The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1887. GROUNDLESS COMPLAINTS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1630, 6 September 1887, Page 2

The Temuka Leader TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1887. GROUNDLESS COMPLAINTS.

Ax all his meetings recently Mr Rhodes has made doleful complaints against the Temuka Leadeb for not giving him fair play. At his Hilton meeting he was indiscreet enough to " let the cat out of the bag." He said his Committee wrote a letter for .publication in that journal, and that it was not inserted. But it is not of this he complains so much as the footnote to the letter which was inserted. We have his own words for it now that these letters were written by his own Committee, and it is only natural to conclude that the writers were actuated by no higher motives than to further his interests. Poor interests, if the combined efforts of the Committee can produce nothing better than these JSow, does Mr Ehodes really think this paper will become a vehicle for heaping ridicule on Mr Twomey and his friends to please him? Does he think that whatever his Committee choose to write and have not the courage to "father" must be inserted without comment ? Ought he not to think it enough to have three papers in Timaru ridiculing, misrepresenting, and caricaturing Mr Twomey without asking this paper to do it? Before Mr Twomey expected to have any interest in the election, was Mr Ehodes not informed that his money could not buy the principles of the Temuka Leader? Yet he wants his Committee to have the use of its columns! Mr Twomey has been caricatured, misreported, misrepresented, and abused by the papers which are supporting Mr Ehodes, and who has heard of him going before the electors with puerile, silly complaints about it? At Winchester he complained, but of what? Of the disgraceful conduct of some of Mr Rhodes' supporters, and of Mr Ehodes Bending his paid Secretary to the meeting to give a garbled report of it. Mr Twomey can hardly walk the street without some dirty, low, reference to bim being made in a Timaru paper, yet in no instance has anything of a disrespectful nature been said against Mr Ehodes in this paper. There never stood on a public platform a candidate that could be more easily ridiculed than Mr Ehodes, and his supporters know it. Has one word been said against him? Does he remember the little incident in the Eoyal Hotel? Does he not know that other people could write verses as well as his supporters ? Does he not see that he is spared ? Could he complain of the reports given of his' meetings ? Could anything be fairer than them ? In his first speech Mr Twomey did not even mention his name, and at any of his subsequent meetings he has made only the barest reference to him. On the other hand Mr Ehodes has spoken of Mr Twomey in an unfair manner. He made feeble efforts to distort and twist about Mr Twomey's speech, and misrepresent what he had said. Mr Ehodes has been treated by this paper with extreme consideration, notwithstanding that his supporters have done everything to provoke different treatment. Let him look at the Timaru Herald. Let him take notice of the way that paper is treating Mr Turnbull, and ask himself if he is not fortunate in not having the proprietor

ot that paper to oppose mm. Ana again, has any of Mr Twomey's friends interfered with him at any of his meetings? Have they como prepared with long, thought-out and difficult questions with which to puzzle him ? Does he think that Mr Twomey and his friends could not get up a series of questions and ask them at his meetings as well as his supporters have done ? And yet, though he has been allowed to glide through calmly and quitely, he complains of' unfairness! He only complains of one thing—that is, a footnote put to a letter written by his own Committee. If this letter had not been written the footnote would not have appeared, bo he has himself to blame for it. Yet it is about this he is Biuging such plaintive songs, and making such doleful complaints. He no doubt hopes to excite much sympathy with this sort of thing, but it appears to us that when the peopie see he has been treated so fairly as he has been his doleful complaints wH hare an effect opposite to what he expects. Mi

Twomey was not reported fairly io the papers which support Mr Modes. Mr Rhodes go*; a splendid report of bis speech in this paper; he has nothing to complain of; He is very ungrateful in thus complaining, and he will gain nothing by it. He is mistaken if he thinks this paper will, like others, kneel at the shrine of the Golden Calf.

LOANS TO LOCAL BODIES. Mb Talbot adopted the unusual course of making a speech in reply to Mr Twomey at Waitohi. Mr Twomey said the Government Loans to Local Bodies Act was a great boon to the ratepayers of New Zealand, as it enabled them to borrow money at a cheaper rate of interest than they had hitherto been able to get it. Under the Eoads and Bridges Construction Act they had to pay 9 per cent, for it, but under the Government Loans to Local Bodies Act they got it at 5 per cent. Mr Talbot got up and said that both Acts came to the same thing. Under the Eoads and Bridges Construction Act the money was lent for only 15 years; under the Government Loans to Local Bodies Aet it was lent for 25 years ; and 9 per cent, for 15 years was equal to 5 per cent, for 25 years. That may be quite true, and we believe it is, but still there is great difference between the two measuree. Mr Talbot instanced the case of the Opihi Bridge, which he said was constructed under the Eoads and Bridges Construction Act. The ratepayers of this district are now paying 9 per cent, for the money borrowed for constructing that bridge, and it will take 15 years! to wipe out the debt at that rate. If. the money had been borrowed under the Government Loans to Local' Bodies Act the' ratepayers would be paying only 5 per cent., but they would have to continue to pay it for 10 years longer. The difference, therefore, is that in all probability people in 15 years' time will be far better able to pay tkan they are at present, and that the next generation has as good a right to bear a share of the burden as the present one. : At any rate, it will take Mr Talbot all his time to make the tax-ridden farmers of the district believe that they may as well pay 9 per cent, for 15 years as 5 per cent, for 25 years. The latter system very properly relieves the present race o£ over-burdened taxation, and shifts a share of the responsibility of present improvements on to the shoulders of the coming race, who will derive enormous benefits from the hard work which their fathers are doing. It does not appear to us that Mr Twomey suffered at all by the effort Mr Talbot made to expose his weakness. Why Mr Talbot dislikes the idea of cheap money is a mystery.