MATTERS POLITICAL.—THE PREMIER'S SPEECH AT NELSON.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 223, 24 March 1896, Page 2

MATTERS POLITICAL.— THE PREMIER'S SPEECH AT NELSON.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE STAR. 1 Sir, — According to the report which \ appeared in your issue of the 17th March, the Premier forgot to say that , his surplus has been wrung principally out of tbe pockets of tbose whom he has bamboozled, viz., the working class ; : for our Customs' duties are higher per head than that of any other Australian Colony except Western Australia, and our other taxes are donble of that Colony. We pay for each man, woman and child a sum approaching £4 per head per annum to the Government, whereas in Victoria the taxation is only a trifle of £2 per head. Thus a poor man's family of five children, father and mother pay through the Customs about £20 every year. With one hand the Government pat the working man on the head and call bim a broth of a boy and say they will look after his interest. They crown him with a fool's cap emblazoned with the word Liberal, and while be smiles vacuously they put their other hand into his pocket and rob him, not only of bis coin, through the Customs, but also indirectly of his means of livelihood. As one traveller lately returned from Scotland says, there are more unemployed in New Zealand than in the former country at the present time. I am, &c, George Wilks. Feilding, March 24th, 1896. P.S. — Sir Robert Peel when he retired from office said, " I shall leave a name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamours for protection because it conduces to his own individual benefit, but it may be that I shail leave a name sometimes reraeui tiered with expressions of goodwill in the abodes of those whose lot is to labour and to earn tbeir daily bread with the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength [ with abundant and untaxed food." Seddon will not be able to say that when he is turned out of office. G.W.