The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 4, Issue 322, 19 August 1879, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 19.

Continuing our remarks in our last last issue on the coming elections, we have to repeat emphatically that the question is not whether Sir George Grey or Sir W. Fox will carry on the Government. What the electors should consider when called upon to vote for candidates is — "Are these men declared liberals, and have their antecedents been such that they can be thoroughly trusted to carry liberal measures of reform in the next Parliament." We require an extended franchise ; re-dis-tribution of seats, so that the people in each provincial district shall be fairly represented ; adjustment of taxation, so that the public burdens shall be borne equally by all men according to their means.

Now let us glance at the antecedents of the party led by Sir William Fox. They held power for many years. They borrowed immense sums of money and spent a great deal of it on political railways to gain support in Parliament. Sir Julius Vogel acknowledged that his Government had spent a million and a half improperly to gain this support. The large landholders, owing to the railways and immigration, became rich, their lands having increased four-fold in value. The time came when revenue was required to pay the interest of this debt. By .the Public Works Act of 1871, the lands through which the railways passed should have been taxed to pay the difference between the netfc receipts from the railways and the interest on the cost of construction. Did the Atkinson Government bring the provisions • of this Act into force? They never dreamed of such a thing. .Their friends the great landholders would not stand such a tax for a moment; and as the deficiency of the revenue had to be met somehow, the Government had recourse to the unsound, miserable expedient of issuing Treasury Bills to cover the deficit, promising that the revenue of the next year would be sufficient to redeem them. Those Treasury Bills were never redeemed, but became a part of the Colonial debt. The party then in power would never face the question of the adjustment of taxation. They promised in 1876 to bring in Bills to fairly adjust the representation, but instead of the necessary reforms in representation and taxation, the Government, in 1877, declared that all that was required was " political rest." It was time that a change should, take place. It was essentially a Government backed by capitalists and land rings. There was not a word or sign from the members of the Government or their supporters in the commencement of the the session of 1877 that any reform was necessary. All that was required wus " political rest." When Mr Woolcock, in 1877, moved his now famous resolution that there should be a change in the incidence of taxation, the Government treated it with contempt, but finding there was a strong feeling in the House that a change should be made they declared in favor of it, only that the time was inopportune and that the consideration should be deferred till next session. Now that party are all for liberal measures, but why did they for the many years they held power neglect, criminally neglect, to adjust representation and taxation ? Why did they give some provincial districts, Nelson for instance, one member for every 2461 of the population, while another district had only a member for every 6505. Why should the Province of Canterbury be five members short, while Nelson and Taranaki and Marlborough were shamefully overrepresented? The reply is very easy. A fair representation would not have suited the interests of those in power. And now they seek to again get the government into their own hands by pretending to be in favor of liberal measures. " Can the leopard change his spots ?" Will the people of New Zealand believe that the great land owners and the great hind jobbers wish justice done to all '? Let the electors remember the past and beware of wolves in sheep's clothing. Above all things we hope the electors will not be led away by a cry against Grey or against Fox. If good government is to be obtained the people must depend on themselves—on themselves, speaking through their representatives in Parliament. And are these representatives to be returned as the followers of a man ? We hope not. We

trust—and we would earnestly impress this on the electors—that men will be returned who hold decided opinions on the political questions'of the day ; men \?ho will fearlessly advocate reform ; in ,i u whose antecedents have been such as to gaarantee they will not falter in their purpose ; and if the people of New Zealand return such representatives, these men themselves will take care that their leaders shall not swerve from the true course. We repeat that the country is to be saved by the pq'ople themselves, and that the cry of " Greyism" or "Foxism" is a, delusion and a snare. .