GOVERNMENT "AS SHE IS RUN"

Temuka Leader, Issue 2063, 24 June 1890, Page 4

GOVERNMENT "AS SHE IS RUN"

Ihe following incisive criticism of tne Atkinson Government and its policy is contained in a letter recently addressed to the Napier Evening News' by Mr George Fisher, M.H.R Well, what is the present Govern-,! ment? Has it a belief? Has it a faith ? Has it a policy ? Has it any fixity of purpose? Has it any initiative? Has it any power to do good for this country ? Tt has none of these things. It is something like those amorphous creatures which begin nowhere in particular, which end anywhere you please, which have no parts to speak of, of which any subdivision represents the whole, and of which the I whole presents to the mind no sense of symmetry, or system, or constructive relation. Naturally, then, one asks “ IE this be so, why is such a Government permitted to remain in power ?” The easy and the truthful answer is, that it is there to do the work of the monopolists. I)o we not everywhere, in Parliament and out of it, hear the familiar language: The Government may say what they like—by tacit consent they are allowed this liberty—but they must do as they are told! And nothing is truer. Doyou ask tor proof of this ? What do you find in Mr Fergus’ Queenstown speech ? Let us piece together some fragments of history. You have not forgotten the mission to England of Mr W. L. Rees. What was the object of that mission ? It was connected with East Coast Lands, was it not ? What next to the poor Maori—oh, the poor Maori ?—is most interested in these lauds? You answer the questions; I need not. The mission failed. Something new had to be. tried. The Mew Zealand Times for the last three or four months has been harping on the question of a new loan 1 for the purpose of buying up large estates to facilitate settlement. ‘Jo facilitate settlement! Who owns the New Zealand Times and who owns the large estates ? Mr Fergus answers the most important of these questions. He says : “ Considerable areas were being held unprofitably, having fallen into the hands of land and mortgage companies.” Ihe lands, he said, would have to be taken by State acquisitions, and, adds the Evening Post, ‘it bears a most suspicions appearance, as if the Government desired to step in on behalf of the public to relieve these companies (naming one) in their globo property and perform the function of an Assets Company ! ” And this is Government; ‘ as she is run,’ iu New Zealand.”