SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1894. HOME TRUTHS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XV, Issue 4816, 4 September 1894, Page 2

SECOND EDITION Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1894. HOME TRUTHS.

Mr Buchanan is taking this session a more leading position in the House, The thinning of the ranks of the Opposition has compelled one or two , memberß.of his standing and experi- ■ ence to assume more prominent places in debate than possibly they would, under other circumstances, havq desired, and the member for tho Wairarapa has proved fully equal to the responsibilities whichhis party . has placed upon his shoulders, We i have been reading iu Hansard his speech on tho Financial Statement, and there aro perhaps more " home truths" in it, presented in plain and intelligent terms, than in any otherof the numerous addresses of that particular debate, His .speech, on that occasion, is a little long for recapitulation in our columns, more especially as country readers fight shy of reading lengthy political speeches, but it is well worthy of quotation and admiration. His explanation, for example, of the reason why cheapmoney is no longer offered from private sources, hits the mark when be declares that" noenterpriso whatever is now safe from vicious and ignorant Government interference." With regard to the" bedrock land prico" of the Treasurer, Mr Buchanan judges from past experience that thero can be no certainty of our having reached that comforting level. He condemned the Government administration in settling land, and poiutod out that in the Cheviot estate a mile and a-half of road cost £l4O per mile, for formation alone, when any practical man could see at a glance that the cost should not have exceeded £2O per mile, During forty years' experience lip had nevev seen such wanton waste and extrava» gance as in this work, More than this, he said that ho found that the men ongaged on the work knew tho right way of making the road, hut stated that the Government would not let them doitasitshould bedone. He gave another instance of maladministration at Oaniaru, where a proporty which formerly yielded a rental of £1,290, now that it is subdivided, brings in no rental at all to tho Government, and posts a coh; siderable expenditure in keeping down rabbits. He cited some other telling examples of the failure iij this class of estate settlement; ono being a return under it of no less than 526 forfeitures. He also con. demned the "special settlements" as failures, and the Crown Lands Reports on them as utterly unreliable/With respect, to the unemployed he arrainged the«agents of Labour Bureau for suppressing the , real facts from tho public at large, ; as to the numbers of menoutof om- i ploymeht.'- He next analysed the j expbiis of the Colony, showingthat ' they had fallen" off during the term ' of office of the present Ministry by a ' million pounds, and that this shrink- ' age could not be explained away;, altogether, on the ground of reduced' j

values. Mr Buchanan then went on to give.one or two apt illustrations that prevails in the Uivil Service under the Seddonian rule, also of the recent attempt qf the Premier to tamper with the press of the Colony, and the corrupt manner in which the Government advertising was distributed. He also referred in scathing terms to the disgraceful treatment of the ex-Rail-way Commissioners by the Government;

We have briefly referred to some of the hometruths recorded in Hantart as falling from the lips of Mr Buchanan, but as yet we have not seen any answer to them, either from any Member of the House or any organ of the Liberal party. They are points .that are more easily evaded than faced.