OUR LETTER BOX.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume I, Issue 15, 16 July 1887, Page 3

OUR LETTER BOX.

(to rax Editor.’ MEN OF THE DAT. • Bib,— Like all previous elections, there ie * busy time at hand ; also a coming struggle bud a mighty struggle It will be, should there be any truth in the news that is being continuously Hashed across the wires. It will be, Sir, a st cggle for place and power, that is, plate, to have a share of the big salaries ana power; not to spend the accumulated tUnds that have been stored up in the Treasury, but to safely ’and their friends on terra Jlrma, who will swim about the successful candidates for billets." lam glad to ie« scgpe of the,old pktnek agaiu the field. True and noble men, meh who; haying withStood the taunts and jeers of their eppwebts; mtn who, having fought the good fight both bravely and well, are again coming forward, *nd are both able and willing to enter once mon the arena of politics. I refer, Sir, to Sir B. Stout, Mr Ballance, aud Sir J. Vogel, and I contend that they were the proper Bile in the proper place. Sir J. Vogel has held up to ridicule by the Tory Frees um of his protective policy and Mr Ballance because of his “ village settlement” scheme, he has also been accused of a public waste of money. The Stout-Vogel combination has been held up as having peculiar tads.” What bosh. Mr Ballance seeing, like all other sensible men, that the land should be the •' property of the State," he has put into actual practice what other men theorised on. How is it that he wasted the money? He simply has done what Major, then Captain Porter advocated when he was b candidate for Parliament, i.e., the giving of loans, and if a loan is given, surely one cannot in all common decency expect it returned immediately. Well, Mr Ballance has

limply lent the taxpayers their own money. Some people object to his scheme because, they say, he has only put loafers on the land. Well as tar as that goes, I have come to |be conclusion that if such be the case so tnhch the better, the cities and towns will be rid of them and they will now produce something, if it te only “ huge pumpkins ” vide Herald. But I have made enquries and find that there are good, honest, hard-working people settled on the land. Mr DeLatour in addressing a public meeting here under the auspices of the Political Association, recognised the fact that land should be let under the perpetual leasing system. Sir J. Vogel too is now condemned by the Tory press because he has deserted their ranks and has taken up the real cause of the country, Protection. He sees too that it is decidedly wrong for us as a community to keep on sending away our hard-earned cash to foreign markets where they can sell at a far cheaper rate than we can produce. Surely it is patent to all that the wealth produced in a country should be spent in that country; and he can see that by putting on a protective tariff it will bring the price of the imported article about, and we may just as well buy the local goods then as the imported. We import far too much, therefore a protective tariff is necessary. There is a great cry of retrenchment. Now, Sir, that has always been the same, and that word, retrenchment, all depends upon the people who are in Opposition. The Tory section say that it is necessary to cut the Education vote, and, above all, Mr Ballance's land scheme, but at the same time when Major Atkinson gave the Bank of New Zealand £25,000 without security, that was as a matter of course, passed by like the passing breeze. So I contend that when the word retrenchment is used, it should be put in a concise form and having a specific meaning. I sincerely hope, Sir, that the present Government will have a majority in the coming Parliament. They are not only preachers but they are doers also, and further when Mr McDonald goes down as our member, I hope he too will be found among their ranks as a supporter.—l am, &0,, Pax.