THE GENERAL ELECTION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3255, 7 December 1881, Page 2

THE GENERAL ELECTION.

MR Mc3WEENEY AT THE THEATRE

ROYAL,

Mr Justin McSweeney addressed the electors afc the Theatre Royal laßt night, a very large audience being present. Mr Gillies, having been voted to the chair, stated he wished it to be understood that he was not pledged to Mr McSweeney or any other candidate. As it appeared afc one time that Mr Buchanan was likely to have a walk-over for the Napier seat, he thought Mr McSweeney was entitled to a fair hearing for having had courage to com© forward and oppose "that gentleman. (Applause.) Mr McSweeney, on rising to address the meeting, was received with applause. He commenced by saying that if in the course of the remarks he intended making that evening he should be found to differ from other public men, it would only be on questions of public policy. He thought ib was their duty to eliminate from their minds every consideration not connected with the public welfare. It would be in that spirit he should treat the subjects on which he intended speaking, and he was desirous of discussing principles rather than personalities. He said it seemed to have been forgotten that they had had representatives in the past who had allowed an unfair system of taxation to be levied on the colony, and a land legislation which had almost led to national disaster. If the fine agricultural plains of the colony had been properly disposed of they would now have been the homes of thousands of industrious inhabitants. He had not, however, come there to prophesy a gloomy future for the colony ; on the contrary, he believed that a great era of prosperity was before it, and he thought the worst period of our financial depression now over. There were 34,000,000 acres of land in the colony, 25,000,000 acres of which were good land ; of this amount 12,000,000 acres were held under pastoral leases in Canterbury and Otago. By these leases a yearly rental was returned of £120,000 but the lands were now about to be cut ut> by the present Government, so that the colony would derive a much larger revenue from them. In the disposal of this estate care should be taken that none of it should be sold for speculative purposes. In the North Island the land was much more rough and difficult to manage than in the South. He thought the deferred payment system of from five to ten years was not sufficiently liberal. The example of South Australia should be followed, which gave every tenant a right to extend his term by paying the interest on the money payable. Referring to the question of taxation he said a large number of absentee land owners drew enormous sums from the colony, and instanced among others Mr Purvis Russell and Mr Douglas McLean, both of whom drew large sums from this district. He had lately been told by a storekeeper afc Wai« pawa, a man who was carrying on an extensive trade, that absenteeism was a great evil in that district. The worst case was that of the New Zealand Land Company, which owned 340,000 acres of land. That company was waiting until the state, by public works expenditure gave enhanced value to the land and then the shareholders would take the profit the state ought to derive. He thought the tax on absentees should be heavier than upon resident landowners, and that if a person were away 12 months he should pay a double amount of taxation and every year he was away he should pay more. This would compel such men either to reside on their estates or to cut up their land for the occupation of the people. (Hear, hear. The scheme of taxation which he thought the most desirable one for the colony vrau a tax which would discriminate between different classes of property, and should be moderate in amount. He did not think the same tax should be imposed on local industries such as woollen mills, or the gelatine factory at Hastings, as on land which employed little labor. He though a tax levied on these woollen mills would be a very unfair mode of taxation, as ifc would tax their capital and machinery. While on the - question of local industries he would remind them that some years ago, when ib was proposed to encourage the wool trade with China, he had published some letter! on the subject, in which he pointed out that if the landowners did not recognise their duty to the people they would have to pay

an increased tax, but that if they started woollen mills the case would be very different. (Applause.) [He here read a portion of the letter referred to.J He considered the property tax was in \ many respects a very fair one, and from inhe had made ho found it did not press so heavily on storekeepers unless they •wore largely overstocked. He observed '■dtffafc the banks in the colony now made profits varying from 6 to 17 or 18 per cent., hut they had to pay 8s 4d under the Property tax for every £100 of capital. They had a land and Income tax in Tasmania. The land tax was assessed on the annual value, and was 9d in the £1; a similar tax was levied on the profits of pint stock companies. Mr Ballance's proposed income tax on companies was 3d in the £1. He (the Bpeaker) thought the property tax was more fair on land which was hilly and broken and fit only for pastoral occupation. On richer land a progressive tax ihight fairly be imposed according to cash value, not acreage, as a hundred acres in one place might be worth more than a thousand in another. He thought also that lands in the vicinity of a railway should be specially taxed to hear some of the interest on the *" £10,000,000 Which the colony had expended on railways. It had been estimated by Mr Baliance that the value of the rural property in New Zealand was £46,000,000. Mr Hall's estimate was £34,000,000. Assuming, then, that one-third of this land were benefitted by railways, and taking Mr Ballance's valuation, there would be about £15,000,000 worth of land to he specially taxed. He J approved of the principle of the land tax. > They had a land tax in Tasmania, and in Victoria there was one on a progressive scale. They hod no need for one in New South Wales, as they had 170,000,000 acres still available for settlement. In reference _> to the breakwater question Mr McSweeney \ pointed out that there were large sums now in the hands of the G-overnment accruing from accumulated sinking fund and deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks. Dunedin, Oamaru, and other places had obtained loans from this fund, and he thought if an application were made for a breakwater at Napier it would be entitled to favorable consideration by the Government. It was said by Allison that Governments learnt a dangerous secret when they learnt to borrow money, but whether this was so oi' not New Zealand had learnt tho secret, and there was a strong feeling at present in favor of another loan. They had been told by some of the other candidates that •RTfe they consented loan being applied for, the specific works on which it was to he expended should be decided upon. He also hoped that it would not be raised in the same reckless manner as the last one. He thought we should be able to float the next loan at 4 per cent. Coming to the question of separation, he said he was altogether opposed to it. He thought, however, that it had no chance of being carried in the House. Mr McAndrew was a discontented politician, who was always raising this question of separation, but even the people in his own province were against it. In regard to the question of local ) government, an extensive scheme had been prepared by Mr Ormond. Mr Baliance bad lately told the electors of Wanganui that Mr Ormond, Mr Reader Wood, and himself, had intended to submit a scheme for local bodies which should act as receiving and distributing bodies. Mr Ormond's proposals were also in the direction of the railways being locally dealt with. He (Mr McSweeney) was not in favor of that proposal, as the North Island could not afford it. In Canterbury the lines paid about 7 per cent, on their cost, while in Hawke's Bay the net return was £2 17s per cent and in Wellington only 17s He was opposed to the principle of rating Crown lands as proposed in the Crown and Native Lands Rating Bill. He was also opposed to the idea that the G-overnment should _ pay the rates on native lands. In his opinion these rates should be a direct charge on the land, and if they were not paid a certain portion of the land should be sold to obtain the accumulated rates after a certain number of years had expired. This was already the law in dealing with the lands of Europeans. If 10,000,000 of acres were acquired a railway could be run from Auckland to New and an impetus given to the prosperity of the whole of tbe North Island. 1 The natives did not appear unfavorable to this, and the great chief Bewi and other Waikato chiefs were apparently in favor of any fair proposal with this object. He thought the Government should purchase about 4,000,000 acres of land at £1 per acre and pay five per cent interest to the natives instead of giving them the -principal. He expressed himself strongly in favor of the Triennial Parliaments Act, an act which, although not so for the representatives, was, infinitely better for the people themselves. He had already given his opinion on the Education Act. He had watched for a long time past the evils that resulted from the sectarian system in New South Wales before aid to y denominational schools was withdrawn, and he would not desire to see such bitterness of feeling introduced into New Zealand. (Applause.) In his opinion Bible reading was but a step in the direction of denominationalism. The Bible could not be introduced without doing an injustice to some sections of the community. The State, he thought, _ should _ occupy a position of neutrality, giving freedom to all, and showing favor to none. (Applause.) He by no means undervalued "T the influence of religion in refining men's minds, but the State was not the proper teacher of religion. He did not think the insertion of a conscience clause would meet the case, as the schoolmasters themselves had to be considered, and it would be manifestly unfair to ask them to teach a religion which they might not believe in. Theology should be taught by men whose lives had been spent in its study. It had been advocated by Mr Hall in his speech atLeeston that the Upper House should be elected under the property qualification, and by Hare's system. Mr Hall had a year ago suggested that the Upper House should be elected by the lower. He (the speaker) considered that finality in legislation was of much more importance than the manner of electing the Upper House, and some scheme should be devised by which political deadlocks between the two Houses would he avoided. He considered free trade was altogether a myth. Richard Cobden had once said that ten 1 years after England adopted it other nations would be compelled to follow their example, Mr Disraeli, however, had foretold i that the working classes would go on their knees and petition Parliament to undo Cobden's work. He (the speaker) thought Mr Disraeli's words were more likely to come true than Cobden's. They would see by resent telegrams that it was proposed to impose heavier protective duties in America. The system of giving bonuses was simply protection in a modified form. Ho (Mr -*- McSweeney) supported Mr Bryce's action on the West Coast, but he could not do so with reference to the action he had taken in assisting the Auckland Land Company to acquire the Patetere lands. The Land Boards should in his opinion he elective. In Hawke's Bay the nominee hoard was not an impartial one. That board rigidly enforced the liw against poor men, hut stretched it for others who had larger means. If returned to tho House he would not be a supporter of the present Government, neither would he be a violent opponent. He gave tho Ministry credit for having fairly administered the affairs of the country, but he would not give them so much credit for restoring the finances of the colony as they got in some Wy quarters. They restored the finances by a *' very simple method of charging the deficit to loan. The Grey Ministry were of course not free from blame, hut they were not so reckless as they were represented to be. The deficiency of 1879 when that Ministry was in office, arose chiefly from an unexpected falling-off in the proceeds of the tales of Crown lands. Mr McSweeney here

said he was not aware of any other subject on which to address them, and sat down amidst applause. A voice : " What about the breakwater." Mr McSweeney said in reference to the breakwater question that when the plans were submitted by Mr Goodall the proper course to be pursued would be to adopt Mr Yaufcier's idea of starting the work with a certain amount of money which would be subscribed in town. He thought it was a mistake to have anything to do with the Government Engineers, as those engineers always reported unfavoi'ably upon the work. If the people of Napier wanted a breakwater they must do as they had done in Timartl. The Harbor Board in that place had obtained a further loan of £100,000 for the extension of its breakwater, and the same thing Jwotild have to be done in the Hawke's Bay district. With reference to what Mr Buchanan had said on Thursday last as to his (Mr McSweeney) having done him an injustice in referring to his casting vote as chairman of the Harbor Board on a certain occasion, he wished to say he would be extremely sorry to do Mr Buchanan any injustice in the matter, and he would rather lose his election ten times over than endeavor to win it by unfair means. (Applause.) When be spoke of Mr Buchanan as having given his casting vote against the proposition to employ Mr McGregor to report upon the breakwater, lie stated what; he believed to be a fact, but he was bound to accept Mr Buchanan's explanation. Mr Buchanan had since said that his action was not against the interests of the town in any way. Some time ago in February 1879 a meeting was called in the hall in which he was now speaking, at which a resolution was passed requesting the Harbor Hoard to employ Mr McGregor to report upon the Napier breakwater. When the matter came before the Board Mr Yautier proposed a resolution for the purpose of taking immediate action on ifc. Colonel ' auibert however, was in favor of delaying the matter. When the members of the Board knew that an important matter was to be brought before it they should have attended in their places to consider the question, and not be attending to their private interests. When the question came to the vote there were only four on one side and three on the other, Mr Buchanan, as chairman, had an original as well as a casting vote. Mr McSweeney held that he should not have exercised his original vote at all, but should merely have allowed the four members to have their own way n the matter. He did not accuse Mr Buchanan of having taken this action to injure the town, but it had no doubt inflicted a great injury upon Napier, although he might not have intended ifc. Mr McSweeney concluded by saying that_ in recording their votes either for or against him he hoped the electors would act honestly according to the dictates of their consciences. He hoped they would return as their representative the man whom they considered would be the best in the interests of the colony. (Applause.) He would now be happy to answer any questions. Mr I eonard who was received with cheers, hisses, and cries of " platform " said that he had no questions to ask, but if the meeting only treated him fairly he had a resolution to propose, which he considered was due to Mr McSweeney for his address that evening. He simply wished to propose a vote of thanks to Mr McSweeney. Mr Campbell seconded the motion, which, on being put to the meeting, was declared carried unanimously. The meeting closed with the usual vote of thanks to the chairman.