THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1892. LEGISLATIVE APPOINTMENTS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2393, 1 September 1892, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1892. LEGISLATIVE APPOINTMENTS.

The Legislative Council Appointments question is still providing material for a variety of speculations. In Mondays Press we were told that Ministers were in a terrible state of mind when the news came by cable that it was very likely that the Home Government would support the contention of our Government, and order the Governor to make appointments to the Council. The Theory of the Press is that the Gvvernment do not want to make any appointments at all, because they want the Council appointments cry to go to the electors with; and they want also to keep those expecting seats in the council " on a string " until after next election. On the face of it all this is absurd. If the Government wanted to do this they would have asked for 20 members so that there wonld be no chance of getting so many, and as fo/ making the matter a cry for electioneering purposes they could not be so foolish as to think that there is anything in it. The Government know that they lifve a better programme than that to go to the country with. The questions they will submit to the electors at the next election will be; Are we going to continue the Land and Income Tax , or go back to the Property Tax '• Are we to do without borrowing, oi* indulge in the scattered-cash extravagence of the past? Are we to secure the land for the people, or hand it over to dummyism and speculation ? kre the unemployed to be allowed to starve, or is employment to be found for them, through the beaurea of industries, on Co-operative works'? Is ( the colony to be managed so as to secure good to all, or to a fiw monopolists ? and a great many other questions equally telling, anyone of which is likely to create more popular interest than the Council. Two-thirds of the people would be glad to seethe Council dead, as it is now the only hindrance to progress, and they do not care what happens to it. In Tuesday's Press we were regaled on another feast of reason by being told that the Opposition were putting their war paint on. It was suspected that the Government had telegraphed Home" to the Agent-General the result of the debate on the Council appointments, and that it was he who had inspired the cables from Home. The Opposition, therefore, were determined to make it warm for the Government, at least so the Press told 9S, We can't seß why the Government should not send any news they like to the Agent. General, but as a matter of fact they have not, if Mr Ballance's word can be relied on. Mr Ballance told a representative of the Lyttelton Times that they had no communication at all with the Agent-General on the subject, that the Press Agency must have sent the news Home, and no doubt it was in that way it was known in England that the 'Government had a majority of 23 in the division taken on the iis* cussion about the dispute with the Government. This shows that it is no use relying on anything which appears ' " Christchurch Press, in T.K*