MR POSTLETHWAITE ON ECONOMY AND EXTRAVAGANCE OF OUR PUBLIC BODIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2042, 6 May 1890, Page 3

MR POSTLETHWAITE ON ECONOMY AND EXTRAVAGANCE OF OUR PUBLIC BODIES.

TO THE EDITOR. Sib,—l fully endorse what Mr Postlethwaite said at the meeting of ratepayers of the Geraldine Eoad District concerning the extravagance of some of our public bodies. He could not have chosen better illustrations than the removal of the Geraldine School and the proposed removal of the Moody Wharf. If a private individual was to do with his own what has been done with the Geraldine School, sensible disinterested persons would be apt to say that he had more money than brains. If a private person was to spend £IO,OOO on an erection, and propose spending £4OOO more on its removal, his heirs would be think that it was time to put him into a private lunatic asylum. There is no gainsaying that public bodies are public trustees, and the men that constitute these bodies and use public money otherwise than they would use their own money, are morally guilty of breach of trust. And Mr Postlethwaite's remarks on this head seemed to come from a person of great public spirit. But when he speaks on striking a rate, and on workmen's wages, his public spirit seemß to have left him. He appears then to think that no one is worth troubling about but freeholders of land, and that everyone and everything should be subservient to their interest. He says deftly that many ratepayers could not see an inch before their noses, and we might very well say here that he does not see very far before his own nose. Why, in the name of common sense, sheuld people who are living from hand to mouth be called upon to pay rates to maintain a surplus sum at the Bank ? The holder of the Eaukapuka Estate may be very well able to pay rates and put something by for the proverbial rainy day. Such is not the case with more than nine-tenths of the people in the Geraldine district or any other district, in New Zealand or elsewhere. Let him think for a

of how much he could Bave | after maintaining himself out of an occasional. 5s a day, which he seemß to think is as much as workingmen should get to maintain themselves and families. Is he not aware that working men have stomachs the same as he has ; that they are susceptible to cold and hunger, the same as he is; that they have the same desire to' gratify the wants of their nature that he has; that they have even a better right to the gratification of;all their wants than he has, because our wants can only be gratified by the productions of labour? I don't wish to be offensive. I write in no cankering spirit. I am only desirous of doing what little I can to help to the best solution of a problem that evidently must be solved at no distant date. The problem I refer to is abolition of of poverty. It is an egregrious error, a common error, and a deep-rooted error .to think that that problem can be ? -solved by what; is imprudently called prudence and forethought saving. Although all our public and private cofiers were empty, although there was. not a single penny of a surplus sum at any bask, with our daily increasing facilities for producing wealtfywhat have we to fear, except our own stupidity, our unsocial selfiishness. I defy, the world to refute the assertion wealth is a chief cause of abject poverty. The " power that shapes.our ends, rough hew them how we will," seems to keep this fact permanently before us, as if to prevent misunderstanding. Take, for example, London or New York, or any large

city. Wherever the greatest accumulation of wealth is to be found, there is to be found, side by side with it, the deepest poverty and the most heartrending suffering therefrom. Being able to purchase for money whatever we want of the productions of labour, unthinking people infer that money is the one thing needful. If every man was a millionaire, and all living on their money, a very short time would suffice to bring us all to a true sense of our position. Although a mau had all the land in the world freehold, it there were none but himself to make it reproductive he would still be a poor working man, and if he were like what most rich men are he would only be a very ' poor working man. Here are a few facts that rich men who keep a large imaginary gulf between themselves and the poor are quite oblivious of, and which it would be well they should know and think of:—That almost everv working man —even the most ignorant—knows full well that capital

is the fleecings of labor; that the wealth of the wealthy and private property in land are the causes of their enforced idleness and poverty; that there are hundreds of thousands who have neither education nor natural ability to express what they think, and are often prevented from trying to by selfish cowardice; that the final stru ggle has begun. The labor trouble we read and hear so much about is not a passing ripple on the surface of our social fabrics. It is a struggle that will end with an entire change of our social system ; a changethat will not deprive anyone of any real benefit that is at present secured by wealth, yet a change that will secure the same benefits to all. There is no limit to real wealth except the dog-in-the-manger policy that restricts production and equitable distribution.—l am, etc., Working Man. j