The Westport Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1872

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 961, 12 April 1872, Page 2

The Westport Times. FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1872

The present Ministry was so loud on the matter of retrenchment, on their becoming possessed of the reins of Governmeut, that the public naturally concluded there would be more work and less pay for the future. How has this expectation been realised ? A short experience has begun to open the eyes of the public to the fear that unless some check is put upon the manner of conducting the affairs of the Colony, we shall soon drift to the verge of insolvency. On Mr Voge!, it would appear, devolves the entire responsibility of the Ministry. He has the credit for initiating, and consequently is left the carrying out of the Immigration and Public Works Act. He secures a loan for the colony and is entrusted with the disbursement of it. He has established a postal service which fails half the year, and has promised a railway scheme which may or may not be carried out. He was the active instrument in making terms with the firm of Brogden and Sons for the carrying out of these railway plans the greater part of which Is never likely to be fulfilled. He is, to all intents and purposes, the Ministry of the present day. Through him" we are promised a railway to Mount Kochfort, but the day is as far distant from its accomplishment as it was the day of the promise. We are now informed that complications havo arisen with Messrs Brogden, which may necessitate the present undertakings being held over, and those not yet commenced may fairly be reckoned upon as shelved until another meeting of the General Assembly. Well may a northern contemporary surmise what are the feelings of Mr Vogel as, snugly ensconced in the arm-chair on the deck of the Luna, with every luxurious appliance at hand, he looks through his binocular at the well-taxed lands of New Zealand ? Does he consider how the inhabitants toil and slave to pay the taxes which are to carry on his pretentions schemes? Does he recollect how heavily the San Francisco contract weighs upon their shoulders? Does he calculate how many comforts will have to be taken from the poor houses which he sees, in order to provide him with the means of securing a Parliamentary majority? Is he conscious that the very steamer bearing him along represents a constant and entirely indefensible inroad on the small means of those toilers ? Perhaps so ; perhaps he hugs himself with delight at the idea of his own cleverness and success, and of their stupidity in putting up with these thiugs. It is possible that he looks forward with amusement, not unalloyed by alarm, to the day when these folk will wake up to the knowledge how far they have been duped, and are ruined. Let us hope that when that time comes, the mem bers of the present Ministry will be able to depart to other lands, enriched with something more tangible than the memory of former prosperity. If they are not by that time able to keep yachts for themselves, it is much to be feared that they will not easily find another country willing to keep one for them.