"MEASURES, NOT MEN."

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 361, 3 June 1874, Page 2

"MEASURES, NOT MEN."

New Zealand politics furnishes a fertile soil for the produce of quacks. We may say of them here what the Spaniards say of fools : " They are neither planted nor watered — they grow of themselves." This is the true German race sprung from the soil, and might reward the curious seekers of phenomena to establish the theory of "spontaneous generation." The current session has been rather prolific in thosenostrums that bespeak pure empiricism. Among the first, Quack Stonb t.ikes the. diagnosis of the Port Chalmers Railway, on which the country has spent far on to £200,000, and constructed a jetty on which the largest ships might discharge cargo ; but it seems that some confusion had taken place in the working of an institution altogether new, and to remedy this Jong before there was any call for new work's, our Esculapius prescribes the expenditure of £250,000 to deepen the Dunedin Harbor. Truly this is an enormous pill to swallow in anticipation of an expected disease ! Next cornea Quack Ireland to prescribe for another slijht irfrgularity in the body politic. It seems that the Bible in our public schools aifecta our wise Councillors with occasional eruption on the skin, and to remedy this slight' evil, Esculapius No. 2 prescribes the removal of the disease to the vital "organs. In other words, the f'ghtia to be shifted from the Council to the School Committees, and their members to be set by the eavs. And i)ow"vise come to Quack M'Lean, if indeed he deserves to be reckoned in the college of qnacks. ■ His place seems to be to mix the bolus prescribed by the great Master Quack of the entire pack — his Honor the Superintendent. It is neither more nor less than to encourage gold mining by selling tho auriferous lands. Well it is creditable to the discernment of the patient in this instance that the bolus seemed so like poison tjia. the refused to swallow it, The

absurdity of conserving the top soil by this arrangement, which was his Honor's idea, having been exposed in a recent article in, this journal, we do not refer to it again. Not do^e.thinkthe^soil, where it-. . has at all been left on the grounH in any shape whatever,, so irretrievably destroyed as to call for interference to save' it. _ But there can be no . doubt that this schemev, -if carried}... would have helped on the present reckless disposal of out landed estate. It would have strenghteried those in their designs who are benefiting a class at the expense of the many. Go on at the present rate, and nothing but grievrius inequality in adjusting the burden of taxation can be the outcome. It is all very well to speak of land and income taxes ; but, by the suicidal course already pursued, the men on whom such taxes would and ought fco fall are already of sufficient power in the community to thwart such designs, and all because of the very thing proposed in this* preposterous motion. In this case, as the question was not supposed to affect the bolus Esculapius No. 1 had prescribed to the patient in anticipation of disease, and lest his own bol\i3 should not properly operate, he comes forward with sage counsel. He tells the quacks that if they go on at their present rate nothing will save the patient from depletion ; in other words, if the clamor for public works be not arrested, the public lands, auriferous and every other, will have to be sold. Very good, Mr. Stout, after calling fnr and obtaining £250,000 for the deepening of Dnnedin Harbor. Truly the Scribes and Pharisees sit iv Moses 1 seat do as they counsel, but do not ye after their ways.