HON. J. A. TOLE. (From Auckland Herald, March 3rd.)

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 145, 13 March 1886, Page 7

HON. J. A. TOLE. (From Auckland Herald, March 3rd.)

(TO THB EDITOR.) Sify-^-As Mr tole has seen fit 16 indulge in an outburst of temper over the nction of the Auckland members", perhaps a few words in reply from one of them may not be out of the place. The public of Auckland seem be swallowing wholesale the mild and childlike and blaud platitudes of the Colonial Treasurer, but to understand this matter properly the citizens of Auckland and electors of the North Island ought to calmy view " wlu*t might have been." If Sir Julius Vogel had only had his own way he would have an extra tax on tea to the amount £38,000 a-year, and we would have also had a tax on the special articles that babes and sucklings use to the extent of £10,000 per annum, and this under the gastly name of the protection 1 Did Mr Tole support this ? Who prevented it ? We would have had, in the first session, almost the whole of the waste lauds of the colony handed over to a syndicate in Christcliurch for a nominal sum, and an expensive railway (a white elephant) to buy and pay for section by section as fast as the said syndicate could mnk« it —paying them 6 per cent, interest in the meatiiue. Did Mr Tole support this ? Who prevented it ? Or again, in the session we would have the East and West Coast and Nelson Railway made by Meiggs and Co. at a millions cost to the colony and at an annual guarantee for twenty-one years of about £90,0000 a-year. And this, mark you, in addition io the full working expenses of the line being made good by the colony, and we were also in this scheme to generously allow some £350,000 of our hard cash to go to the promoters, or somebody or the other. Did Mr Tole support this? Who prevented it ? We would also have had at the South Sea Islands u million pounds worth of notes floating about (less, of course, commissions). And what for? The purchase of a bankrupt business. Who prevented this ? Was it Mr Tole I Who is now trying to take away our million loan from the North Islaud Trunk Ralway ? Let us bow our necks to the , yoke, and be grateful. Who is now trying to &et a disolution, for the double purpose oF avoiding Parliament, and getting a further term for the present Representation Act ? If love of office can Keep a Ministery in power in spite of .almost every political degradation that • they can be put to, members of that Ministery have no right to complain to the public of their treatment. The question that naturally occurs to my

mini] is, if AuoUnnd had relumed piyrhti j en Tolcs, i»«t would hove been tin? eon 'Hion of the co 1 - ny in a few ?eirs hence? The Auekltuid win us pub on the estimates weie to bo our complete pet-off and price, as ayam*.( above 1 five millions of money to be -pent in the Soutli. It was an insult to the intelligence of an indt'pendant nunnbci to a<*k ItiiM to vote fur any such thing, and Mr Tole" Well knows it. And now, to be plain with Mr Tole and Sir Julius Vogol an^ Co., the leaders of the Canterbury members openly declared in the lobbies, prior" to our leaving last session) that if Vo^el conld not carry out their schemes they would kick him out, and find someone that could. It behoves every one of us, at the present juncture, to consider very carefully into whose hands we are playing. — I am, &c, W. F. Bockt.anD) Franklin North.