South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1880.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2233, 14 May 1880, Page 2

South Canterbury Times, FRIDAY, MAY 14, 1880.

There is a good anecdote related of a pedler who tried to please everybody and yet pleased nobody. As he journeyed along the road he was accounted a fool because he did not take advantage of his donkey ; no sooner did he bestride the animal than he was taunted with cruelt}-; and then when .he reversed places and carried the donkey on his shoulders, he was derided as being worse than a jackass. The present Ministry seems to be in an equally unenviable position. Parliament is approaching, and they arc arc besieged with cries of dissatisfaction from every side. They have tried to please everybody, and apparently they have pleased nobody. . Ad valorem duties have been raised from 10 to 15 per cent, yet manufacturers cry out that they are not sufficiently protected ; grain has been taxed nincpcnco per cental, yet farmers aro grumbling ; the objectionable land tax has been swallowed up in an all round property tax, yet Mr Peter McCaughan, the representative of the landed aristocracy of Riverton, is intensely disgusted. The five million loan lias disappeared—all but the interest —and the colony is ready to gobble up another five millions, but the Government stands pledged to placo no further loans on the market for some time to come. Railways have been commenced in various places and completed “on papcr,"yetthoinhabitants arc dissatisfied. In vain the Government plead that having invited tenders for these lines, want of funds prevent their proceeding any further. The constituencies refuse to argue tho point or to listen to reason. They refuse to take tho exigencies of the situation into account ; they demand that money or no money, by hook or by crook, the railways promised must be made, not on paper, but iu reality. By a singular coincidence, railway demonstrations in two distant extremities of tho South Island were held simultaneously on Wednesday evening. The people of Nelson beaded by one of their representatives poured out their wrath upon the Ministry because they had dared to decline tho tenders received for tho construction of their trunk railway. A telegram from the Colonial Treasurer explaining that the Government could accept no further contracts until they could perceive some way of meeting the deficiency of over a million on the last year’s revenue and expenditure, was of no avail. It was urged that this deli'- ° ei cioncy must have been foreseen, and that the Government had broken their pledges, and the disappointed inhabitants called on their representatives to resist further legislation till such time as Nelson obtains justice. On the same evening the electors of East Clutha passed a resolution calling upon tho Government to proceed with the tender accepted for tho Gatlin’s river lino, for which £12,000 was appropriated last session. The question for consideration is—will the Government be able to survive tho apparently unreasonable pressure that is being brought to bear upon them from so many different .quarters ? The Ministry have done more than they ever bargained for. They have found work for the unemployed in opening up roads through confiscated native territory at a time when land is a drug in the market ; they have organised bogus Commissions for tho benefit of impecunious supporters ; they have appointed a staff of taxation officers quite as numerous, and far more expensive than the servants of the Shah of Persia ; they have initiated a method by which the pockets of the manufacturer, merchant, artisan, and cultivator

may be picked, and the money expended in improving the property of the estateowner. Yet nobody seems pleased, and grumbling and dissatisfaction reigns supreme. '

At a moment when the Government is being vigorously taxed with sins exactly similar to those for which tlic late Ministry was condemned and executed, the natural defenders of the Ministry appear to be utterly disorganised. The journals that sung the praises of the property [tax arc silent on the subject. Instead of defending the Ministry, and pointing out how unreasonable arc the demands of such places as Nelson and Gatlin’s river, where something better than paper railways arc insisted upon, they have united to trumpet the praises of the deadliest foe that the Government has to dread. At the time when they should rally to the support of a Government in danger, they are wasting their energies in bringing Sir George Grey into undue prominence. No one knows better than this astute cx-Premier, the value of a disorganised attack. It invariably paves the way to

victory. And just as two negatives make a positive, so the ill-advised friends of the present Ministry, by exhausting thier diatribes against this solitary opponent aro destroying their own weapons, fighting against themselves, and giving him a strength, which, without their influence ho could scarcely hope to attain.