THE FREE PASS SYSTEM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 313, 25 April 1877, Page 4

THE FREE PASS SYSTEM.

We have hoard, through tfie columns of the /Vc.M r how an M.H.R., travelling for a Christetmreh produce-merchant, has been using hist member's free pass in travelling ttpmi the railway lined of the Colony. Whether thfe system is likely to develop into anything more seriojts we know not. The London That?, howeve*-, does not admire the free-pas* jr. stem, arnt thus refers to its r fleet* :—"' All the M. P.'s in South Carolina, ( says the speeiat correspondent of the Tim ■■•.*). ha*.'._• fr.;.» passed on the railways, ami s«»mj of these scil'te lawmakers* who cannot, or will not. provide trin'n-raelv-j* with b»hj; ;- *gs di.-ok,.!.rgitK; their pariiane r.:,»ry duties during the tahe eH the free p"*?.?.'.'-* to t".nt tits.- fndns ir*fcr» bedroom.*. ;i.rv I h^ c e*n:d!y =»|>,-sv«. I ;h;.ir night* in thtn-t. Thu eonvsi'ondenf us Co imagine ourselves gov\-frn-:d and taxed by legislators of t;ds stamp. and then we stud I have, he say?. s<ome notion of what the white men of Kontti Carolina have had tn stutter in the matter of taxation during the whole period of reconstruction. Our readers will perhaps be surprised to know that this singular practice of turning the railways of the fcJtate into lodging-houses is not eotdined to the tines which converge on Charlestown. Precisely the same custom prevails in the British Colony of Victoria. Members of Parliament there travel free on the Government railways, and we are not to wonder that it is owing to this description of legislator that a British colony is cursed with a protectorate policy, by which English-made boots and shoes, and many such like useful things, are taxed in order that a few Victorians who are makers of boots, trousers, and other personal necessaries may command their own profits."