The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1891

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3826, 3 June 1891, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3, 1891

The Hon John McKenzie has made a splendid speech at Palmerston South, in which he has proved that all he hag done since he became Minister has been accomplished in the best interests of the community. It is a pity, perhaps, that he shoaid have had to give an account of his stewardship before he had been six months in the Ministry, but his constituents were friendly,and if the larger constituency of New Zealand is equally sympathetic he will come off with flying colora He was of course speiking to the Colony, for he appears to have left a copy of his speech, at Wellington before he journeyed south to deliver it. No doubt Mr McKenzie is a good speaker and a well meaning man, but some of his utterances appear to he rather highly colored. For example he made out that his party would, if it could, but it couldn't, have preserved the Colony from the expense of a second session, and he also claim d thai bis Ministry had saved some £50,000 or £60,000 by retrenchment. We do not believe that any intelligent person in tbe community is ac all confident that the party did not grab at the second session, or that as yet a single sixpence has been saved by the scattercash Ministry. Will not compensation, retiring allowances, commissions and turning a judge of the Supreme Court into an aunt Sally, take every sixpence which has been sweated out of the Civil Service ? The Hon John, however, apprehends that his Government is reaching t'.ie end of its tether, for he threatens to go to the country if it is defeated. The real fault of the Hon John is that be indulges too much in class rule, he governs not for all, but for a single class, and this kind of Government must break down ! He takes credit for a desire to place men without capital, that is men without means, on the land. Now this kind of settlement is neither good for the colony nor the men themselves. If men have not a little money for taking up a few acres of land they ought to go and earn it in ! tbe first instance. The Hon John, i too, talks a lot of nonsense about land I being locked op and people kept off it when nearly half tbe freehold propertiesof both ialandsarein the market for sale at cheap rates. What, too, are we to think of tbe judgment of a Minister who declares that be could not find in tbe lists of the Hhoep Department an officer fit to act as Chief Inspector. There are, it is well-known, some splendid men in the department, and if the MinSter could

not find one it mast have been because he did not desire to make the discovery, and what are we to say to the ministerial boast that he has saved £3,500 in the Stock department ? The other day he knocked a good officer ofi here whose services could not be dispensed with without making the local staff inadeqate for the work it has to perform. Is this saving or wasting? Anything madder than the retrenchment of the present rainist.-y it is impossible to conceive! A Chief officer is asked how many men he has got under him, and if he teplies five he is told to dismiss one, and if he answers ten he is ordered to sack two or three. Perhaps as a final touch hs is requested to reduce salaries all round. However, the Hon. John McKenzie is entitled to flourish once in a way as a Minister before his constituents. His chance of appearing before them a second time in a simi'ar capacity is tcarcely worth backing.