A SPLENDID IDEA.

Patea Mail, Volume I, Issue 76, 5 January 1876, Page 2

A SPLENDID IDEA.

-In- the last General," /Assembly .an iict was passed to provide that apprentices may be bound, taught, and- instructed in certain arts and trades connected with the service of thb Government of the Colony. We are pleased to read this. We have a boy of ours that'Sve' Should’ like to biiub apprentice ', to .a Colonial, He is.a splendid' little follow at figures; and'we fool quite confident that after a yo:u* or two in the Treasury . 10p., r -i_. ment he would be able to make out a financial statement that nobody would be able to understand’ which is just the tiling most wanted. Further, lie would be able to show to demonstration that our twenty million of debt making allowances for deductions wasn’t only a very little over three farthings ahead, taking the last census as a basis of calculation, and excluding the Maori population. He would show by figures that they were more highly taxed than any'other p *ople inihe world. ‘That we exported niorc'per head than was ever done any where else, and that the people were able to consume more jams, pickles, and sardines than any other'people, which proved our prosperity. He would show that six thousand a year to a travelling minister was only twicers little as a Governor of one of the liipnti dependencies, and that divided by the population of the British Empire, of which New Zealand formed an integral portion, the amount was not equal to that bestowed in a year upon street crossing sweepers between JSt Paul’s Churchyard and the Strand. He would prove that figures couldn’t lie, except when necessity arose, when they could do anything that was wanted of them. Before, however, a boy was apprenticed in the Treasury department there should be a competitive examination to show which of the competitors could prepare such a balance-sheet that, while its accuracy could not be challenged, nobody should be able to understand it. Grey Star.