Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1874.] MONDAY, MAY 27, 1895. ADVANCES TO SETTLERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5035, 27 May 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1874.] MONDAY, MAY 27, 1895. ADVANCES TO SETTLERS.

Till-: Dnnedin Bkr gives publicity to the following extract from a private letter bearing date London, March 27th :-

Your Treasurer Ward seems (o he enjoying himself in the City, and is Hying about at a great rate. '° * * Yesterday I got a card of invitation from the Pereevals to meet him on Tuesday at the Imperial Institute, but fear I shall be unable to attend. T have, however, met him on several occasions in the Cily, and on one of them he astonish 3(1 some of us by saying thai his Government are limiting advances to sMlers to £6OO ami don't really wish to advance mil/, Mr ohjed kiwj merely lo liiiiij doimllie rate of'interest. If they raise their loan (and "Ward is highly elated at the condition of the market) can they legally use the money for anything else ? I have never seen tho Act. Ward seems a sensible man of very moderate opinions,

We aro muck impressed with Mr Ward's cleverness. Tlio Government has waged war against capital and capitalists, for years past, and if Mr Ward talked in London, as his colleagues talk here, ho would hardly get on with either his public or his private mission. He adapts himself very cleverly to his surroundings, and however Radical he may he in New Zealand, at Homo he is a good Conservative. "Ward is a sensible man, of voi/ moderate opinions," people say, acd what higher praise conld bo given. When Mr Ward returns to New Zealand we do not expect him to tell the settlers that the Government really do not want to mako advances to them hut only to bring down the rate of interest. There will perhaps be some slight discrepancy between his statements in London and in the House of Representatives in Wellington, but none that a man of his plausibility cannot explain away. What he has said in London will ho found to have been misundorstood and what ho may say hove will also bo liable to he misunderstood by his city friends on the othersideo'tlie globe. On the whole Mr Ward's London experiences are likely to be advantageous to the Colony, He found it neosssary to pose there as a man of moderate opinions, and perhaps ho will not altogether, discord tin now coat of his, when he

comes back to us. Moderation is an intermediate condition, between sluggish Conservatism and dangerous Radicalism, and wo arc very well pleased that Mr Ward, even for a brief period, has stopped at this half-way-houso. Lot us hope that he has sown his political wild oats, and will, for the future, influence his party to adopt sober courses,