The Premier as Providence.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 156, 23 January 1902, Page 1

The Premier as Providence.

o Post); As was only to b« expected under out prepe.it one-man system of Government, iVr Hall-Jones and hia subordinates are to bear the whole brunt of popular indignation at the wholesale dismissal of m-n from the public works of the eolony\ They were s«t to do the unpleasant work winch mig:>t p->e*ibly have brought unpopularity upon the. peiformsrs. the ■uj'p'ipiilanl'y came the Premier, who claimed to have ignorant of whab ha<l been done, piomiwid to ledressall wrongs and s-e that thin-;s were better mav.iiged in future. He haR apparently bct-n having some of th? workers rein* atatod, and generally psng as the odiiulry'B Providence, whose task it is to pet light what lite subordinates have donb wrong. He i« very clever, is Mr fceddo:). iir too clever tv colleagues of the Hall Jorna type, and the view he wished the co-operative workers and settlers to take has, to judue from the 1; ttf-r written by Mr li. E. Hornblow to

him. bivn taken by them. The Minister for Public Works i><, of course, to blame for all the errors while the Premier i? to !\:>,vo all the praiso for tho reversal of'. hone er>-o's. Can observanb people living here at the centre of Government buliave for a moment ihftb tbn meek and mild MiirUr.or for Public ' Works, whom wi so often see aboub our streets, could have dreamt of wreaking all thia havoc among cooperative labourers and nettles on bis own account, and without definite orders f ■ nra his author aic chief ? In it not t,ha'. Mr Stddon is now undoing hia own w -rk brca-rt*e of tho popu<ar outcry winch he Ins had tho adroitness to turn from himself and hia Governmen-t as a whole ngainpl.l.haPnblh Works # Department? This pretty littie pantomime of Provrleuee Sed'lon stepping down from the mmhine to unravel thec:>mplc*tion3 or ntod by Sub Lieutenant Hall-Jonea nv;y look wt-li from distant Mangv.veka> but the. and the makeup are boo r; uch in evidence from the stalls in I Wellington-.