The Gisborne Standard. AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, Saturday Morning Tuesday, August 27, 1889.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 343, 27 August 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard. AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY, Saturday Morning

Tuesday, August 27, 1889.

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

That iniquitous job the Otago Central Railway Bill has received its quietus for this session at least, and the defeat is one which will give a feeling of relief to those who are opposed to the continual squandering of public money and the perpetuation of the borrowing system. We have so often referred to the proposal that there is now a temptation to ignore it, but the persistency with which the thing is urged appears to have no end. Next session it will be brought out in some new disguise. This time the Government actually took up the measure, and to escape the outcry which it was known would at once be made if a resumption of the borrowing policy were proposed, a very deceptive scheme was introduced in its stead. The Government proposed a most discreditable course, which was to devote to the construction of the line the Savings Bank and trust funds. Already half a million has been thrown away on the work, and on that sum the taxpayers continue to pay interest without the slightest return either to the colony generally or to any particular locality. Even the most sanguine supporters of the work had not the face to argue further than that the line would, with the extension proposed, merely pay working expenses, and when those whose interests lead them to take the most roseate view of things admit that the line cannot pay interest on the money expended, an impartial person may safely estimate what the result would really be. However, as the latest attempt at jobbery has been defeated, little more need be said than to congratulate the taxpayers of the colony on their escape—until next session at any rate —from the useless burden that it was attempted to force upon them.