THIS DEVOURING GOVERNMENT

Hokitika Guardian, 22 July 1927, Page 4

THIS DEVOURING GOVERNMENT

( Auckland Star.) Among the several things that this Government of ours does not understand is the value oi local patriotism and local effort. Mr Chesterton's ■•Napoleon of Netting Mill” is puzzling to most, men; to Mis Majesty's Ministers here it would be pernicious nonsense. •' Do you think I have no right to light tor Netting Hill, you whose English Government has so olten fought for tomfooleries!"’ The right of a New Zealand Netting Hill in New Zealand to manage its own affairs seems an absurdity and a crime to the rulers in Wellington. They are busy with a told and 'calculating industry In making New Zealand all ol a pattern, in ironing out the individualities of its districts. They want a school at Auckland to he just Vikc a school at Invercargill. Their latest glance of disapproval is directed at pur private savings ltaiiks. These institutions have tlie effrontery to apply their profits to local objects, so Mr Downie Stewart suggests that these profits might he seized hy the State. Why? The only answer can be that local effort is improper. Auckland thrift and business acumen have built up a great savings bank, from tlie profits of which much money lias gone to worthy local institutions. An Auckland citizen is aide to look at tlie University or the War Memorial’ and say that thousands of pounds of Auckland earnings went into those buildings. He may also reflect—tin- I

1 grateful and wicked man —that there is j loss red tape about the Auckland Savings Hank than about the Post Olfiee institution. Is it entirely unimportant that he should feel such local pride? Is anything to he gained hv devoting profits made in Auckland or, tor the matter of that, profits made in Dunedin. where'the Dominion’s second largest private bank operates —devoting these profits to the building of a bridge at Whangamomnna, a swimming bath at Blenheim, or a new billiard table for Parliament Buildings? In the old days tyrants coveted the possessions of the weak and seized them by force. Is the party that was reared on the ruins of the opposition to the Seven Devil's of Socialism, the party that stands for the rights of properly against the dreadtul levelling doctrines of Labour, (lie party that professed to give everybody a square deal—is this party going to raid the justly earned profits of local savings banks iust because they are local, and compete with the Government eon<ern? A more impudent suggestion of theft was never made. Tt is time Liberalism awoke and wrote the people’s rights in gold letters on its banner.