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Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4378, 15 January 1883, Page 2

To Mr Walter Johnston belongs the credit; of putting our financial position clearly before us. He did" so at Greymouth at Christmas. Mr DeLautour' asked the Colonial Treasurer to do so last session j but he may as well, haVe expected culture or generosity" from Native Minister as truth'from the Colonial Treasurer. But perhaps Major Atkinson did not know what Mr Johnston told the Grreymouth people. This is the far more creditable supposition. Half a million of us pay a yearly tribute, Mr Johnston says, of three millions on our public and private debts. That is six pounds per soul to the foreign money lender. And then we are told that more than one-third of our exports do not be» long to us. Absentee proprietors draw more than two millions' worth of wjool from New Zealand sheep. Mr Walter Johnston is a merchant as well ag a Minister, and knows very well what'he talks about There is lib duty on wool, and yet Major Atkinson says the incidence of taxation is fair. It used to be the rule of life, it was said, in the Church of Eng. land settlemems for the public men, there, your Halls and Rollestoua and others, '• To flatter the rich, oppress the poor, and pray to their G-od to help them," . Ihii. seems the policy of the continuous Minis* ' try, always ommiiling the prayers. We are none the less thankful, however, to Mr Jobustou.—-Freeman's Journal. - -

A young lady, on being asked what business her lover was in, and not liking to say he bottled soda, auswered—" He's a practising fjzaioiau,"