POLITICAL FAIR PLAY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9046, 4 February 1908, Page 4

POLITICAL FAIR PLAY.

Mr Alfred Kidd, member for Auckland, has a remarkably accurate notion of what fair play in the political arena is. He told a meeting of Auckland citizens on Friday last that the Government did not treat one part of the dominion better than another, and then went on to point out perhaps to emphasise the importance, of Auckland having a Government whip as one of its members that "the largest amounts on the Public Works Estimates for the current year were to be spent in the Auckland provincial district." Mr Kidd's estimate of fair play in the matter of distribution of public funds for public works is doubtless based upon the extent of the allocations. His province having come on top this year in the general distribution of the political loaves and fishes, he reckons that the Government is "a very fair one," and naturally it is a "Government of which he is proud to be a member." Mr Kidd does not take into consideration the skimpy and unfair allocation of money votes in other and more necessitous . localities; they don't count so long as his an:l his colleagues' Auckland constituencies have secured the lion's share of the spoil. The inferential query, is as Mr Kidd pu'.s the case—Would Auckland' have got such a large share of the public works appropriations if Mr Kidd had not been chief Government whip? His hearers would probably "tako" his inference. It is noteworthy that just.about the time the member for Auckland Central. was addressing the people of the northern city, a newspaper hinted that he was likely to bo elevated to Cabinet rank.