The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, MARCH 11.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 276, 11 March 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, MARCH 11.

Me Montgomery's meeting, a report of which appeared in our last issue, calls for a fe\r remarks at the hands of the local organ. First, we may remark that we were much gratified at the meeting being so numerously attended, and Mr Montgomery's speech being listened to with such marked attention. As we have before pointed out, the worst possible feeling which can pervade a community at a critical time like the present is apathy. Better a man with wrong opinions, than one with no opinions at all. The former may be reasoned with ; the latter will certainly fall a prey to the first political charlatan who wishes to make use of him.

With regard to the purely local matters touched upon by Mr Montgomery, this journal has from time to time brought them under the notice of the public. We have also taken occasion more than once to call attention to the unwearied assiduity which Mr Montgomery has always displayed in workihg for the interests of the district which he represents. On a careful review of all the local matters touched upon in the speech, we have much pleasure in awarding Mr Montgomery his full meed of praise for his action in these particulars. In fact, there are numerous instances within our own knowledge to which he has not alluded in which our representative has spared neither time nor trouble in the interests of his constituents. So far, then, Mr Montgomery fully deserves the confidence reposed in him.

Bnt we must not forget that looking after Road Board Grants or Telegraph Stations, that deputationizing Ministers about cemetery sites, or railway routes, do not constitute the sole, nor even the primary duties of a representative. It is quite possible to imagine a man fulfilling all these duties most assiduously, and yet practically disfranchising his constituency by the manner in which he votes on questions of colonial importance. We look upon Mr Montgomery's utterances on these questions therefore as of infinitely more importance than if he had succeeded in dotting the Peninsula in every direction with telegraph and railway stations.

In the main, we are decidedly, satisfied with Mr Montgomery's expressions of opinion on matters of public policy, and believe that the district of Akaroa may congratulate itself oil being one of those which, by means of their representatives, are prepared to fight the battle of progress. It is well known that Mr Montgomery was one of those who helped to put the present Ministry in power. The other night he played the part of the " candid friend." Perhaps there was just a little too much candour, and too little friendship in his criticisms on their measures. Mr Montgomery objects to a Land Tax, that it is not a general property tax. True. But in the first place, it is a property tax, a thing before unknown ; and secondly it is a tax on that species of property which of all others was specially, if not solely, benefited by the Public Works policy. We are inclined to agree with Mr Montgomery as to the inadvisableness of the exemption up to £500, but certainly cannot think the retention of that exemption justified a vote against the third reading of the Bill. We cannot follow him in his reasoning when he says in effect that because he could not tax every acre of land, and every species .of property, therefore he would not tax any.

The " Maori dual vote" has been written about usque ad nauseam, and we therefore do not intend to follow Mr Montgomery into this part of his speech. We would merely remind our readers that these rights, objectionable as we believe many of them to be, are possessed by the Maoris under our present laws, and that the Electoral Bill did not confer any new ones.

The mode of levying a property tax, however, and the exact limits of the Maori franchise are points of detail on ■which we can well afford to give and take. On the main points of his political creed, we rejoice to find Mr Montgomery boldly enunciating those principles for which we have always contended. Mr Montgomery advocates practically universal suffrage, tempered only by a residential qualification, representation on the basis of population, triennial Parliaments, and taxation on property. These are the cardinal points of the party of progress, and the meeting held the other night in passing the resolution it did, adopted them as its own. As Mr Gar-vood pertinently observed on Thursday evening, Mr Montgomery had spoken with " no uncertain sound," and the meeting certainly did likewise. Mr Montgomery will no doubt feel his hands considerably strengthened by the cordial and unanimous vote of coufidence which he received after such an outspoken declaration of opinion.

On another point we cordially agree with Mr Montgomery, and that is, in hoping that the Government in the next session will show greater. firmness than they did in the last. ,We have urged the same, thing already in these columns. Let them, as Mr Montgomery pat it, rely more on the people and. less on the House. Let them first bring forward such measures as are truly ■■ progressive, and then demand of every member that , he shall declare himself eithe| with them or against them. Let them take means to render it impossible for anyone to siiilly shally, or to "sit on a rail." With such a policy they need not fear the result. There are not a great many constitueitcies in New Zealand before whom a representative can safely get up now and say—" lam opposed to Electoral Beform. lam the sworn foe of any readjustment ot taxation."

And one word to liberal members, our own representative included. Let them take care lest, in being too critical of their own leaders, they play into the hands of the party of obstruction. A reasonable man cannot be expected to vote absolutely at the dictation of his " Whip," but he ; must be prepared to swallow an unpleasant pill occasionally, and to secure a measure, the .principle of which he approves, he must now and then accept it with some unpalatable surroundings.