OUR AMERICAN PRINCES.

Inangahua Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1294, 7 September 1883, Page 2

OUR AMERICAN PRINCES.

It seems to me that there is much grim humor in Mr Bright's late famous speech, in which he contrasted the straitened circumstances of the British Government with the United States rolling in wealth. The British Chancellor is pottering about with a million or two, putting a penny on the income to-day and removing it tomorrow ; one day giving away vast sums to country gentlemen to repair their roads with, and the next making the discovery that there is no money on hand. Mr Bright then pointed to our immense surplus, as evidencing an extraordinary condition, which no country in any age of the world had ever experienced or even dreamed of. The -prosperity of the United States is attributed to the fact that we have no princes to support. If the existence of so many of them is really the skeleton in the British closet, we can show more princes, and more expensive ones, than were ever dreamed of in Great Britain. We have railway princes, street railway, standard oil, friction match, and land speculators, stock jobbers, lard skimmers, cotton seed oil squeezers, manipulators of corners in wheat, cattle, and swine ; and protected manufacturers whose number is legion. Our princes do not draw from the Government any stipulated salary. They do not ask for direct appropriations ; asa rule they are content with charters, land grants, guaranteed bonds, and protection. If there be any competition, our princes either buy out the competitor or combine and squeeze ™?u They sta nd upon vested rights, it the public object, they reply « The public be- ." This remark, however, was intended as an after-dinner pleasantry. The public oyster must be opened with the least possible friction. !

Our princes are indirectly provided for everywhere. Every time we light a match we are contributing toward the support of a prince ; whenever we light a lamp we toss a penny to another prince ; when we build a fire something falls into the pocket of a coal prince ; when our cooks bake a pie the till of the lard prince is augmented. And so on through an interminable catalogue. We can scarcely sneeze without helping some prince : when we wipe our noses we are helping a protected industry ; when we go to Church, as good Christians should, some prince gets a bonus from the Bible and Psalm book used; and for the spade with which our graves are dug, and for the casket that holds our remains, we authorise some prince to draw upon our estate. And all this over and above legitimate market values.