The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE. Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Thursday, February 27, 1890. MR BRYCE IN THE DUMPS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 422, 27 February 1890, Page 2

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

Thursday, February 27, 1890. MR BRYCE IN THE DUMPS.

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

Mr Bryce’s speech at Waipa—when he spoke in a very dismal tone on the question of retrenchment — has met with general adverse comment. Mr Bryce seems to have degenerated to one of those politicians who can only see the worse side of things, and therefore are always in the doldrums. The Wellington Post says of his speech :— “Cn the matter of retrenchment Mr Bryce prided himself on being ahead of his audience. We venture to think he was also ahead of the public.opinion o lhe country and of the dictates of sound prudence and common sense. He was signally unfortunate in the items he chose for examples of the direction in which savings could be effected. He would have no improvements made on the opened lines of railway; he would not spend a penny on opening up land for settlement or promoting its occupation : he would leave the goldfields roadless, and abstain from erecting any public buildings. This is not retrenchment, unless it be retrenchment run mad. There would be no real economy in such savings, except perhaps in regard to the latter item. The other expenditure, if judiciously designed and controlled, must be richly, if indirectly, reproductive. It is essential that expenditure on these objects should be continued, unless the country is first to stagnate and then inevitably retrograde. The first duty of the State is to open up the country by roads and to promote settlement. To such expenditure Mr Bryce, we are sorry to see, objects. We must improve our railways, make roads, open up the land, and encourage settlement, or New Zealand will soon begin to go backward at a terrible rate. It is impossible for a country in our position to stand still. If we do not advance we must go backward. Mr Bryce firmly objects to all progression. Under such a regime as he advocates the country -would speedily become intolerable‘an a place of residence, owing to the pressure of taxation, and all who conld <so so would flee it,”

The Wellington Press takes him off in thia style:—«“Mr Bryce was very indignant with the Opposition for their action Inst session, With all respect to Air‘Bryce, we thirty the Opposition did admirable service. They rejected a mass -sf fanciful awri mischievous legislation, and assisted to expose some of the worst misconduct of individual Ministers. We entirely disagree with Mr Bryce, when he alleges that they have injured the machinery of legislation or discredited representative ipi stitutions. It was in the incapacity of the Government in abdicating their I proper functions, which led to the representative stonewall; and it was the miscond.uct of individual Ministers which , discredited the Ministry and made i jie session a perpetual washing day W Ministerial dirty linen. We

should like to see Mr Bryce himself in any Ministry, but we must ask him to leave his friends, if these are his friends, behind him. Sir Harry Atkinson and Mr Richardson have suffered much for Sir Harry’s imprudent .-■election, and Mr Bryce has studied the history of the last session to little purpose if he has thus failed’ in his diagnosis of its diseases. On the whole, we fail to find anything in the speech which indicates statesmanship or any aptitude for taking the place of leader. As a straightforward, blunt and honest man, we welcome Air Bryce, but we are convinced that it is quite time for the country to look to the Younger School of politicians for its future men of mark, and that the colony has little or nothing to hope for in the older actors who have hitherto occupied the stage. Sir Harry still stands a solitary figure, the single known capable man, and at present there is little visible behind him but the deluge.”