BEAUTIFUL NEW ZEALAND BEGGARED AND MORTGAGED.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2223, 7 October 1886, Page 3

BEAUTIFUL NEW ZEALAND BEGGARED AND MORTGAGED.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir,— This beautiful New Zealand, this gem of the sea, this land of beauty which la fair and pleasant for the eye to dwell upon, this Eden with its fragrant and fine climate, with its snow-clad mountains towermsr towards the heavens, with its beautiful valleys and their pure streams ; this paradise with all its floral beauties ; this land which ought to be the home of manly and vigorous sons, find fair and lovely daughters, is beggared and mortgaged past — 0 ! no, I won't say past redemption, but nigh to it. Mr Editor, if I were to tell this to a stranger, he would say:— "How hath this great evil befallen you?" He would say: — "You started with a clean sheet, you had none of the evils of older countries, the natural causes of bye-gone ages ; you had no past with all its outcomes to d6scend to you ; you required no genius to unravel tangled cobwebs of the past." He would say: " All you required were good honest men of medium capacity. Had you none such ?" I would have to reply: "Yes, we had «uch, but two serpents entered our Eden { and bewitched and beguiled us. One bewitched ws with his honeyed accent and aweet tongue ; he led us astray ; he told us we were being robbed ; he would despoil the robbers, there was a royal road to riches, and he would show us the road. He was high in the art of gammon, and he humbugged us. Little cared he for the misery he would cause, so it b<^that he gratified his wish. His wish was not the love of gold. There is a wish much stronger than the love of riches— that is the love of power and dominion. Beside this love of power he had envy and hatred to gratify ; he imagined he had been slighted ; he thought he had great talents and that he was not appreciated ; he thought he should be great among the great ones of this earth; he thought he was gold, but the great ones of the earth detected he was only plated ; he courted the Tories, but the Tories are not humbugs ; he courted the Kads, but the Rads saw he was a sham ; so back he comes to New Zealand a very demon in the guise of a good saint. O! bo good. He led us astray with his fair and false tongue ; he patted the heads of the children and told the mothers what lovely children they were, and 0 ! how he wished he was their father. He shook hands with the fathers and said, " You are a man, and lam your brother." The other serpent beguiled us with his baga of gold. He told us to fill high, fill to the brim the cup of pleasure, grasp the cup of joy and "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you die." We have eat and drank with a vengeance. We have not died because our constitution has saved us. This New Zealand is great in its indigenous strength, but we are very near death's door. If we have taken poison till our whole system is weakened, our legs shaky, our bodies watery, we must take an antidote to strengthen and renew our system. That antidote is Hall and economy, Hall and retrenchment, Hall and wisdom, Hall and honest associates. Our political cry next election must be, " Down with the bribers ; down with the bribed." Mr Editor, there is an affinity between bribers and those who are bribed, | The briber says, I want men to suit my purpose ; it can only be men who will be bribed that I can get to do so. The bribed says, I want a bribe; it is only a briber who can give me this bribe. I can't help remarking as a'strange co-in-cidence that we have in this Waikato district at the present time five men living who in the past or in the present are or were our members. Of these five, two r were Vogelites. These two retired from u political life. Upon a billet one of them, a show billet, which, instead of being useful was a harm. The other three who were anti-Vogel have never had a billet. They were and are honest men. I tell these three honest men they shall yet reap their reward. They shall every one of them in - their turn be yet Premier of New Zealand, when we get out of this slough of political - filth, shame, dishonour, roguery, and bribery. When we have Sir John Hall with his band of honest, brave, true, trusty followers, then will all good men be r at a premium ; then will the old people re- a joice, the old and infirm will be glad that j before they have taken their departure to a Land of the Leal, their eyes have been t gladened by seeing New Zealand happy and prosperous. The middle-aged will be n glad to think the future of their sons and 2 daughters is assured. Young men and k young maidens will have the happy look of o hope. No longer will be asked in the 2 papers, " why don't the men propose ?" all p will be joy and gladness, our song and cry c , will be "Hallelujah."— l am, yours j, obediently, Harapipi. t>

It is said that sKivinyK sprinkled with diluted catbolic aoid will male >» b^'.'H aest entirely free from veiuuo.