The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, JANUARY 17.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 261, 17 January 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. FRIDAY, JANUARY 17.

The Attorney-General ought to feel highly flattered. His Dunedin speech has evoked no less than two successive leaders from one of the leading Opposition journals—the Christchurch Press. That they are bitterly hostile in tone is only what was to be expected, but, coming from such a high quarter, it might reasonably have been thought that they would be of a more able character, and display some little knowledge of the matters treated of. As it is, instead of damaging the cause Mr Stout was advocating, they are only likely to injure the prestige of the" journal which has given them currency. The first grand mistake into which our contemporary falls is the vulgar one of under-valuing his opponent. The speech is " exceedingly disappointing." It is " neither the one nor the other " — i.e., neither " the best defence of the past action of the Government," nor " a clear. and definite exposition of their future intentions." "It is not anywhere the speech of a Statesman, nor even of an ordinarily honest party man." Now, all this kind of depreciatory criticism is exceedingly bad form. Speaking of Waterloo, a great lyric poet says:— "He robs us of half our glory who says the French had none." And in the intellectual arena, the contestant who commences by depreciating his antagonist, prepares for himself either a worthless victory or an ignominious defeat.

But this, though a grave one, is by no means the only fault committed by the writer. He takes a statement of the Attorney-General's, admittedly an able lawyer, on a purely legal matter, and coolly contradicts it flatly without adducing a shadow of proof of its incorrectness. Speaking of the Trades Union Act, Mr Stout remarks that " until the Bill became law, every combination of workmen to get an increase of wage 6 was illegal," and that the Government" have put an end to that and say it is now legal."

Hereupon his reviewer comments as follows:—

"We certainly cannot agree with the learned gentleman in either statement. We are not aware that it has anywhere been laid down that every agreement among workmen to raise the rate of wages is illegal, and most certainly the present Act does not even affect to mako all such agreements valid. We should rather have said that forcible interference with laborers, or even peaceable proceedings intended to bring about actual breaches of contract between the laborer and his h'rer, were illegal, and even criminal. But we do not find it laid down that it is criminal on the part of a number of workmen to agree among themselves at what rate they will sell their labor. So long as they acted peaceably, or did not interfere with actual contracts, the law, we take it, had no hold upon them."

The writer who penned these lines must be singularly and exceptionally ignorant, not only of the law on the subject of combinations, secret meetings, &_., but also of the fierce discussions that have been waged on this subject during the last thirty years. He has evidently never heard of the Statutes 39 Geo. 111, cap. 79, or 57 Geo. 111, cap. 19. Nor is he aware that the British law, made by capitalists, made all associations of workmen having for their object the regulation of relations between capital and labor criminal per se, that men could be, aye and have been, transported for " conspiracy " in doing exactly what the present Act, though not very graciously, permits them to do. A writer dealing so authoritatively with the subject should surely have made himself acquainted with its ABC, in which case he would find that the excesses and outrages charged, rightly or wrongly, to Trade Unions were used as an argument for permissive legislation in their favor. For it was urged, and not without reason, that the surest way to drive men into gross violations of the law is to make criminal what is in itself innocent. In short, that the step from the malum prohibitum to the malum per se is a very easy one.

But the reason for the writer's ignorance on the subject peeps out in his scarcely disguised contempt for the whole thing. " Why bother," he seems to say, " about laws affecting fellows who have dirty hands, go about in their shirt-sleeves, and smell horribly of machinery and oil? We have weightier matters to deal wuli, such as whether Major This, or the Honorable That shall be Minister, who shall get a fat railway contract, and how best the privileges and prestige of the superior portion of humanity may be maintained."

As to the statement that Mr Stout's speech is not a." clear and definite exposition of their (the Government's) future intentions," there never was a more unfortunately inappropriate charge, and it would almost lead to the supposition that the writer had never read the following portion of the speech :—

" Dealing with the work to be done in future, he would draw their attention to the Triennial Parliaments Bill, which was one which should be passed. He believed such a Bill was necessary now that the people could be frequently consulted ou important, matters affecting their interests. There must also be an Electoral Reform Bill, based on manhood suffrage, and another matter of the greatest importance was the re-distribution of seats. After

every census the members should be allocated on the basis of population alone. He would not dwell farther on the subject of law reform, but would now come to the Chinese question. He thought we should should get passed some law similar to that in force in Queensland, restricting their coming here; 'otherwise our civilization might be interfered with. Speaking of the land question, he might say that since the present Government had been in office, more land had been thrown open for settlement, and taken on deferred payments, than before. The surveys were behind hand, and lie had had to send to Australia for surveyors, but when this work was done ho would see that the interior of Otago was settled.... When, he once _ proposed to meet the just requirements of settlement in Otago, the squatters aud other powerful men, such as Bank Managers and others sent up a manifesto asking whether there were no men to be found to oppose so cruel and disastrous a course. His reply was that he would open up all the land he thought suitable and required for settlement, and that he did not care for either bank managers or squatters. Had we not come to this Colony with some aspiration to frame our laws so as to avoid some of the social evils of the old country ? Np country could ever be prosperous where the bulk of the land fell into the hands of a few people. They must take care that property and inonej* were somewhat equally distributed throughout among the people. This could be done either by the Erench system of the subdivision of the land, or by the imposition of the progressive tax, which would fall heavily on those who acquired -Vgst areas of land. With reference to the Legislative Council he thought the Government should have the power of creating new Peers, but in this Colony there was the fact that the Liberal Government had a dead weight to deal with in a majority of Conservatives in the Legislative Council. The only remedy for the present state of things was to declare that the tenure of .oflice./of members of the Council should for seven or ten years, and not for life. The present system of election for life was out of keeping with the whole of our political institutions. In his opinion the time had come when we should begin to think of electing our own Governor.

If this programme is not " clear and definite" enough, we do not know the meaning of tho words. We are afraid that the Press and the retrogressive party it represents will find it rather too " clear and definite " to be talked round either in leading articles, speeches in the House, or where doubtless the real battle will have to be fought—in the balkt-box.

The dinner to bo given to Messrs Montgomery and Hall is to come off next Tuesday. We hope that the Peninsula settlers will for once " shake off dull sloth" and come forward cordially in support of this graceful compliment to two.gentlemen who have deserved well of the community. We understand so far the tickets have not been going off as fast as might reasonably have been expected, but hope that this merely indicates a habit of procrastination, and that at the last moment there will bo a rush for tickets. Even this, however, causes a great deal of inconvenience, as it is essential that the committee should be able to inform the caterer beforehand how many may be expected. We are sure our readers will agree with us that Mr Montgomery is a representative who spares neither time nor trouble to advance the interests of the district, and the least his constituents can do is to shew their appreciation of his conduct by mustering in force at this dinner. It is an undoubted fact that but for the exertions of himself aud a few other gentlemen, the Akaroa Railway Bill wculd have shared the fate of many another slaughtered " innocent." For the credit of the district, therefore, we hope to see a numerous and influential gathering on Tuesday evening.