THE CABINET

Te Aroha News, Volume XVI, Issue 222041, 25 January 1900, Page 2

THE CABINET

MR McGOWAN ACCEPTS THE PORTFOLIO OF MINES. Wellington, January 22. The Hop. Thomas Thompson retired from the Miaistry to-day, and had his last meeting with the Cabinet this morning. , - Mr McGowan accepts a seat in the Ministry, and takes office to-morrow. From a leading article in the Manawa’u Standard of the 17th inst. we • lib the following: ‘Now, Mr McGowan is purely a goldfields represent tive, nothing more and nothing less. Ho is of opinion tha.t the goldfields, and particularly those in the Auckland district, receive scant justice from Government in the shapo of the expenditure of public moneys. Ho believes that more money ought to be' spent by the Government in roads, railways, electric plant, e‘c., in the goldfields, and that tho result would bo to immensely increase the output of gold and add to the prosperity of the colony. He is of opinion that gold-mining has had moro to do with the establishment of large towns than anything olso, and only last. August he said, * I do not know that there is any industry that has contributed so much to tho settlement and advance of the colony as the gold-mining industry.’ There is therefore little hope that the latest addition to the Cabinet will bo likely to. hnalre any difference to the policy of neglect of settlers in the back blocks so persistently pursued by the-present Government.’ -•