OUR CURRENCY.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 195, 16 February 1895, Page 2

OUR CURRENCY.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — Kindly allow me space in the Stab to say that I think now, and have thought for many years past, of our money currency somewhat like your correspondent " Money Crank " thinks on that subject. Even the clock of time now warns with a queer escaping gurgle that we should emancipate ourselves from the money prisons in which oldworld semi-savage bumpkins have confined us. Our gold and silver money should be abolished, and a new inexpensive currency substiuted in their stead. We have in this country thousands of strong active men tramping the highways seeking for work, and cannot obtain it, and having to beg for food and lodgings as they go along, and all these humiliations overtake them not because food and waste lands are scarce in New Zealand, nor are they idle because n« public works are wanted in the colony. No, but because (and let all the Africans hear the potential cause) because of the scarcity of a certain jingle called gold. It is labor that produces capital, and this being the case, if the State had sole ♦ power and authority to manufacture money, as it should have, then would it be to the interest of all that it should employ every idle man at public works, and pay them in dollars — made of paper or sheepskin — which should now be cheaper than the compressed palp, and stamp the following legend in red letters within blue bordered panels, "Farewell to borrowing, sorrowing, swagging, and begging." If Governments adopted this plan they could construct much more colossal public works with paid labor than did the despotic ancients with slave labor. In past times two dead sparrows were worth one farthing for food, and the " Wise One " reckoned man to be of more value than many sparrows; but now man, the great food and raiment producer, if shorn of gold, is too often regarded as a worthless burden and a nuisance by the perky ratepayers, who, though they themselves are standing on the brink of perdition, do not hesitate to say of the poor foot-and-heart-sore swaggers, "It is their own fault that they are tramps." Some swaggers | inform me that runholders attempt to prevent the social evolution of mankind by boycotting all men who are suspected of being Liberals, and are allying themselves with Maori workmen instead. This alleged turning of theirs to savagery is quite a natural turning, but to where and what does the turning lead ? It leads to fresh fields of titled fossils, survivals, and pillars of salt; About thirty years ago I visited a New Zealand goldtield. Tne sight saddened me greatly and set me soliloquising thusly, " Pity that all these strong men waste their strength, time, and so much good timber in shafts and drives, searching for a mischievous brimstone colored metal. Why all this jumble, splash, dirt, and darkness, to obtain material for the currency of the realm when glass marbles might serve the purpose as well ? Surely this toil to obtain gold for such a purpose is like going into debt to secure our wages. Yes, Yes, I know, when the men who wear the gopherwood heads shall become extinct then will the gods of silver and gold, who dominate us so cruelly now, also perish, and their remains become mere c/^'jMarcs— tinkling-souudera— competing only with crockery, pottery, and paste for the honors of utility, and may the old humbugs gee beaten badly. I am, etc., Fabtav.