The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning. Tuesday, March 26, 1889. THE DUNEDIN IMPOSITION AND OTHER BRIBES.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 278, 26 March 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published Every Tuesday, Thursday, AND Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, March 26, 1889. THE DUNEDIN IMPOSITION AND OTHER BRIBES.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s, Thy God's* and truth’i.

The ten thousand pounds of taxpayers’ money which the Government has promised to a few Dunedin tradesmen has not been long resolved upon before its evil effects are being felt. The Dunedin people are not satisfied with that — they must have another two thousand pounds, or disgrace the colony by making an “ exhibition ” of it. The manceuvre of those who have made the gift may be considered a clever one, but can anyone say that it is honest ? Twelve thousand pounds is a high bid for Otago political support, but are the majority of the taxpayers agreeable to their money being thus diverted to questionable purposes? If they are then all we can say is they are a lot of simpletons on whom sympathy would be wasted. To our surprise the Wellington people have expressed their agreeableness to this squandering of the public funds, but now the veil has been thrown off—it is

the old scramble for the loaves and fishes. The Wellington people want an extension of the railway to Te Aro, and a local paper heads an article on the subject, “ The Call to Arms.” The Wellington papers, be it understood, have been united in their cry against further borrowing, and they have done good service in enlightening men’s minds as to the enormity of the evil. Yet when it comes to the furthering of some petty litttle claim of their own, the subtle methods of old are resorted to, and the interests of the colony as a whole are thought no more of than worn out garments. The Wellington Press admits that the only reason why it acquiesced in the grant to the Dunedin people was because if it took any other course it would be accused of jealousy—certainly not a very dignified argument for any respectable journal to make: but it does not lose sight of the anticipated bribe for its own city. After making another vigorous onslaught on the borrowing policy the article concludes :—“ Out of what fund then is the for the Dunedin Exhibition to come ? The fact is the colony is cursed by the most oppressive and incompetent system of public finance that ever impeded the progress and plundered the productive industry of any nation. We are governed by the tax gatherer rather than by the financier and the statesman. What is the consequence ? That 200,000 hard workingmen, women and youths are laboring to meet the indebtedness of the colony like so many pack horses in a bush road up to their girths in mud and cumbered with hopelessly ill adj usted burdens. The lubberly rouseabout who has put the packs on has given every one of them a sore back and there is not one but has the withers wrung. That is our position. It is time it should cease. Sometimes a small stone will serve to wreck a train. If the contemptuous treatment by the Ministry of the very modest and reasonable demand of the people of Wellington should prove the stone to upset the Atkinson Government there is not a constituency in the colony that will shed a tear over the catastrophe.” A child in the unscrupulous game of “ politics ” could see the drift of the expressions quoted—if the Government will not treat Wellington in a somewhat similar spirit to that in which it has treated Dunedin in the exhibition matter, then Wellington will try to have a Government put in power that will do so. That shows at once the weak spot in New Zealand politics —• if the selfish aims of any particular locality, with sufficient strength to make its power felt, are not promoted, then the cry is “ Down with the Government that dares refuse.” The colonists have much more reason than perhaps they suspect to regret that the Government has been so weak as to make the Twelve Thousand Pounds Imposition, for the benefit of a few Dunedin people. Their benefit will be the colony’s loss to a far 1 greater extent.