A STRIKING PROPHECY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9655, 20 November 1909, Page 3

A STRIKING PROPHECY.

| In the course of a speech on 'i'hurs--1 dav evening Mr Masaev qu >ted a ! striking statement (if Anthony Trollope, made 35 years a.cjo, mid nu:gesteci by the circuiEstanetS of! New Zealand. "Then ajMUi it comss to this,'' wrote Trollope, "that a la>-ge I put of th 1 ? popu'cit on in a new OuUiiEry finds a great benefit from th-3 immediate expenditure of t ie in 'luv 1 ujiiui'crj who i;t't ilia (Jover.rneut wages and of course voU - , and tradwtmen who cater for the labourer.-*, ar.d of course vote, that th 3 patriotic Minister, anxious only for his country's good, finds that the country will be robbed of his sanieas unless ; he maintains this popular fund of j influence. In such circumstances a j Minister is avt, I will not, siy, tj be- j come u.'is-crunuloup, buc to allow a j great latitude to his scrapie?. And ' Inen there is abo the danger from ! which nations, ai well as col mies, | have suffered, of there arising some Cagliostro in politics, so;r>e conjurer in statecraft, who be clever enugii to talk steady men off th;ir legs by fine phrases and to dazzle the world around him by new inventions in the management of affairs. Such mn\ ca i invest democratic measu-es with ttn.iencies purely conservative, can run into debt upon theories of the strictest economy, and commingle patriotic principles with cosmopolitanjpractices .l;i a manner Vtry claiming to weak minds. A statesman of this class is of necessity unscrupulous, and to a young community may be ruinous. It is his hope to leap to great success by untried experiments, and being willing himself to run the risk of extermimtnn if hi fails, he does not hesitate to bind his country to]his own chariot wheels as he rushes into infinite space. Such a Minister in a colony sluul.l he get the power of the purse into hia hands, will throw his million s about without any reference tj the value of the property acquired; he will learn the charm of epnrJing with profusion, and will almost teach hi:nself to measure the prosperity of the community whi:h is subject to him by t!ie amount which it owes." Mr Massey siid he would like to ask whether Mr Trollope was not a true prophet and whether or not there was not a Cagliostro in this country. I