ENGLAND’S DISCREDIT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 478, 10 July 1890, Page 2

ENGLAND’S DISCREDIT.

While the condition of the survivors of the famous Six Hundred is creating a great deal of attention, the circumstances of Color-Sergeant Thomas Grady, V.C. comes suddenly into the public view, and not, as might be expected, in some comfortable home or hospital of the • country he served so well, but in an old brickkiln at the foot of Victoria-street, Melbourne ; not in comfortable pensioner’s garb, with pipe in mouth and foaming pot beside him and blazing fire at his toes, but crippled and hungry and ragged and destitute, creeping into the miserable shelter of the old brick-kiln. ColorSergeant Grady was once in the public view before ; he was not old or crippled then, though possibly ragged and dirty and very hungry. He stood with a mate in the broad gap made by battered down embrasures, and while shot and shell shrieked and crashed and burst about them these two filled sandbags, built up the walls, rendered the position tenable once more, and saved an important position for the army and his country. He was immediately promoted, and recommended for the Victoria Cross, the decoration which carries the highest honor England knows. Admiral Sir Stephen Lusbington, endorsing the recommendation of Grady’s officers for the V.C., wrote : —“ I feel sure that there is not in Her Majesty’s service a better soldier or a braver man, or'one who has better deserved this great distinction.” Five and thirty years ago a man whom his Queen delighted to honor ; to-day a homeless, destitute cripple, with a paralysed wife, dependent on the charity of the home of St. Vincent de Paul. The Argus rightly says :—We need not, we should not, stop to inquire the why or the wherefore of the present distress. The light from that brilliant and heroic past strikes down directly on the anguish of the present. It shows a duty ; and it is not for us to inquire into immediate causes, or to ask curiously or impertinently why was it neglected by others ? No man of British blood should be able to view a Victoria Cross in the mire of want without a blush of burning shame, and we may indulge an assured hope that, now the facts are known, the little bit of bronze which still stamps “ Poor Tom Grady ” as a hero will be lifted up out of the dust of the brick-kiln, and shown on the breast of a man to whom his fellow-men have said, “ You shsll waill M more. 11

KAITERATAHI LOAN PROPOSAL. The poll in connection with the proposed loan for a bridge at the Kaiteratahi will be taken to-day. Beyond particularly referring the ratepayers’ attention to the matter little more need be said. We certainly do not approve of the line taken up in one quarter, that County ratepayers are lightly taxed now and therefore ought to tighten the yokes round their necks. They are taxed now more heavily than can be good for the district, and the only question in connection with the bridge is whether if the property owners or occupiers in the special district agree to submit to the possibility of a very slight increase in taxation will they gain at least a corresponding advantage ? Well

all the evidence worth seriously considering seems to affirm that the bridge will be a very profitable undertaking for the ratepayers, and therefore there should be no hesitation in the matter. A savory little red herring has been drawn across the scent in a hope being held out by an opponent to the bridge that Government may possibly undertake the work. That is sheer moonshine, and the idea would simply be laughed at by those in a position to judge, while on the other hand there is a possibility that delay may prevent the money being borrowed on such advantageous terms as offered at present. With the prospect of the Motu block being shortly let for settlement purposes, the settlers round Ormond and Kaiteratahi should lose no opportunity to assist in galvanising new life into their district, and the proposed bridge is a feature which cannot be overlooked from the latter point of view.