THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2469, 14 January 1871, Page 2

THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.

MU DRIVER AT MOHNINGTON,

We continue our report of Mr Driver’s speech :

Turning to the financial measures of the Govermnent, Mr Driver said the statement had been delivered before he went to Wellington. He felt that the scheme was something the Colony was not equal to, and he desired to find out the real intentions of ihe Government. Something of the kind was wanted, but he felt if was impossible to get a man who had the ability apd the courage to bring forward a scheme that v/opld do justice to the varied interests and satisfy the local jealousies of the Colony, which was length without breadth. He even doubted whether it was. possible • to have brought forward a scheme of such magnitude that would enable justice to be done to the various parts of the Colony to the extent the present scheme had done. He did say that the Co’onial Treasurer, despite his faults, deserved the thanks of every man in tlie Province and Colony.— (’Applause.) It was perfectly well known .that, for the last four or five years, Mr Stafford and Mr Fitzherbort in their speeches in the Assembly had phyays indicated the necessity for something of the sort. Mr Stafford, at Tlmaru, some mouths before the Assembly met, and when he epuljl not have possibly known what were the intentjous of the present Government, 'indicated that something of the kind was the thing the people of NeW Zealand wanted. And that was' the opinion of- a man who bad twenty years experience off and on in governing New Zealand. Yet liis Govern-ment-although iC members possessed the ability—never had the courage to bring ip a scheme in the direction in which'the present schepm went. It was well known that in the Assembly, while he (Mr Driver) concurred ip tlie main features of the Public Works and Immigration Scheme, he had expressed hjs opinion that there was wanting in it something to make it definite and practicable ju its administration. He felt that ip had been drawn up in all fairness, but there was something in it, which, to his mind as a business man, made it dangerous, unless alterations were made. He referred to the manner in which the loans were to he administered. At first there was not the proposal now made for the establishment

of a Board of Works. He thought it would be an exceedingly dangerous thing to place the uncontrolled expenditure of so large a sum in the hands of any Government, however much he might believe in their integrity and honesty. As it was it was capable of being scrambled for, and would lead to corruption and jobberies, which no Government. however good their intentions, could avoid being parties to. Unless the Middle Island was, true to itself aud voted as one man, or something definite in the way of administration was introduced into the Bill, the scheme would be damaging to the best interests of the Colony ; because it would be just flinging four millions of money on to the floor of the House to be scrambled for. The real question to be discussed by the electors was, “ Do or do we not want .public works to be formed.” He believed certain candidates for seats in the Assembly would tell the electors they would pledge themselves to. get this, that, and the other thing for Otago; but he believed the only proper way to, secure to this and the other Provinces its fair share of the loan, would be to appoint as a Board of Works men who were above suspicion aud who had no political connection whatever, whoso duty it should be to enquire into every public work proposed to be done under the Act, to produce before the Assembly statistics, and make investigations during the recess to show the House the reasons why the lines should be formed, and their cost. By this means the money would he spent in the proper places, and a stop put to members catching votes in favor of a pet subject by promising other members to vote for motions they brought forward, A very dangerous and strong attempt of the latter kind was made in the Assembly last session. Mr Bunny, member for Wairarapa, brought forward, aud for alongtime electioneered in every possible way to get carried, a motion to get placed in the schedule for absolute appropriation the building of a railway from Wellington to Seventy-Mile Bush, diverging thence to the East aud West Coasts of the North Island—involving an expenditure of one and a-half millions. He went to such an extent as to threaten, if he did not get his motion carried, he would endeavor to prevent the construction of the Clutha, Canterbury, and Nelson and Cobden lines: and soclosewas the division that the Government only defeated Mr Bunny’s proposal by three votes. Amongst the minority wa* one of the members for Otago—Mr j. 0. Brown—who pretended to be such a very strong opponent of this very scheme. He was a sample of the men who were endeavoring to take .a prominent part in leading the minds of the people in regard to this very scheme. He had been pitchforked into a seat in the Provincial Council and General Assembly ; and it would be seen, when he went to the latter place he voted against every railroad proposed by the Government to be 'constructed in the South, and yet voted for the spending of one and a-half millions in the North. As his name had been mentioned by Mr Reid in his address at the Government Buildings in connection with his (Mr Driver’s) speech at the Water of Leith upon this question, he might he pardoned for referring to it. He thougln no sue present had heard him state, either publicly or privately, other than that he believed in the scheme as a whole. But he believed it to be capable of large amendments—indeed, it was necessary that these alterations should be made to make it a scheme that could be worked for a series of years, and yet do no injustice to any part of the Colony. He had been reported in the papers—he never noticed the statement himself and the passage was capable of being misconstrued-—that after an unseemly scramble over the scheme, Otago had came out with only the Clutha Railway. H,e did not blame the reportei s, but he must remark that the reports published differed as widely as they possibly could. What he meant to say was this : while lie agreed in the scheme,’ there would continue to be a great amount of log-rolling carried on unless some amendments were made in it. And in stating L 250,000, he by no means said that QtagoTiad got anything like its share of the appropriations. There were people who when they wanted to put their own construction on words, selected an isolated passage, and omitted to read what followed. He repeated that without material alterations were made, and men were sent up to ttye Assembly who believed that the Act was capable of being 'made a good Act, and determined to so make it, there would be a continuance of these unfortunate scrambles, and Otago might not get so fair a share as it had got. Referring to the Provincial Council, he did not wish to say anything derogatory, seeing that he had been a member of it; but he thought it must be patent to every man in the room that the system upon which the public affairs of the Province bad been carried on during the last few sessions had been a disgrace to the community.— (Loud applause.) I be scenes, row’s, and wrangles that had taken place were disgraceful in the extreme. The position had been like this.:—The Provincial Government, supported by a bare majority of one, and at times scarcely by that, had hold of one end of the rope and the Superintendent the other end, whilst the electors with the noose around their necks were literally squeezed to death.—(Laifgb'ter and applause.) While this had been going on the country had been going back—no public works bad been gone on with—and the people found the Province in its present state of stagnation. Ho hoped the next Provincial Council would be something better. Things had come to this—lf the Assembly passed anything distasteful, or a measure which took anything out of their administrative hands, the present holders of the Executive office said it must be bad ; and however good the measu e might be to the community at large, it was condemned. Huiphicds of pounds were spent in the consideration qf messages and ipaftcjrs ip which the electors felt litfle or no interest; audit they asked’themselves what had been dope in the way of legislation, they oould scarcely mention anything that had been accomplished during the last two years which could be said to be of importance to the electors. Recently, in fact, the Provincial Council seemed to have been converted into a species of the bear garden, where persons wore educated to malign theirjj neighbors and those holding different Views to what they held themselves. He could f’ge meeting that often when lie had asked w r hen going to Council, where-he was going to, he had felt ashamed to say. What bad been the position of the Province during this time Y no progress had been made'; the Government had eked put a miserable existence : not a shilling vac spent unless it was 'asked for by a supporter of the Government. The state of things which now existed was not conducive to the welfare of the Province—an Executive was wanted, prepared to stand by some platform, even if they did harm, but who would do good, if they could work in

harmony with the Executive head. It was no business of his whether any gentleman present disagreed with the policy of the Superintendent, but however much they might be opposed to him, they, must have felt indignant at the manner in which his messages were treated in the Provincial Council; the messages of a gentleman who had been returned as Superintendent by the electors were left upon the floor of the House, and the Superintendent was insulted night after night. Instead of the Govern* meat guiding opinion in the Council, it contented itself by watching the unseemly wrangles that went on. All, in fact, they seemed to care about was keeping their seats. Let the electors carry their recollection back to three years ago, when the present Provincial Secretary held office for one or two days. During that time he made a financial statement, or rather an exposition of the policy of the Government which would be carried out under his administration. In consequence of the speeches which were then made the Government was nicknamed “ The do* nothing, know-nothing Government,” their policy being not to. spend money on any works. Upon that question, however, the Government in two days were turned out of office. When the present Colonial Treasurer resigned office in the Provincial Council, the gentleman who now occupied the posi* tion of Provincial Secretary was called to office. In making these few introductory remarks, he was simply leading the meeting up to another point. Mow, in the first place, it was impossible for a leopard to change his skin ; when men’s minds had been drifting for a long period in a certain groove, it became almost next to an impossibility for them to embrace anything novel in the way of progress, whether good or bad. With them all real progress was a mistake. He asked the electors to say if in any one direction the Government had moved during the last two yeais towards opening up tie country, there had been no public works, save the Port Chalmers Railway ; and even it was scarcely an honorable exception in their favor, because, being almost ousted from office, the Executive had been forced into making a contract—a contract which ho believed every man of intelligence would have felt it a disgrace to be a party to. But the line had been initiated, and they must make the best of it. The only other matter which the Provincial Government appeared to have taken any interest in was the settlement of Martin’s Bay; that had always seemed to him to be a most insane underta’ ing. On the one hand there was plenty of laud here, and we wanted people with some means to occupy it. Now it was certainly no use people going to Martin’s Bay unless they had means, for they might as well starve here as there. But this appeared to him to be the ridiculous part of the trails* action: the Provincial Government, although they had plenty of waste lands here to dispose of, undertook to send people to Martin’s Bay, and then refused to subsidise or hold any communication with them, but left them to the will of chance. Referring once more to the immigration and public works scheme, he might say that it took him and others by surprise when the present Provincial Government last session tabled resolutions, at first very strong in opposition to the scheme, in every direction, and particularly so when the Provincial .Secretary afterwards admitted that he had scarcely had time to read through the entire Acts. It was afterwards found necessary to put up some unfortunate country member t) propose an amendment, which vas eventually softened down into !{ meaningless resolution, wliipfi had since lorn bandied about the conn, try. That resolution was to the effect—that the Council did not wholly object to the scheme; but that however good it might be—however much the people of this Province wanted public works, and money spent within their midst—they would not accept assistance from the General Government, 'J he fact was, they would rather have an electioneering scramble over it. Now the question the electors had to consider was this : Did they require public works or did they not? The real question at issue was not whether the Provincial Government of Otago should cany out these works—it was simply whether the electors would or would not have pubi c works constructed —whctlu r they would let the General Government construct them or whether they would not. He thought the electors would not hesitate rs to hqw they pijgljt to decide when they recollected the abortive attempts which had made to construct various works, and he referred the meeting particularly to the conduct of the Provincial Government in cor. nection with the Clutha Railway. Although they offered eight per cent, guarantee, and passed seven or eight Ordinances, they had tried in vain to get anybody to take up the railway even on a guarantee of eight per cent. ’ If the electors would take the trouble to read some of the debates which took place in the Provincial Council they would find that the Government were charged, and fairly so, and without contradiction, with having no desire to carry out the work. Tluy had received offers which, had the Government been anxious to «« the work, were to his mind very much in the direction of having the work done ; bup they diit not accept them 1 . And yet the Provincial Secretary—the gentleman who now sought to be elected as Superintendent—wanted to make the electors believe that he was a progessionist, and that he (Mr Driver) and those with whom he worked were obstructionists. Were the electors going to believe this? Was it to be said that the Provincial Government must construct our railways and no one else Were they going to stand by and allow the present state of affairs to go on? He did not believe for one moment they sanctioned such things. Numerous offers to construct' the railway were made, and it ff'as niffy duping the last few days of tfie session that the Provincial Secretary, when asked a question, got up an 1 said he Ipid got an offer in his pocket which would be undertaken in a very few days. He (Mr Driver) heard negotiations were still going on for the construction of the line, but he did not believe the Government were sincere in their desire to see the line made. If there had been willing men at the head of affairs, bo bel oved that miles of the Clutha Railway would now have been made. —(Applause.)' He said this because hb knew that offers Ijipl been made which would have started the line on hs economical terms as the Provincial Government could have been expected. As Mr Reid in his speech had referred to him (Mr Driver), he felt bound to notice it. That speech contained no single 'thing new ju regard to t]le Provincial scheme ; it was simply a specieb of supposition, if Vqfc prevarication, cautidiisly and carefully prepared from beginning to epd, concerning thy'meaning ftffd tepms qf the Tmmigratio * and Public Works Act, with an attack uj»on the unfortunate man wffo

had the ccm rage as well as the ability to bring it forward. There were many parts of the speech which he could show were entirely opposed to facts. Mr Reid had stated that he was not opposed to the principles of the scheme ; indeed, he went so far as to say that he looked upon them somewhat favorably. But now and again he appeared to have made most inconsistent jumps, and finally condemned those persons who had voted for the Bill ami the appropriations under it. He believed Air Beid stated that the members of the Assembly had voted three millions and a half of money to be expended in the North Island, and about one and a half millions in the Middle Island. He, however, thought he could Mr Reid’s remarks. They were tlrse:— “He would enumerate the amounts which would require to be expended in each Island if these railways were constructed. i-iorth Island—.l9s mile 3 , LI,930,(100; Defence,' laud purchase, and roads, I 1,500,000, making a total for the North Island of L 3,430,000. In the Middle Island L 001,500 ; special vote for railways, L 400.000; Provincial charges, LIOO,OOO, making a total of L 1,401,500, or an expenditure of nearly L 3 in the Island to LI in the Middle Island.” Now that was an assertion which, if made by any man upon oath in a court of law, would have caused him to be immediately indicted for perjury. But he supposed that as it was a generally expn ssed opinion that all was fair in love, polities, or war, they must not look upon it in a fight more serious than other statements made upon a political platform were generally regarded. Therefore, he presumed that if, under the circumstances, Mr Reid could manage to gull any portion of the electors he would be held excusable. But he would show the meeting how wrong some of Mr Reid’s statements were. If the meeting would bear with him (Mr Driver) for a few moments, be would show that if any gentleman would take the trouble to look at the Railway Act, now to he found in almost every office in Dunedin, he would liud that there were three schedules in it: one related to the building of railways upon guarantees ; the second related to their construction by means of absolute appropriation; and the third authorised the Governor to survey certain lin sof railway. Out of the 395 miles of railway that it was said were to be constructed in the North Island was the very one he had already referred to, that from Wellington to the Seventy-mile Bush, and thence to the East and West Coast, about 195 miles in length, which was placed in the third schedule of the Act; and in that schedule was provided that the Governor might, if he thought fit, cause that line to he surveyed during the recess. Now, Air Beid wished it to be understood, if he did not actually assert that .it was so, that the money for the construction of this line had been absolutely appropriated under the Act. If ho did not say so in as many words, that was the only inference to be drawn from bis remarks. He (Air Driver) said Mr Reid’s statement was contrary to fact, and he thought Air Reynolds would bear him out in that a aertion. (Mr Reynolds : Hear.) There were only some three or four lines which could be actually constructed; in respect of the rest, the Act said the railways mi 1I hf pOKKihly he xiirrei/ed, But he wanted to show to the meeting the exact appropriations in figures as lie had taken them down. First, the Acts in connection with public works and immigration, authorised money to be borrowed for the following purposes Railways, as might fruin time to time he determined uunn by the Assembly, L 2,000,000 ; Immigration. LI,000,(ICO; construction of roa'ls, including advances for same purpose inide from Consolidated Fund, L4()0,()00 ; tvater works, 1.300,000 ; purchase of land, North Island, L 200.000 ; telegraph extension, LG0,000; unappropriated, L 40.000 : thus making a total of L4,000,110Q. The following jtems oarac under the head of “ Defences ami other purposes ” i - Defence for five years, L 790.00); redemption of Treasury Bills, L 37,000; on account cf Province of Auckland, L 50.000 ; on account of Taranaki, L 6.000; on account of Wellington (Wanganui Bridge), L 17.000 ; on account of Otago, L 100.090, that included LqOiQQU for houthhnd’s debts, and L 50,000 in respect of Otago Trust Bonds, which would save the Province LI, 200aanually,making atotal of L 1,009,000. The following statement showed the rai’ways which were absolutely authorised, and the Government had not tjie po\yer (q others :—Auckland to Waikato—about 40 miles at 5.1 per cent., at L 4,000 per mile, guarantee only ; Blenheim to Piston, upoiit 20 miles, at f»i per cent., at L3,soo guarantee only ; Dunedin to (Jluthi, about 52 miles, at 5‘ per cent., or by guarantee or borrowed money, 15,000 ; for Canterbury Province, a total cost out of borrowed money, L 207,000. He stated—and he asked the meeting to believe him, and if they afterwards found his statement to he incorrect, not to believe anything he had said—that that 40 miles of railway from Auckland to Waitaki was the uni;/ line. out of the. 395 »idex proposed to I»' eon A meted, ill ih t/, a t wok aio'noriKfd loi the Axxenihl;/ to he eonxf meted. He stateddistiurfcjy t]iat thqt was the only railway in the North which, at this moment, the Government could possibly construct under the Public AVorks Act of last session. He had no doubt that in that assertion he would he bourne out by Mr Reynolds. (Mr Reynolds, “ Hear.”) Then, under the second schedule of the Act, appropriations were made of L 207.000 to finish certain _lines in the Province of Canterbury, and L 35,009 for the Waitaki Bridge. He stated these as positive facts, and defied anyone to prove that there was any other line in _ the North (ban the Waikato railway authorised to be constructed. By these figures it would he seen that only 40 miles of railway were authorised in the North Island at a cost of LI (50 000, as against about 150 miles in the Middle Island a( a cost 'of L52.7,0.()0, [We are compelled to break off our report at this point. The remainder of Air Driver s speech, together with that delivered by Air Reynolds, will appear in our next.]

MR MACASSEY AT THE IMPERIAL. Mr Maeassey addressed a very wel} attended'meeting at the fygjjeriid Hotel last evening. Mr E. B. Cargill being in the chair. A "resolution proposed by Mr Watson, and seconded by Mr S. Slesiuger, that Mr M aeassey was a lit and proper person to represent the City in the 'Assembly, wag carried by acclamation. MR BATH! iATE AT THE MAHON IC HA^, Ml l Bathgate addressed the electors at the Masonic Hall last evening as a candidate for tho representative of the City in the General Assembly. The room was well tilled, and he

spoke at some length. At the close, what may be considered a unanimous vote, was passed, approving of him as a candidate — only two hands, those of Mr Grant and another, being held up against him. We are obliged to postpone the report of his speech till Alonday.