THE STANDARD TELEPHONE

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 534, 20 November 1890, Page 3

THE STANDARD TELEPHONE

Turn—A—ling ! Captain^Russell, please I Gently there ! Who is it? Standard ; want to have a chat with you about your speech at the Rink. Certainly ; how did they like it ? Oh, it took immensely; the ladies were delighted, and that steeplechase, by jove, fetched the sports properly-the straight tip for the Melbourne Cup would have been better, but no matter. I would much like to have that for myself. , , , Gad, so you would; you l»nd chaps generally know how to shepherd No 1. By the way if Mia Wneshup was a bit racified and stuck less to public biz, dairy factories, and inch things, we'd have had a race meeting in your honor and run the totalisator to make up the ex'e. We'd have got Mr Arthur to mount litt ! e Bit of Blue and see his style over the stick", and then got you to give him a bit of taffy Ay, on a stick 1 No, from the grandstand. Gammon you don’t know how to pile it on thick, while you are trying to make believe it’s a rod fresh from pinkie! Pon my word, skipper, you weren’t born yesterday. By Jove, no 1 Hcwsomever, this talk will keep for some evening before you go back to the Korerorium; I want to have a word or two about that speech. Btess you, you misht leave it alone. Didn’t Mr Evans say something to the effect that nothing better was ever heard in Gisborne? . Certainly, but we know how he is going to vote. Don’t forget he put in a saving clause, and said something about from the present Ministry.

That’s us, of course. And don’t forget that a member of the Continuous Ministry is not known to have publicly spoken in Gisborne during the time that it has taken baby New Z-alanders to get to that interesting age when the down is just sprouting about the chin. Then it must have been a left-handed compliment? . A pretty hard one, too. But to business, You remember that beautiful pic'ure about the three young men who didn't die ? When ! was illustrating the property tax, you mean ’ Yea, when you ware telling us we ware all industrious, and laughing up your sleeve when you told us bow prosperous we were, everyone flourishing and bappy, notwithstanding that we have to bear the taxation for money which you landowners got squandered in other places—- { deny it. What, don’t you remember the “ Twelve Apostles " 9 Ob, keep that quiet; I didn’t expect to bear of these things in Gisborne. Welt, 1« me Break. Uwe three young man—one blossomi imo a warehouseman, another makes two blades of gra<s grow white only one grew before or should have grown, while the third is a loafer, Under a land and income tax you say the farmer would have to bear the burden, while under the properly tax all three are collared. Just wh»t I did say. Well, let ua suppose you, I, and the gatepost Start with £3OO each ; you be the man that makes the grass grow. I'll be the warehouseman, and the gatepoet will be the loafer. Under the property tax for every Improvement you make we’d tax you up to your eyea ; the more you toil and slave the heavier we'll c-ire down on you. That is true unfortunately. Now, take our id’e friend Mr Gatepost ; he buye a sect ion alongside yours. Jello ft grow thistles and other fig-bearing fruit; and he will not he taxed al all if the keeps below the exemption. He'll perhaps go away to the old country, taking his ready naah with him ; then he’ll put his finger to his nose and wait till your improvements Jlave increased the value of his property. When h" can sell out and have the be-t cf you. Under a land tax he would be caueht, while you oou’d go on improving, emp oying labor, and pushing on the country, with ut being' further taxed for your industry. An exemption is provided, and you would have to pay very lit'le unless you were making a big income, or going on collaring large blocks ofland and creating an enormous estate. But the warehouseman knocks you, though. Not a bit; that’s the strongest point against you. I have a big bu«iness, say, and pay a large snm to the tax-g .therer, but do ypu think l*m a blamed fool ? Do you think { pay that out of my own pocket ? Then where do you get it, unless you steal

it? T v You must be verdant; I neither beg, borrow,nor steal it— I get it from such fellows as you struggling toi'ere Every bag of sugar that you buy from ma pays its share of the tax, on every thing you get I pi'e on the share of the tax, and while Mr Gatepost gets soot free you are toiling away from mom tin eve, paying the property tax on all your improvements, paying it on all I fell you, paying on all you buy from the Storekeeper whom I also supply, paying it on all you produce, while Gatepost and I are sniggering at you. I said you sneered at us, didn't I ? Yea, it’s much the same. By and by I make my pile out of a lot of you chaps, and jaunt Home to join the loafer and be a loafer too, investing in New Zealand bonds, which I can get at low value by howling that the country is going bankrupt, that it is full of tepudiators and olher scoundrels—of bourse I would be very rough on Sir George Grey gnd all such fi b in the political sea. ' But why go home ? Dear, dear 1 If I remain here and invested in bonds or in any concern for developing the country you would tax me like a cruel gardener squeezing the juice out of a snail he discovers in hia cabbage garden. You, poor fieggar, would go on improving until we’d jpove you off the face ot the—9oa in the pound class. As things are of course you can laugh you go in forfreetrade in native lands tad in comm"roe. monopolise the eartb, buy goods wrought by foreign prison labor, keep in tow with the big importers, and generally rule the roost. If you find it pays to improve your land and put a few more sheep on, you san go through the formality ot making }cnr children owners of some, and thus keep

pretty close to the exemption. Bv Jove, your get'ing too rough ; youHl be testing in nw teetb next what that beggar Kelly said about the valuators. No, no; we’ll “cheese” it, like His Wusshup did over that dairy expert, and the Government's broken promisee. If I did pile the jam a bit on Gisborne, I'll bt more careful next time. It’s a jolly pity (lectors read so much nowadays. That's what Mr Arthur has found out. Ye*, by the by, he addresses the electors on Thutelav night : just wink at him to be careful; “He's like me; we like racing belter than your blewd politics { thout'h his as——hi* personal friend had spoken for him—ScriptuX* or your party seam to have got mixed a bit. When you Pt to Wairoa I suppose you will say you I never set your ayes on a finer district, and make our friend Mr Laric feel quite proud. Hi-h—there’ll be no Stasdabd and no telephone there, ■ Neither there were at Oyotiki—l’ll ring up Mr Arthur. Heigh, tbsre ; I Mr Arthur, pIMM 1 Haw, haw, that you Standard * M W l * you or«. W** never know where to find you now that the City Squat ter y has gone out on Strike, end its former inhabitants haven't the pluok to soar above bul yraggiog the Borough Councl for not spending £8 or on a bridge which you sheepowoing chaps wou'd knock into a socked hat in less time than those skippers would climb up a well they hadn’t gone down. Always wire to the committee rooms. That’s daubed with the whitewash brush, too,! see. It se» ms like certain other friends of your youth—why your/ormer lieutenant of the G. r. and B. fratemiiy has joined the U circle, and Lowe Street itself has gut nmeved a little further along. t comes rough, but I’ve got other local uencea to depend on this time So you think, bu‘ taiboa. I'll have a talk with you later on. I hope the c0m- ..... tnittee have got plausible answers ready to those working men's questions. Talk ia V at way. Don't oorbfl the autocracy, tempered with

Explain what you mean, sir. Why some of your committeemen went to the working men’s meeting. One man had no shadow of claim to be called a working man in the ordinary sense, for he earns his living by the pen. However, I’m glad you got Russell to give you a hand. I had nothing to do with his coming. The Chairman explained that. H’m, so he did. Do you see any green in the white—never mind, blaze into the Opposition to-night.