WILK'S " BLAST " HAS COME AT LAST.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 71, 20 September 1895, Page 2

WILK'S " BLAST " HAS COME AT LAST.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. Sir, — Mr Wilks is rapidly becoming more and more like a " roaring buckie " full of fury and sound, but it is not the everlasting music that we hear played in the learned shell, but rather the dying groans of the big bird, moaning " Leb the many be robbed for the aggrandisement of the few." Mr Wilks is merely trifling with the questions under discussion, but we must excuse him, for like the Monarch of Parihaka he is cooking a " political potato," and so piles on the oven all the green stuff he can reach to make the " spud " very veryhot' The principle involved in Betterment by Public Works is now admitted to be right in almost every country. Even British landlords in constructing railways through their estates impose extra rents only on farms bettered by the line. Many years before " Progress and Poverty " was written our farmers complained of the injustice of being rated on the improved value, and also of the unfair way in which land speculators made their money. Mr Ballance's policy is really as old as the cry for rightness in the heart of civilised man. His policy has already eased us of some unjust taxation, it has placed several obstacles in the way of greedy land monopolists, and has made it easy for industrious men to become possessed of a piece of land. I say, fearless of contradiction, if we revert to our old system of taxation and land tenure, then will the moderately sized farms begin to fall into the borders of big estates, as we have seen them do in the past. Had Mr Wilks shown that he would support Liberalism, Liberals would extend to him at least their congratulations even if he was as private a person as a closet philosopher, but he is against us, and I think that by trying to throw such unbecoming and offensive names at the memory of our late deceased and able Premier, he has for ever cut himself away from the political support, if not respect, of Liberals in this electorate. Selah ! I am, etc., Colonial Farmer. Feilding, September 15th, 1895.