ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume IX, Issue 831, 20 July 1853, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the New Zealand Spectator. Wellington, July 18, 1853. Sir, — The certainty of the near approach of the elections seems to have at last partially aroused the settlers to the fact that unless more interest is shewn in the election of members of Council than was exhibited at the election of the Superintendent, we shall enjoy one of the "glorious privileges of an Englishman" which we would gladly dispense with, Tiiimely — "heavy taxation" — for the friends of the%ortby Superintendent appear to imagine that a revenue of £20,000 is wealth as inexhaustible as the fabled Magic Purse of Fortunatas, 6i<- the wonderful Lamp of Aladdin, for even thewealth of Melbourne would not suffice to defray the cost of a tenth of their promised projects. After their patriotic outcries for economy we might almost expect to see the man of their choice 4> if not actually boeing up bis turnips like a modern Cincinnatus, at least earning his living by his profession without resorting to ibe public purse, like the unhappy officials whose atrocious crime of receiving pay for their labours he has always denounced. We are told that a salary at least equul to Lieut. Governor Eyre's iv needed to keep up the rank and respectability o( an officer pretty similar in Functions to an Euglish Mayor, except that the Superintendent is exempted frorri tbe Mayor's daily toil as sitting. Magistrate, and therefore a less sum than .€BOO yearly would not enable him to bestow j-rofuse hospitality upon his political friends. We can't, of course, object to his irienis stuffing with turkey and ham, and swilling Champagne and Claret, which may possibly form portions of the public duties of a Superintendent's coadjutors : yet I, as a vulgar plebeian, would suggest doubts of the patriotism of those persons who wish hospitality exercised to themselves at the expense of the tax-paying public. Feeling more sympathy for the pockets of my fellow labourers than reverence for the humbug about " respecting the dignity of the Superindent," I have no wish when a useless Lieutenant Governor is brushed off like a sand fly, to fe&l instead a horse leech sucking our vitals under a new title. One-third of the salary paid Mr. Eyre would be ample remuneration for the very light duties of a Superintendent ; the idea always studiously inculcated by the defunct Constitutional Association until numbers of the settlers in defiance of their better judgment yielded to the delusion was, that all paid offices not indispensably necessary should be abolished, and every salary reduced to the smallest possible amount i yet now, far from giving their own patriotic services to the public gratuitously they, with the selfishness and pomposity of the old select vestry men and ancient Borougbmongering Corporations combined, prate of tbe need of our supporting " official rank and dignity," as if. re had t the wealth, population, and revenue, of -Middlesex, instead of being a poor, hardworking and trading community of about six thousand souls, of whom any material increase in taxation would force some hundreds to seek a living in the Australian colonies. Was the Home Government plagued to give us the new Constitution to lighten our taxation, or merely to impose heavier burthens upon us for the benefit of factious agitators ? I would not object to tbe Superintendent even being carried in a state Palanquin by four > Chinese if essential to his "dignity," provided his private purse defrayed the cost of the pageant. Yet the ancient kings and heroes of Greece prided themselves more on their talents and noble deeds than on idle display, and even by killing and broiling their own mutton they lost none of their "dignity" in the eyes of their people. Requesting the settlers to remember that " Worth alone make the man," and advising them to vote for men opposed to squandering the public money in lavish salaries on professed patriots, I remain your humble servant, A WORKING MAN.