A PEOPLE'S MINISTRY.

Southland Times, Issue 1607, 19 July 1872, Page 3

A PEOPLE'S MINISTRY.

<9> John Peerybingle, in the Melbourne Weekly Times, thus moralises on the late Dutfy Government, whose pride it was to be known as the People's Ministry. Mr Donald Eeid and bis friends used to claim a simil.-r distinction, and appear by their late style of manipulating the landed estate of the Province to be doing their best to earn it after a somewhat similar fashion : — Those squatters are lucky dogs. Somehow they've a knack of squaring thiags, and getting what they want. They are lucky dogs ; but, after all, is ifc luck or good management ? You can do a ... lot with " proper representations, a " dummy," and the key ofthe back-door at the Lands Office. Yes, yes, my laudseeking friends, there's no doubt about it : the squatters know how to make friends : they've found out the insids track ; they've learnt the short cut to fortune. Why can't we all be squatters, with friends of the peopleon the look-out to do us a turn ? Why can't the downtrodden ones of the carth — these poor deluded, ill-used 42nd i clause men — each have a few thousands of acres on the cheap likewise ? Hooray ! ! What 1 weep for is a People's Ministry ! What I dream of is a People's Miuistry ! What I howl for is a People's Ministry — And Humbug. Let us not dissemble. 1 long for a People's Ministry, and I long ' also to be a squatter, persecuted by a People's Minister ; and buried under a . land grant, big enough to set up a kingj dom of my own. When an apprentice takes to the lolly pop business, tbey feed him on hard-bake, bull's eyes, toffy, and so forth, till he's sick to death of sweetj ness. That's what the People's Ministry j tried to do with the squatters. They stuffed 'em with acres of the best land going ; they gave 'em iand for breakfast, land for dinner, land for supper, but the squatters came up smiling, aud kept on asking for more. It's a way they bave. especiaUy when tha back-door of the Lands Office is open ; and the Friends of the People are caterwauling aboufc the , country, making fancy speeches, and getting fuddled on flattery, and other • I'quors, instead of looking atter the landrats. Their motto was " words not deeds," — unless the deeds happened to be the deeds of property, cleverly grabbed out of the hands of this gentle and i amusing public under tie ■pretence of friendship.