A FARMER’S BOY’S CATECHISM FOR PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42783, 26 September 1905, Page 2

A FARMER’S BOY’S CATECHISM FOR PARLIAMENTARY CANDIDATES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Country electors should decide to support only those candidates at the present election who will answer the following questions most satisfactorily:— (l.) Do you believe that the guindiggers, goldminers, farmers and country sawmill workers, being our sole exporters, are about the only classes who are really adding to the wealth of the colony ? (2.) Are you aware that the aforesaid labourers expocted last year produce of the value of £13,000,000, which produce , had tobe sold in competition with the produce ot the whole world ? (3.) Do you think it just that the aforesaid labourers should be taxed directly aboul 50 per cent, on their boots and clothing, etc. , in order that labourers engaged in the manufacture of those protected necessaries of lift should have higher wages than farm and other labourers ? (4.) Seeing that the wages of the gumdiggers, timber workers and farm labourers must he regulated by the market price ol what they produce, do you consider that th< Seddon Government acted justly to thest labourers by passing the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act, which encouraged the formation of unions whose objects are tc destroy competition arid exact an artificial price from the aforesaid labourers for the necessaries of life ? (5.) Are you aware that the labour legislation of the Seddon Government has been most injurious to the country settlers inasmuch that they now find it impossible to gel any of their sons apprenticed to trades, and that numbers of those who could afford it have sent their sons Home to be so apprenticed? (6.) Will you, if elected, support the freehold tenure of land ? (7.) Do you promise, if elected, to assist iii ousting the Seddon Government and help to replace them with a Cabinet that will do justice to the country settlers by abolishing protective duties; repealing all those Labour Acts which in their working have proved oppressive to the country settlers, and only assist in enacting laws that will be fair to all, town as well as country ? •Any man who can answer the above questions to satisfy the true, country settlers ol the colony is a fit and proper person to represent them in Parliament. —I am, etc., A Farmer's Boy.

to the Editor

Sib, —There has been a general howl about our railway station ; doubtless it may be improved. Those that complain of the Tourist Department might bo bettor employed to my mind. Much, no doubt, remains to be done, but if improvements go on in that Department as they have during the last year, To Aroha may be satisfied. The Borough Council have done the best they can with the means at their disposal. But what strikes a stranger most is the almost total absence of individual pride; in the town. I have not seen a town in New Zealand where the residents so utterly neglect their own placet . You can count the well-kept gardens and back yards on your fingers. How much more attractive would Te Aroha he if its residents were to vie with each other in matin!/ the place'attractive or even tidy. , There ate also, many who might be a little .more cordial to visitors and not" make them feel they are strangers in a strange land. The artistic taste of many, seems to lie in planting pine trees which obstruct the view and prevent anything more attractive thriving beneath them. The school committee might with advantage lop the trees round the school grounds. Apologising for troubling you with the impressions of a new comer, I am, etc., < New Chum.

SCENES FROM A MODERN BEAR GARDEN, The County Ring Master had taken his seat, His jiickals obediently near him, Their programme arranged to secure the defeat Of the ‘ ‘ one only man ’ ’ who don’t fear ’em. And then was enacted the story of old, That we read in our youth from “ iEsopian fable,” How the rato-paying lamb had-dared to uphold Any right to the water, reserved for the Ring Master’s table. Mr Ring Master Wolf, spoke in ponderous tones, His discourse interlarded with statutes and and sections, The jackals in secret thought only of bones, To be crunched, while the culprit was placed in subjection. But “ Loppie,” their leader, could nut be restrained, He thirsted for blood and for glory ; His yells and his yaps his poor feeding proclaimed, His intentions, no doubt, they were rabid and gory, “ Rate-paying Reformers,*' I fool for you now, Those “ Wild Beasts of Bashan ” wild rend you asunder. The Ring Master suplcs, ns he mops his grey brew, At the “ jaokalian " efforts to keep your rights under. . Now where is that justice that’s said to exist ? And where, tell mo where, the politeness and breeding? That chairmen of councils elsewhere do insist, Shall prevent all such outrage and indecent proceeding ? Loyalty,

[Some correspondence still held over, including Rip Van Winkle’s reply to Mr John Williams,]