfeebled and well nigh exhausted. There is a Colonial, but ungraceful, term which aptly designates the operation of this policy ; that term is, " butt-end foremost." Legislation of this character bears too much the stamp of " panic legislation" to commend it unquestioned to thinking minds, and one naturally asks whether, in the first place, the evil is so great as to demand such treatment; and, secondly, if so, whether circumstances warrant its adoption. As with the Lxdy human, so with the body politic : violent remedies are rarely had recourse to, and then only, save in a few exceptional cases, if the patient is sufficiently vigorous of constitution to bear them. The direct result of such measures is an increased, if not utter physical prostration, which must in the nature of things render convalescence of longer duration, if it does not altogether destroy the vital power necessary for Only a pessimist of the severest school could allege that the circumstances of this colony warranted a course of action so rigorous as this, and such an one's philosophy might well be questioned were he further to assert that the consequences of such treatment in the existing state of things would not have a fatal tendency. The direct result here is an increased impoverishing of a well nigh bankrupt State, and a consequent loss of that vitality necessary to bear the extra strain, and to make the struggle back into health and prosperity when the opportunity presents itself. That the time had fully arrived, and even passed, when a rigid economy should take the place of wasteful luxury and extravagance is, of course, patent to all, and will be as freely granted, but tha the object desired would not have been better attained, as regards future results, by a more steadily increasing, reform will be denied by few who are wont to look beyond the present. It cannot surely be accepted by the public at large that a legislative measure which tends to drive labor and capital out of the country is one calculated to either invigorate our national resources, or to place the colony in a position best suited to take advantage of any favorable reaction. The policy, indeed, is essentially suicidal—not remedial—and is a glaring example of that lack of administrative ability so remarkable by its absence throughout the business of the session. The subject is worthy of more attention and criticism than it has yet received, and post-sessional utterances on this point, if brought to a proper focus, may be useful to constituencies.