The Daily News SATURDAY, JUNE 30. COUNTRY OR TOWN?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8145, 30 June 1906, Page 2

The Daily News SATURDAY, JUNE 30. COUNTRY OR TOWN?

A selfish thought is likely to obtrude at this crisis in the political life of New Zealand i Will the present Parliament benefit the towns at the expense of the country, or will it gauge the importance of the country justly enough to see the importance of better treatment to the people who have none of the advantages of town ? A member of the new Parliament was interviewed by a Wellington paper a day or two ago, and that member emphasised many of the contentions we have made in the past. " The country party," said he. " aim at a sound finance, reduced borrowing, and a curtailment of the expenditure on public works, especially railways not imperatively needed." Any visitor to the big cities will be very much struck with the palatial buildings in which the servants of the State are housed. Most of them cost many thousands of pounds. * * * *

The General Post Office in Wellington is too small for the requirements, but although this was known some years ago, the building was not enlarged, Instead of spending two or three thousand pounds on this necessary work, the Public Works Department erected a gorgeous building, which is at this moment three sizes too large for the business of the head railways office staff. The money spent on that building would have made country folk in many boggy spots we know of supremely happy. The people want roads. Therefore, give a few persons a gorgeous office ! Waste a few thousands of borrowed money on the minority, and let the majority go hang. Unfortunately, a large building is necessary for the oonduct of Customs business in Wellington. This building was opened with tremendous eclat by the Minister of Customs a year or two ago, and he spoke of the increase of Customs returns, and the necessity for that beautiful building, as an evidence of the prosperity of the people! It is the measure of the State's ability to rob. * # * *

Cities are likely to get public money more readily spent on them because they are, so to speak, under the eye of Parliament, just as the city worker (who is an unimportant speck in comparison to the real producer of wealth in the country) is able, by organisation, to insist on what he calls iiis " rights." The country worker says little enough about his " rights,' considered from tho wages or hours' standpoint, but there are " rights " he might demand in comparison to which the wages question is a trifle. Tho worker in the country most of all wants roads. The big buildings in the cities and along the railwaylines are of no benefit : to him, although he has to keep working to help to pay the interest on the borrowed money with which they are erected.

# * # # Settlers have a peculiar idea that they ought to be able to get to market with their produce. There was a historic piece of railway once built in the colony because twenty-two miles away there existed a barren waste of country where there had been found colours of gold. The railway stopped short, and nothing was done to it for twenty years, and for that space of time people were commanded all along the bit of permanent way to " Stop! Look out for the engine!" Up to the time that railway was finished, the road used by the sparse population was about the worst under heaven. The Rimutaka incline, the most idiotic and unnecessary way of getting to the Wairarapa, cost enough money to make several thousand miles of country roads, and the Wanganui to Palmerston line is another instance of the devious rushing up hills when the flat is easier, and even then is of benefit onlv to a few.

The people in the country are not particularly angry about the money that has been wasted in the past, but they feel that this is just the moment to put the peg in That member above quoted remarked that the expenses of some of the Public Service Departments might be cut down. They will have to be sooner or later, and the sooner the bolter for the people. There are public departments where the civil servants are shamelessly sweated. The great Post Offices are understaffed. In the next street is another department- to be precise, the Government Department of Tourists and Health Resorts the head of which is forever gallivanting all ovor the world. It is the custom for incompetents in the absolutely essential departments to be drafted into another loafory, there to receive a higher wage than the men in the post office, who have to work all hours of the day and "night and who have to he highly skilled, correct, and absolutely honest. They canr.ot even go out at eleven of the morning on "public " business.

Ttik Department of Tourists and Health Resorts costs a tremendous amount of money and does almost no good, for a football team adyerfcised this colony more fully in a few months than the D.T.H.R. has done in as many years. Thon defence. What a fearful bullion braided frost the whole war otlice business is, to bo sure! A few competents do the work. A host of incompetents shriek in a loud voice and make the competents bustle. Tin's would not bo missed more than the other one. Parliament in session gives jobs to ,1 large fmimber of people. They get paid for the whole year. They do three or four months work. Salaries uii to £7OO a year. You want roads ? IT low are you going to get them? Incompetents drawing huge salaries have their work done by the ten shilling a day man in dozens of instances in tlie capital.

The civil service is made up of some of the finest men in New Zealand, who work as hard as any person in the land, and of some of the greatest loafers who were ever put to work that doesn't exist at wages they couldn't possibly earn if they had no "political pull." The man on the land pays for this. He j ays for the whistle of the trades unionist who couldn't get on without him. I[p pays for the groat town build'ngs and tho bis; champagne sprees thai eventuate at the "openings," He pays the wages of the civil 66 va it

wHxuaiug^-iiKea l bullock, and he pays the wag'os of the lordly who is such a detestable feature of what some of us believe is a democracy, That member we spoke of, further mentioned that tlisro would be trouble if the tariT revision which threatens, makes the price of farm implements and other things necessary to the settler, dearer. As the tariff now stanls, the whole people suffer because a few colonial manufacturers want their particular industry protected. As long as the tariff gives the manufacturer good prices and the traces-unionist of the towns work at high wages, eve 'vthing in the garden is Invely. Wo want to keep on impresnina; t'ie fi-.t that the rural nre the s ila basis of everything in ihU colo.iy and that they supply t'n-otj parts of the cash that comes to New Zealand irrespective of the yearly and halfyearly loans, As for our loans we have no means of paying them This should not be, and the sooner we alter our wny of doing things the better will it be for pcsterli/.