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Temuka Leader, Issue 1570, 19 April 1887, Page 2

One peculiarity of Mr Rolleston’s speech was that Lft took a 'hopeful view of things, Last year he almostmelted info tears over the hard lot of the. “ cockatoos,” who, he said, were “ slaves of the money-lenders.” lie was asked would be do anything to give these “ slaves of the moneylenders ” their liberty. He was told that in America thousands upon thousands of brave men laid down their lives and millions upon millions of money were spent to secure freedom to black slaves, and he was naked woo’d bo do anything to cause fihylock to relax bis grip on the throats of his white slaves t He replied that be would not, and kept his word by voting against Mr Maoandrew’s Cheap Money Bill. He, no doubt; did pot like the “ heckling ” of last year, and this year he told ps everything was improving. Even onr sheep bad taken our lot into consideration, and bad come to the conclusion of growing more wool on their backs, so as to assist us out of our difficulty. It is very kind of the sheep, but cannot the present Government say, “It is because we bold. office that these sheep are growing more wool on their backs?” And cannot they follow up this line of argument, and insist that it is owing to their supeaior administrative capacity that everything has improved f Mr Rolleston anticipated such a possibility, and said that whatever Ministry was in power things would go on the same, for Ministers had very little effect 1 on the progress of the colony. Well, then, we may as well let the present Ministry remain permanently in office. We entirely disagree with him. About the year 1877 his “ guide, philosopher, and friend,” Major Atkinson,, told ns that what the colony wanted was “ political rest.” He wanted to let things remain as they were, just as Mr Rolleston wants ns to let them remain as they are now. Sir George Grey ousted him from office, and his shortlived Ministry introduced many reforms. They introduced the village settlement system, triennial, Parliaments, extension of the franchise, perpetual leasing, reform of the land laws, and so on. They were ousted from office just as they had developed these schemes, and Major Atkinson and Mr Rolleston, with Sir John Hall is Premier, came back, and carried out th* Grey programme to the letter. Only for the couple of years Sir George Greyassisted by Mr Ballauce and Sir Robert gtont—was in office, Major Atkinson would, doubtless, hays taken bis *• political rest,” and these reforms would, never have been carried out. We certainly think that a Ministry has a great deal to do with improving the condition of the colony, but we do not think that the improvement has taken plac*. Things are going from bad to worse every day.