The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or peruasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1887.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2335, 28 June 1887, Page 2

The Waikato Times AND THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE. Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatsoever state or peruasion, religious or political. TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 1887.

A strong wave of public feeling is spreading over the colony. Tho people of New Zealand are becoming unmistakably alive to the fact that they have been living in a fool's paradise. .From all sides comes -the cry for retrenchment. The alarm note of Sir George Grey in Auckland gives no uncertain sound, yet there is this in it which demands the attention of the public —which shows more than ever the necessity for combined action on the part of the electors to propound a common platform of policy by which the fitness of all candidates for the Legislature may be tested. Whilst he would put the pruning knife unsparingly into other parts of the tree, Sir George leaves that untouched which the most needs it, and where there is the most rooml for saving. The education vote he would not interfere with. And so with other candidates it will be found, if each is left to his own feeling on the matter, that first one and then another fit object of retrenchment will be left untouched, till, as a matter of compromise between conflicting opinions as to the incidence of retrenchment, very littlo.real .progress will have been made.

It will, however, be the duty of the Political Financial Reform Associations which are springing up, and will doubtless be established in all the principal centres iu town and country, to meet firmly and decisively this phase of the difficulty. There must be no doubt about the regeneration of our political saints. They must not be of that order which "atone for sins they feel inclined to by damning those they have no mind to," but must sign the recantation of their former errors, and the confession of the political creed they are called upon to embrace, in their entirety and without any mental reservation whatever. In asking this the electors do not ask one jot more than they have a right to demand. The financial position of the colony is critical, and even if, in such case, and on this matter, the electors demanded that their representatives should exercise only the functions of delegates there should be no room for dissent. To come back to first principles, the people of New Zealand are the Government, and the men they elect to act for them would, in such a crisis as the present, have no cause of complaint if called upon to take their orders from the people. But there is no wish to push this matter to extremes, no room for the cry that is already being raised in some quarters, that it is intended to. make mere delegates of our representatives. There is no wish to force ■ upon them mere matters of detail in carrying out certain reforms. The electors have a clear right—and the unfulfilled promises of one set of representatives after another in the past show the necessity for expressing it—to point out, in making retrenchment in the public service the chief measure of reform, where and to what extent that reform shall be applied and carried out. It is the very vagueness of the promises hitherto made upon the hustings, the want of a more concise and detailed understanding between the electors and the -candidates with respect to this matter, whieh has led up to the present financial crisis in the affairs of the colony.

And in order effectively to carry out the object for which they are being promoted, these political financial reform associations will need to be as, much as possible in accord with one another, to work on the same lines, and to como, like candidates and electors, to a 'common understanding. Auckland has taken the lead in the matter :and has laid down abroad platform of political faith; an unmistakably definite policy :—Reduction of future Governors salaries; reduction of number of Ministers ; sale of ;ministerial residences ; reduction of number of representatives and of ithe honoraria paid to them ; 'abolition of honoraria to members 'of Upper House, and as far as possible of pensions, allowances,

sinecures and unnecessary offices of legislature simplification of Government and reduction of civil service expenditure; reduction of educational vote ; abolition of the property tax ; stoppage of railway construction other than that already contracted for ; a cessation from further borrowing; substantial decrease in the customs tariff, and that the incidenco of taxation be so adjusted as'to give substantial protection to all possible local industries,and lastly, the opening up village settlements everywhere on the lines of the present system, so as to meet the want caused by the stoppage of public works and the retrenchment of offices. The Auckland Association would leave every member to use his own judgment in dealing with social and other vexed questions of general importance, not affecting financial reform, but proposes to insist that "No candidate be accepted who will not pledge himself to resist any and every Government that will not carry out the above sketched vigorous financial reform." Now, we are far from saying that the foregoing proposed measure of reform is perfect, for the two last items—village settlement and protection of local industries—open up much debateable ground, but with the exception of these such a programme should be more or less generally acceptable to financial reformers throughout the colony riaving once accepted it and made it the basis of the election test, there must be no wavering, and any fundamental departure from its obligations by any intending candidate, whatever his other qualities or standing, must be looked upon as unfitting him for a seat in a Parliament elected to meet a grave danger with incisive action.