Legislative Appointments

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 127, 11 April 1885, Page 2

Legislative Appointments

Since the Government has seen fit to call nine gentlemen to the Legislative Council, and impose an additional tax of £1000 or £2000 a year on a people already groaning under their burdens of taxation, not a single newspaper in the colony has endorsed or even condoned their action. In the words of a contemporary we fail to discover any political exigency or good sound reasons to excuse those appointments, and it is evident that the fact of their having been made has shaken public faith in the Government and weakened its position with the country. There may exist no objections to the personne of the list, yet some astonishment was excited when the name of Honest "Willy Swanson, the venerable Auckland rat, appeared.. Since he deserted his party he has been a firm supporter of the continuous Ministry, and his deration to the Upper House miy be a reason for him to rat again. His influence, which at one time was considerable owing to the faith people haye — absurdly enough — in what are called "rough diamonds," of which title Mr Swanson was somewhat proud, has now departed from him, except in the matter of his vote which will limit the extent of his usefulness or otherwise- He his given the lie to his whole political life by becoming a pensioner upon the public. Our contemporary the Post says "He bias always heretofore been strong in his denunciation of such appointments as his own. In this matter he stands on a par with Mr Shrimski, whose only political achievement, outside the sphere of an excellent local representative, has been his persistent and ultimately successful crusade, against pensions. Strange that he should, like Mr Swanson, -subside ihto the position of, a State pensioner for life." Sir Julius Yogel his said that he will leave the, reform of the Legislative Council in its own hands, and it may be that he had this in his- mind when he added so largely to the list .of. '.members. However, we are certain that he will find considerable difficultly in persuading the electors generally that he had only the welfare of the colony at heart when he added £2000 a year to the already sufficiently extravagant expenditure in the payment of members of both Houses. ...