RANGITIKEI ELECTION.

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 52, 18 October 1890, Page 2

RANGITIKEI ELECTION.

REPLY FROM MR JACOB. TO THE KDIT'IK nF THE 81AK. Sir, — I enjoy Mr Macarthur's. repartee although at my own expense. His attempt to get out i f ids dilemma is superb. Cniortuu-bely the fact remains that he admitted his proposals would be unpalatable to our local bodies, narrow-minded or otherwise. I thank him for his lecture on insurranee. I thought New Zealand statesmen were agreed that it would be unwise finance to establish an insurance fund to renew our public buildings when destroyed, and I presume they would say the same about our large bridges. Mr Macarthur told us at Marton that he privately laid his scheme for building aud renewing, bridges before Sir H. Atkinson. It is whispered the Premier's reply was : "Yes, Mr Macarthur, it would be a nice little fund to work elections with, but not even a New Zealand Parliament would swallow it." I am glad that " drawing " Mr Macarthur has bean so agreeable to both of us. The result is at all events amusing. In June, Mr Macarthur posed as a noble statesman prepared even to sacrifice bis own interests and his constituents for the benefit of the colony. Now he is the usual colonial politician, trying to persuade his constituents that he is going to benefit them at the colony's expense. He wants the Manchester ratepayers to believe that to take their subsidy to spend it elsewhere, and to put by the remainder for a rainy day, will greatly benefit them. We may be certain if ever Mr Macarthur's proposals were carried, that in the scramble for the plunder the other members would take good care that Mr Macarthur did not get more than his share. But, after all, what are Mr Macarthur's proposals ? In his Hansard extract he says he would devote the subsidies strictly to purposes of Battlement. Not a word about an insurance fund. At Marton, on the contrary, his "proposal was to devote the subsidies to the purpose of providing an insurance fund, &c, and the balance to make . roads of access, &c." Where the balance is to come from after devoting the subsidies to another purpose, my finite mind fails to see, but Mr Macarthur is a wonderful financier. I how await his further utterances on the. public platforms. Meantime I thank you for publishing my letters, and Mr Macarthur for replying to them at such great length. Our statesman can, with equal ease, give the Premier lessons in finance or instruct a poor ignorant like myself.-^-I am', &c, ; Wm. F. Jacoh.