THE GOVERNMENT AND RETRENCHMENT.

Inangahua Times, Volume IX, Issue 1399, 12 May 1884, Page 2

THE GOVERNMENT AND RETRENCHMENT.

: # (Lyttelton Times.) ' English men are of all people, pro- ! bably the most illogical ; direct sequence j of thought is not congenial to them, I and they are not at all prone to , consider where an assertion, or an , ' argument, is going to land them in the ' i cud. It is by taking advautage of ! this weakness of theirs that astute politicians manage to secure their cuds. Major Atkinson is very astute ; j hiding beneath a rough bluflness of { manner a serpentine craftiness : and he seen.s to have known perfectly well 1 . what he was about when he gave the ! keynote to his followers, by calmly ' \ asserting that all the impossibilities of ' ■ retrenchment were tlie fault of the ' ; Opposition or rather, of the Assembly itself. "Retrench !" he says — " Why, >', there is nothing I should like better; j nothing that the Government are more ready, nay, more anxious, to do. Only you won't lft us ; you cry out the moment we propose to reduce a' policeman or a gatekeej>er. You accuse us of extra vaganee, but. although we are simply hungering for economy, craving with all our hearts for it, piuiug away to thread-paper becauso we can't get it, yoii» the reckless and hard-hearted members of Parliament won't give us a bifc of it. Retench ! Oh, if you only whould not force me to spend money, how cheaply I would govern the country ?" And then Mr Rolleston says much the same, and Mr Conolly, says it, and all the Ministerial hangers-on will repeat it, and the public, not at all given to strict logic, is fairly expected to aocept it. Now, if anybody chose to take this matter up in its legitimate way, the reply is quite a simple one, through Major Atkiuson may not care to hear it. And that reply is, in one brief sentence : " Why did you not resign ?" Nothing can be simpler, nothing more straightforward, nothing more impossible to answer. To assert that a Ministry is kept in office by the distinct and peremptory command of their own majority, solely for the very purpose of doing that which the I majority knows to be exactly contrary to the Ministerial wish, is more than absurd, it is an insult to the community. No spectacle can be more degrading, than that of five or six gentlemen ostensibly of high position, honor, and intelligence, sitting day after day on the Government Benches, praying and begging the Parliament of the country to allow them to curtail expenditure, because retrenchment is a necessity, but stricking fast to their places in spite of constant refusals to entertain the request. We wonder if this is what the Premier means. We wonder if ha. thinks the 'people are going to swallow so monstrous a proposition. He seems to think it, but one can scarcely realise the , fact;' There have been three courses- open to hhn ; either to resign his office because Parliament was evtraVagant ; or to accept like a man the responsibility of his own acts as long as he retained* power • or, lastly, id hajig on tp power like a leech on the plea that he was an unwilling tool of his own followers. He has chosen the third of these courses, and his colleagues are satisfied to help him iv it.