Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1895. THE PUBLIC WORKS STATEMENT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 5163, 23 October 1895, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [Established 1874.] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1895. THE PUBLIC WORKS STATEMENT.

Si,y drinking is held by some to bo the most objectionable form of inhibition, mid in much the .same way sly borrowing is open to reproach! The Government boast that for live years thoy have carried on public works without a loan, yet they have been spending loan money on them all .the time. It would be far better ifthoGovernmentowneduplioueslly, especially when they cannot deny the soft impeachment. It is no use when people can smell the baneful stimulant in their breath, for the Government to protest that they never touch a drop. r e regard the statement as simply disgusting, even though we get five and twenty thousand pounds towards completing the line to Paliiatua, A local job that could easily have been completed in one year, is being stretched over six or seven, a job that ought perhaps to have cost the country sixty t'lousaud pounds, will probably figure up to a hundred and -twenty thousand pounds. A line that might have been earning money for the past four years is still unproductive! And this is what the public works system amounts to, a fraud on the taxpayer to keep up a fictitious co-operative system,which is running tho country into debt and difficulty. Wo arc thankful that the Government is now coming to the last drop of the sly loan money, and that want of funds must now limit the nnmutl loss on co-operative labour. It is too late in the day for Mr Seddon to bolster up the co-operativesystem by saying that it continues to prove satisfactory. It has never in tho past proved satisfactory, and it is ranknonsense to pretend that it is oqn- ' tinning inn stato of grace to which it never obtained, It is too lato in the day to declare that tho extension of the co-operative system in tho erection of public buildings has proved satisfactory for Colonists arc not after all such utter fools as to accept palpable misrepresentation of this character. It is too lato in tho day for Mr Seddon todeolare that the co-operativesystenishouldhoadopted by local authorities, Does he not known that the local authorities laugh athisco-operativesystom, and make game of it? They aro not unmitigated bases, and yot he is treating them as such when he talks nonsense like this to them. " The Public Works Statement" has deteriorated now-a-days till it lias become "tho Public Works 'Misstatement.' " Tho peoploaregettiug oick of the wholp thing, and though some working'men think the cooperative system will bloom again on tlio eve of tho coming general election, and that as on the former occasion high rates will prevail for a season, wo almost doubt the power of the Government to regild or to regalvanise it or to make it popular evon with a small and interested section of tho general public. The gilt, indeed, is worn p()' the Government gingerbread works, ami thoy are becoming the laughing stock of the working man.