BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2189, 13 May 1870, Page 2

BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.

[from our own correspondent.] Christchurch, May lib Mr Fox addressed the citizens last night in the Town Hull. About 700 people were present. He stated he ■was the oldest Canterbury man in the Province, being twenty-one years ago with Captain Thomas, who surveyed the settlement —then a avilderness, now a flourishing country. Ho looked hack to the part he had taken in the settlement of Canterbury and Otago, as the proudest mementos of his life. After expressing admiration of the way his Southern fellow-colonists had borne tire burdens of the North, he proceeded to give a sketch of Native affairs during the past two years, and of the expenditure by the present Ministry. He then replied to the Wellington correspondent of the Daily Times, who charged him (Mr Fox) with receiving a telegram altering the figures he had laid before the Otago meeting, and that he had suppressed it. That was untrue. He could not help expressing indignation at the attempt to fasten the odium of falsehood on him by that correspondent, and lus astonishment at the Daily Times inserting the contributions of a gentleman who purloined the secrets of the Ministry from a private despatch box. Was it right or honor* able that any section of the Press should employ such a double-dyed scoundrel? Mr Fox said it was his intention to ask the Assembly for powers to raise a loan for the purpose of road making in the North Island. He concluded his address by contrasting his policy with that of Mr Stafford—the one being a war policy, and the other defensive only.