"Poor Old Bunny."

Manawatu Standard, Volume IX, Issue 100, 31 March 1885, Page 2

" Poor Old Bunny."

[Waugauui Herald. { At last the time* came when "poor Bunny " was unable to secure a seat m Parliament, and had to be content with helping to administer some portions of the local Government of his district, and to air his eloqueuce at the tables of the Education and Land Boards of the Wellington district. As a member of the Lami Board he lately took umbrage at the Minister of Lands preferring to admiuister his newly inaugurated special settlement scheme himself, and at last persuaded some of those who sat with him at the table of the Land Board to form a deputation and wait on the Hon. Mr Ballance, with a view of showing that gentleman how little he kuew of his own scheme, and how very mnch better it would be to allow its administration to pass' into the hands of persons like Mr Bunny, who are fatilt jyrinceps, m their own estimation, m every subject under, heaven. Mr Bunny wanted the Laud Boards te be utilised to the extent of practically administering the scheme, j which they themselves m many instances i all over the colony have shown a downright hostility towards. Mr Bunny also was opposed to the clauses of the scheme which allowed several members of the same family to select land m the same special settlement, and was also opposed to doctors, lawyers, and professional men being allowed to participate m the scheme. Of course this was all claptrap and fustian of the old Bunny pattern, and the Minister of Lands must have had considerable difficulty m repressing a smile when the memory of thepld Provincial system of nepotism m lands and everything else under the regime of the now sturdy champion of the working man floated up, as it no doubt did, during Mr Bunny's stentorian advocacy of the Minister abdicating his functions m favour of the Board and Bunny. Mr Ballance failed to see why professional men should not be allowed to take up land under the scheme ; he evidently thought it was wiser to allow them to do so and to settle their sons on the land as they grew up, than to see the latter driven out of the oountry, or forced to swell the already over-crowded' ranks of those who earn .their living by their mental powers, many of whom would undoubtedly bo happier and better off, if they had been brought up to cultivate the soil they live on, and to open up tho country to an increased population. Mr Bunny could not see this ; he couldonly see- that it was a smart thing to set class againt class, and to make the handicraftsman or the agricultural laborer jealous of the I doctors, lawyers, and other professional ! men, who are anxious to, get out of professions that are over-crowded and from which many of them cannot get a living. These men are frequently successful settlers, when they get a piece of land, and get their families on to it, -but Mr Bunny thinks they ought to be. kept with their noses to the grindstone of their unrenumerative professions, and not al< lowod tin try and strikeout a new life for themselves and their families. Mr Bunny himself, if we mistake not, is an ex-lawyer and present country settler, and yet he grudges his fellow briefless ones, the samo opportunities he has not forgotten to avail himself of. But consistency and Mr Bunny are old friends; it is the expedient m his own eyea, that sways his opinions and actions, and often causes him to make himself ridiculous. If professional men with a little capital j take up land and employ labour on it, the working man is for the first five years at least the only one who gets • profit out of the soheme, and the more land that is taken up and worked m this fashion, tho more labor will be employed and paid for from outside sources. If all the unoccupied land that is now owned by oapitahats were subjected' to jsome of the provisions of Mr Ballance's special settlement scheme, and thrown open to the people to occupy and cultivate, the present depression would soon pass away, and not return m our day at all events. The delicious coolness of Mr Henry Bunny's protest against the scheme, because he feared it might perpetuate a system of " dummyism," and allow large blocks to fall into the hands of certain families, must have been a sore trial to Mr Ballance's | gravity and politeness, as we feel certain those who remember the old regime of the same gentleman when Provincial Secrcsary for tho Province of i Wellington, and the way tho waste lauds \ were disposed of then, would,- with us, I liavo been porely tried to refrain from \ laughing m hit face. Opinions which

urged by some men may have great fore* and bu wort hy of every consideration,beiug promulgated by others,are mere claptrap, and provocative of contempt. For this season many opinions held from tim* to time by our stentorian friend, who changes them with a facility the outcome of long practice, simply mark • new departure m his political pilgrimage, nnd bring him nearer to that time when his final retirement from public life will take place, and his name cease to come before the public, who have long ceased to attach any importance to his utterances.