THE MACANDREW GRANT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 355, 24 September 1889, Page 2

THE MACANDREW GRANT.

Ths above subject is one on which few journalista care to touch, because to avoid hurting the feelings of those who would be gainers, but were not responsible for the application, there requires to be exercised a delicacy which almost removes the matter beyond comment. But still, when the public interest is at stake, we cannot soar above the plain facts, nor altogether cast aside the conclusion that is arrived at when taking a practical view of things. In the dying njcnjents of the last session of Parliament there was squeezed through, by a majority of one vote, a proposal to confer a grant of £2OOO upon the daughters of the late James Macandrew. The resolution was nothing short of a grave public wrong, which wog’d not have been perpetrated bad it been brought on at a period of the session when there would have been an opportunity for free discussion. No weighty reason can be urged for thia allowance being made, hut very strong ones can ba used against it, even to questioning the honesty of utilising public money for such purposes. The only argument by which those who supported the claim can explain their course of action is a most cLbasing one, and instead of being Used in the way it hap been it should be spurned as au insult upon the memory of the dead. In

language shorn of the ornate embellishments intended to cloak the true meaning, the contention in that Mr Macandrew did not make use of his public positions for the most selfish and even dishonest purposes. As the result (ao we would be made believe) of this exemplary conduct he died without having made proper provision for his family, and the State is asked to step in and provide for them. Is it not a wretched pretext upon which to found a claim against the public exchequer, to replenish which the poorest man and woman in the land have to contribute ? If it be justifi able in the case of one man, it is equally so in the cases of all men who have had anything to do with public positions. Our Parliamentary representatives have their faults, but we refuse to believe that they are so bad and that a min of integrity is so seldom included in their number, that when such a man is known, even after his death his family is considered to be entitled to the support of the State. We do not wish to give pain to the family alluded to, but the fact cannot be glossed over that this munificent method of dispensing charity is wrong in principle, and its honesty is questionable. The burden of taxation falls very heavy on some poor people, and it is humiliating to know that their contributions are abused after such a fashion.