The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1883

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3874, 17 December 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. MONDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1883

The Hon. Mr Mitchelson lias been making himself popular in Dunedin. The popularity he has gained was by means which an experienced administrator would have carefully avoided. Mr Mitchelson, however, is not an experienced administrator, and, it is to bo feared, neither ishe acquainted with the financial position of the colony. If ho really does know that the Treasury has no funds to lavish away at tho instigation of every deputation that may wait on a Minister, then he is making for himself a bed that will not be one of roses. ' From tho telegrams that we have published of his Ministerial progress throughout the other Island, it would appear that he has received every deputation most courteously, and if* he has not actually promised to concede all that has been asked he has left a pleasurable impression behind him. ■ We have had with regard to Napier affairs a somewhat similar experience and the subsequent non-fulfil-ment of promises, or the falsification of favorable impressions has not tended to make the Government popular. Mr Mitchelson will probably find that the i period is not distant when a reaction will set in at Dunedin when the hopes he has created are found impossible of realisation. ( We imagine that Major Atkinson will bo somewhat amazed when he learns what his junior colleague has uttered with all the imprcssivencss of one in authority. In the I meantime, however, tho storm of disapprobation with which Mr Mitchelson's appointment was ushered in has given place in Otago to a feeling of complacency on . meeting a Minister whoso object appears to make things pleasant for all parties. The "Vigillance Committee of Otngo " has been completely disarmed. This Committee, ■ whose very title denotes threats and bounce, was formed for the purpose of keeping the . Government "up to the mark " in the 1 matter of local works and the expenditure of public money. It was natural then that 3 a deputation from this committee, which 3 included six members of should wait upon Mr Mitchelson a 9 soon as ever he ) set foot in Dunedin. Mr V. Pyko was the spokesman, and in this wise ho delivered-'----j himself:—" It is no use mincing tho matter. / There are a large number of men in Dunedin at the present time able and willing to work, who are in a state of semi-starvation, bcj cause they cannot obtain work. Since the meeting we held lately, men have come to me, and represented that, in many instances, . they have boon compelled to sell their very . means of living—their chests of tools —in order to obtain food. They arc not drunkards or street-corner men; they are ' men who, to the last stago of existence, r would endeavour to maintain their self- [ respect, and certainly this is not a time to cast an extra number of men upon the world." It will be observed that there is nothing in this little address to indicate any other course than that these unfortunate uucin- ) ployed should be immediately found in work in Otago. There was not a suggestion on the part of the deputation that it might be possible for the Government to employ the 2 men in such other parts of the colony where public works are almost at a standstill for 3 want of labor. There was nothing of that 1 kind hinted at, nor, apparently, did it occur to the Ministerial mind that tho whole object of the deputation was a locally selfish one. Tho Otago farmer likes cheap labor, and the Vigilance Committee knew better than to advocate the deportation of working men. The policy of Otago is to have an over-flowing labor market, and to throw r the employment of the men on the Government when the farmer has not use for them during tho harvest. Mr Mitchelson did not see through tho "little game," or if he did ' he was not going to risk his newly acquired popularity by saying unpleasant things about the emptiness of the exchequer, and the claims of other parts of tho colony. So, when it had been made abundantly clear to 1 him that "there was no use mincing the matter," and that the Otag-o Central railway must bo pushed on by the labor of the unemployed, Mr Mitchelson spoke as follows:—"It .shall bo my endeavor, so long as I remain in office, in the case of any works that are in hand, to push them forward as quickly as possible, and not prolong them as they have been in the past. I am informed that the distance for which money is voted is hardly sufficient to carry the Otago Central railway into such country as - will make the line reproductive. Therefore 1 I will endeavor to induce tho Government > to have the lino constructed as far as will open up some really good country, in order . to make the line reproductive.'' Now, with a probable deficiency of a quarter of a million staring the country in the face at the end of the financial year, it is obvious ' that a disaster can only be staved off by not ' pushing forward such unproductive works c as the Otago Central railway. The Royal Commission reported on that then proposed . railway that it would go through country which would not support a railway. But Mr Mitchelson does not regard that report as of the slightest imporfance, and in his reply to the deputation justifies in every respect all that was said concerning tho blunder the Ministry made when tho latest appointment to the Cabinet was announced.