The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, October 8, 1891. A STONE, NOT BREAD.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume V, Issue 667, 8 October 1891, Page 2

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

Thursday, October 8, 1891. A STONE, NOT BREAD.

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

The way in which the claims of military men were dealt with by the last Parliament is the subject of strong comment by the Wellington Post. As many in this district are personally interested in the matter we give the Post article nearly in full. The Parliament of New Zealand is not (says the Post) in the least disposed to “ pity the sorrows of the poor old men whose trembling steps have borne them to its door,” if in their vigorous manhood they wore a red coat or a blue jacket and committed the unpardonable sin of fighting for their country. Now that they are no longer required to fight, and would not be able to do it if they were, it is considered the correct thing to treat them as “ paupers whom nobody owns,” and towards whom the country is under no obligation to keep faith or fulfil its promises. They have done their service, let them whistle for their reward. The country is safe, and why should those who, at risk of life and blood, secured that safety, be further thought of now that their part in life's drama is well nigh paid out ? They ought to be patriotic to the end and sacrifice themselves rather than erabarass the Treasury by importunate claims for fulfilment of promises made under pressure of danger. This is the sort of feeling which seems to prevail in the breasts of a large section of the members of Parliament whose knowledge of the services rendered in the old days is second class and merely a matter of history. We do not suppose that had Richard the third been provided with a horse on the field of Bosworth, and thereby been enabled to retain possession of the throne, he would have abdicated in favor of his rescuer, although he had offered his kingdom in return for what he got. The claimant, if importunate, would have been disposed of summarily. In like manner why should New Zealand be held responsible for rash offers it made of land grants to those who would fight for preservation of the country as a whole ? Parliament prefers to act on the principle of the miser who finding himself in danger of drowning promises a fortune for rescue, and when safe on land rewards his rescuer with a “Thank you ” and a copper. The “ Thank you ” it implies by placing the names in the schedule of a bill, and the copper is represented by scrip which is practically useless. . . ■ The Bill which has

now passed into an Act purporting to recognise* and provide for military and naval claims was a sham and a delusion as it was framed by Ministers, and it has been cut about and altered both in the House and the Council, so as to prevent its proving accidentally of value to any one of the persons whose claims it purports to provide for. At no stage of its progress did it assume to a form which would have honestly met and satisfied the admitted debt of the colony to the unfortunate men whose claims were in issue. It was drafted with the evident intention of evading those claims, and every amendment was in the direction of preventing any of the claimants benefiting by its passing. The men asked for bread. The Legislature has, at the instigation of the Government, and with its full concurrence, given them a stone. We sympathise with the claimants, and regret the unfortunate position in which they are placed by the evasion of their just and equitable claims, and we feel ashamed of the action of those who, to save a few paltry acres or pounds, have exposed the colony to a deserved imputation of dishonorable repudiation and breach of faith towards men who served it well in its extremity. The Ministerial attempt to throw the blame on the Legislative Council is disingenuous and hypocritical. The Bill was from the first a sham, and the Defence Minister in the House resisted every attempt to make it a useful reality, it was useless when it went to the Council, and the Council only followed the lead of the Government and the House in rendering it, if possible, worse than it was in its original form,