POLITICS PER GRAMOPHONE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3759, 7 March 1907, Page 2

POLITICS PER GRAMOPHONE.

A new terror has been added to modern municipal politics in Dondon. The Municipal Reform candidates are to yell speeches into 350 gramophones and these dread instruments are to be set going in various parts of the vast city to inform the people of the great things the reform candidates promise to do for them. This suggests an idea. In no country in the world do Ministers of the Crown wander so ceaselessly as in New Zealand. They don’t care much whether they wander in N.Z. or out of it, but they wander. A Minister says some things about the Dand Bill at Mud Creek. He journeys at the expense of the people to Clay River and says the same things. He continues on to Mouldy Bend and reiterates his statements. He is travelling in stately luxury all the time and the people pay. Why not a gramophone > Ey v ery place in N.Z. should

be supplied with a gramophone and the Government should set up a record shop where Ministers could yell their sentiments into the machine and have them duplicated for retail in the country. It would save expense. The position of being a Minister would be more dignified. Ministers would be more of a mystery, although this would be a hard matter. We hear too much ot politics and politicians. There is enough politics in New Zealand for the whole of Australia and it would even then slop over and do duty for Japan and China. We want less Ministerial utterance first-hand and more gramophone, if only on the score, of cheapness.