THE “CRANK” ABROAD.

Te Aroha News, Volume VIII, Issue 485, 2 July 1890, Page 2

THE “CRANK” ABROAD.

Farcical brochures like “Looking Backward and other such books'tiro apparently driving quite mad those of the New Zealand! population whose brains had become affected by too much politics. Oitr DuDedin telegrams inform us that th, farmers in Otago want the Government to import large quantities of fencing >.vgrand to distribute it at wholesale cost. This is a lovely proposal. It has only defect—it does not go far enough. The Government should be asked to import “ large quantities ” of clothing and sell them at wholesale rates, and generally to act as storekeepers and commission agents at the expense of Eilgarliek the taxpayer. Bj this means we should achieve the great result which the Bellamy crank predicts, and shut up all the private shops, and send all the shop employees about their business, which in that ease would be to go begging to the Government for work. It is time that some really sensible politics began to be talked. What with the totalizator and incipient socialism the colony is already in a poor way. Most of our so called politicians are men whose principal business has resolved itself into driving capital out of the country by adopting and preaching the latest fads and fancies of dreamers “with a mission. ’* The “ State ” is to do this, that, aud the other, including keeping shop and setting: up as bankers, and everybody » to he made happy by Acts of Parliament. If the “ State” were anything more than the people’s own chosen executive, and if it could get wealth frost the skies, no doubt something might fairly be asked from it. As it is the State cannot benefit one section of the community only without robbing all the rest, and i*s functions should be confined to dicing good to all alike. It does not seem to be understood by many well-meaning but foolish people that practically the only revenue of the State is taxation, and if taxation is expended with a view to destroy one chins in the community (shopkeepers ami merchants, for instance) the class wiped out of existence cannot puy taxes, and the i remainder have to pay more. It is a pity that people cannot see that it is impossible to lift oneself by tugging at one’s boot tops.—Hawkes Bay Courier.