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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume III, Issue 33, 10 February 1868, Page 3

taken away, still nothing disastrous would follow, so long as the producing classes had their health and strength to follow their various occupations. With no money, and no shopkeepers, they would have to exchange their various produce one among another, in the way of barter, but this they could do, and there beicg no merchauts to exchange their raw material of commerce, such as wool and hides, for the luxuries and convenience of Europe, they would have lo live, more simply, and spin aud weave their wool into cloth and tan their hides into leather themselves, and make shift with home-made furniture and colonial manufactures generally, and although they could not contribute to the expenses of any public works in money, (money being taken away), they could contribute in kind, and those who bestowed their labor on such works, could be remunerated with so much corn, or meat, or clothing, and without dwelling any further on the subject by explaining how the want of police and magistrates, schoolmasters, and others of the nonproducing classes, would operate, suffice it to say that the producing classes could keep moving and existing, and no starvation or standstill or anything approaching them need take place, as in the case of produce stopt, although immense disadvantage and inconvenience would necessarily arise. From these considerations then it is ■clear at least to myself, that the labor — the producing classes, are the most important elements in the properity of this or any other country. Inasmuch as anyone produces anything, whether wheat, or horseflesh, or cattle, he isaidding to the wealth, and material prosperity of his country, and all who are overpaid for any service rendered are destroyers of produce just as far as they are overpaid, and all who fill unnecessary billets in the Government are destroyers of produce entirely. Shop--keepers, merchants, and dealers of all kinds are destroyers of produce also, they wear out clothes, they consume food, in fact they destroy the work of some one else's labor, but produce nothing themselves. On the other hand, the man who grows wheat, who breeds cattle, or horses, or sheep, who i dairies, who cultivates his land, is a producer and a producer of the first importance and the blacksmith and wheelwright and shoemaker and tailor and others who help and assist the cultivators of the soil, and the breeders of our domestic animals, are the next in importance. The mere shopkeeper and dealer are quite distinct from these other two important classes, being merely distributors of produce, and Government clerks and officials are still lower in the scale of importance, though they and schoolmasters and lawyers and artists and printers &c, are ali useful and valuable, in their places, and civilization, as we understand, it could not exist without them, and while all these' together with the producing classes are fulfilling the duties allotted to them, it becomes the duty of our legislators — those selected by the producing classes and others of the community — to devote their time to devising the best measures for the common welfare of the country, to frame equitable and wise laws, impose just and equal taxes, for the purpose of defraying the unavoidable expenses ofany civilized community; but they will take care as they are just, > tmd upright, and God-fearing, to place these taxes fairly and equitably, giving to those who have the greatest privileges the greatest burden, and those with the meanest privileges the lightest burdens, and withal being careful that the burdens tm all are as light as the efficiency of the State machinery will allow, and that strict j economy is observed, with the view of sparing all the labor possible to the J making and creating powers of the coun- j try, looking upon all officialism whatever as a necessary evil, to be kept down I within the smallest possible limits, not only to spare expense, but also to spare -unnecessary interference with the legiti- | mate pursuits of the people. ! Whether or no our legislators have thus fulfilled their functions, I leave the Seven Million Debt, the Sugar and Moleskin Tariff, and your readers to answer, and will conclude by remarking that I think it is high time the long-winded speeches, the learned articles, essays, and addresses about budgets and loans and allocations were replaced by practical measures, to relieve the burdens which are now strangling the industry and resources of the •colony, by placing such burdens on the shoulders of the non-producing classes in proportion to their incomes and privileges, and. so thus and in other ways to relieve

the settlers and workers of. the immunity, that tbey may prosper in tbe land, and that their sons may take in hand still farther and farther back the wilderness, and make it resound with the busy hum of toil, and the merry peal of schoolchildren. If our legislators cannot see fit to act from high and righteous motives, one would think they might be wise enough to see that it is their interest to do nothing to hinder the prosperity of the laboring classes, in order to allow the work of colonisation to go forward at a rapid and evier increasing rate. And this it will do, if our legislators will simply leave the laboring classes alone, and hot afflict them with bad laud laws, and unjust taxation, made bad on purpose to suit mortgage-makers and money-lenders, and to ease the shoulders of the class they belong to. But however much they might have the power to mako these and similar laws to suit themselves, they would, from the low motive we have pointed out of self-interest, if our statesmen were simply sagacious, refrain from making all laws that bore unjustly on labor, and thus tended to stay colonisation. In making these remarks, I consider I am speaking for all classes alike, for I believe the policy the country has been of late pursuing is dragging all down alike, except a few of the sharks and vultures of society. Should you think this worthy of insertion in your prosperous little paper, I will at a future time have something more to say on the very important topic to which I have endeavored to call attention. lam, &c, A Member of ' the League.' February 8.