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Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3991, 7 May 1884, Page 3

We take the following from the report of Mr J. Holmes' speech recently delivered at Christchurch. The extract shows the sort of stuff that is popular just now in the Middle Island, and, as a matter of course, the member for Christchurch South received a renewed vote of confidence. The honorable gentleman said :-" They had a corrupt Goveniment-[cheers]-a spendthrift Government—("cheers]— and a Government which had caused a large proportion of the evils under which they now labored. [Cheers.] The result of the depression was the reduction of the Customs duties, and the Government had raised the railway tariff especially to catch the Canterbury farmers, and this tax was devised specially to make up the deficiency in the Customs duties. [Cheers ] This action naturally created great dissatisfaction in Canterbury, and that dissatisfaction had brought down the Ministry on a stumping tour, because they were afraid of their seats. They had seen Major Atkinson, as he was in the House, with a majority at his back. They had seen him as a braggart, as a bully, as egotistical, and had a stranger seen such a man as the Premier of the colony, what could he think. Had Major Atkinson the calmness, the dignity, which should characterise the Premier of the colony? [Cheers.] No; he reminded him more of the itinerant vendors of medicine known as

cheap Johns — [cheers] — full of sound, full of bumptiousness, full of cunning. y- [Cheers.] Out of them no good could come; there was nothing in them and the medicines they vended were shams. [Cheers.] This was what Major Atkinson reminded him (Mr Holmes) of. [Cheers.] There was none of the dignity which characterised Sir John Hall or Sir F. Whita-ker, who were gentlemen who could address them plainly and sensibly on tho questions of the day. What Major Atkinson was on the platform was a faint impression of what he was in the House with a majority at his back, except when he was castigated by Mr Dargaville, when he (Mr Holmes) had seen him trembling in his seat [Cheers.] Had he given them a policy, had he told them how to get out of their present difficulties? [Cheers.] No, he had not. [Cheers.] At Hawera Major Atkinson had said there was no depression. Ho had denied this, but from the context of his remarks he (Mr Holmes) was certain he must have done so. [Cheers.] It was not the first time Major Atkinson had said a thing and denied it a moment after. [Cheers.] He (Mr Holmes) had challenged Major Atkinson out of Hansard and in tho House over the question of the memorandum from tho Comptroller-General. [Cheers.] Now, when Major Atkinson came hero and found the real depression - existing, he said he had never said so. But at Hawera he went on to say that the people were building houses aud going to races. [Cheers.] Here, where the building trade was very depressed, he changed his tune. This proved to him that tho Premier of the colony knew nothing of tho circumstances of the two largest parts of the colon}' — Canterbury and Otago. [Cheers.] Yet this was the man who came round on a stumping tour to ask them to trust this Government and himself in the future. [Cheers.]