POST-SESSIONAL UTTERANCES.

Evening Star, Issue 2876, 8 May 1872, Page 3

POST-SESSIONAL UTTERANCES.

MR MACANDREW AT PORT CHALMERS. We continue our report of the speech of— Mr Macandrew, who said—But, gentlemen, I cannot sav the same thing in regard to the Education Bill, which will here-intro-duced. I hope it will share the same fate as it did last session. You are probably aware that the object of this Education Bill is to transfer the control of public education from the Provinces to the Colony. Now, whatever necessity there may he for this in regard to other Provinces, I must say for myself as your representative, and acting according to the dictates of my judgment that I shall do all I can to prevent any interference with the educational arrangements of this Province. (Applause.) 1 have no objectious—in fact, I should insist upon compelling those districts or Provinces which do not provide adequately for the education of the people—to compelling them by special legislation to make provision for that education, and at their own expense. I think there is just as little reason for Otago being asked to pay for the education of Auckland as to pay for the police of Auckland, or other local Government machinery required by that Province. T believe that nineteen twentieths of the people in this Province are perfectly satisfied with what they have got —in fact, the general complaint I hear is, that bad as it may he, they appear not to have enough of it ; for they are continually asking for more I believe the same thing holds good to some extent in the neighboring Provinces of elson and Canterbury. If that be so, why interfere with us at all ? Why not allow our Provincial Council, which certainly has in times past invariably done its duty in regard to education—why not allow the Provincial Council to manage this matter hereafter as it has done heretofore. (Applause.) To my mind it is as clear as the sun that d we alter our national unsectariau system in favor of a denominational system, the result will be that we will have no education at all—or, if we have any, it will be a miserable, shrivelled-up abortion. It is all we can do now to provide for tlie schools we have and are likely to have within the next twelve or eighteen months. It is all the Province can stagger under now to provide for the 150 schools which will be in the Province within the next twelve months; and if these are to be multiplied by ev< ry religious denomination in the community, I think it requires no great mathematical knowledge to arrive at a definite result ho doubt in the large centres of population it might be possible to carry on the denominational system of education, but throughout the country, where there are thin and sparse populations, there will, in reality, be no education worthy of the name. We read now a-days and hear a good deal about secular education. I should like to know what that means. Does it mean the exclusion from our public schools of all reference to the Great Creator, the God “in whom we live, and move, and have our being ” ? Does it mean the exclusion of all reference to a future state, and of all reference to a world beyond the grave ? If this is what is meant, then, I say, perish all secular education ! (Great applause.) Gentlemen, I believe it means the exclusion from our public schools of that ancient, venerable, and true book, the Bible—the book which, translated into our mother tongue, has been the bulwark, the palladium of civil and religious liberty, and the foundation-stone, so to speak, of modern civilisation. 1 believe upon nothing else has the glory of the British Empire and the greatness of the Anglo-Saxon race so much depended.—(Denewen applause.) Yet we are called upon to deny to our children the right of using that book as a lessonbook. We may allow our children to read the hi ; tory of the Carthagenians. the Greeks, the Romans, to read the early history of Mahomm danism, Pagani-m, and all the other isms, but they are not to read anything of the early history of the Jews—the most interesting race upon the face of the earth—or of the early history of Christianity. To my mind there is nothing so utterly preposterous. But there is uo objection, say the secularists, to their using as class books the works of Demosthenes, of Virgil, of Socrates, Homer, and of Shakespeare, hut by no means must we permit the writings of Moses, of David, of Solomon, ©f Isaiah, and of Paul, and of that great teacher himself, Jesus Christ. I really have no patience in thinking about it. Am I to be told that my children are to be taught in the common

schools to read all about the mythological deities of antiquity, and are not to read anything about the one only living and true God ? Where will you get sublimer poetry, or anything better as regards ethics and morals, than in the Bible? And yet these things are to be kept from us ! Really, it almost makes one exclaim—- “ Oh, judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.” —(Great applause.) It is said that we are on the eve of great constitutional changes ; that measures will be brought forward next year by which our Constitution will be altogether re-modelled and re-cast. Well, gentlemen, if the General Assembly would act upon my opinion, they would leave constitutional changes alone for the present; they would content themselves with voting supplies for the necessary public expenditure, and give breath ng time to the people, and the Executive Government of the Colony to do something practical. The curse of this country has been over-legisla-tion. In tho whole history of humanity I do not suppose there has been anything like it. Why a'most every second man you meet is engaged in some shape or other in governing his neighbor.- (Applause and laughter.) My idea is that we should have a session or two without any legislation at all, confining ourselves to dealing with the money at our di-posal. If there is one thing more than another for which the Stafford, Richmond, and Mono party were to blame, and if there is one thing which more than another has retarded the progress of the Colony, it has been the constant tinkering with the Constitution during the past twelve or thirteen years. If we are to have any constitutional changes at all, I should recommend that we go back to the original Constitution, and endeavor to carry it out in its integrity. I think I have had occasion to give utterance to that opinion before now in this hall. The real Constitution has never had a fair chance, and I believe had the original i roviuces been left to themselves and allowed to work out their own destiny, we should never have heard of a Maori war, and we should have been saved at least five millions of useless and unproductive expenditure. The General Assembly, to my mind, has been a curse to the Colony. A great many people seem to regard the Assembly as a wonderful body. When anything goes wrong—when the Provincial Council does not do everything that it is wanted to do—people rush into the arms of the Assembly. Depend upon it, “ distance lends enchantment to the view.” I am sorry that it was not arranged that the next session of the A ssembly should be held in Dunedin; had that been the case, no doubt the Provincial Council, had as it is, would have stood higher in your estimation than it really does—(Applause and laughter.) My idea is, that if we went back to the original constitution, the Assembly would meet for a Aveek—a f®rtuight at the outside —once in every two or three years, and confine itself to the thirteen federal subjects assigned to it by the Constitution, instead of meeting for three or four months in every year and endeavouring to carry on the parish business of the country. That is what it is aiming at, and that it cannot accomplish, and is making a mull of it: and, if the p rish business is to be carried on satisfactorily, the Assembly will have to meet six instead of three months in the year, No doubt it will be a very difficult matter to go back to the status ijuo ante. Matters have become complicated s nee ; but notwithstanding those complications, it would be quite impossible to retrace our steps. But assuming that we cannot go back to the platform of the original Constitution, then my idea is we ought to go in for one Province or one Colony for the Middle Island. I submitted a series or resolutions to that effect last session, but as they were opposed by the Government they Avere not carried, although they met witli considerable support. 1 clearly showed that by going in for one Government for the Middle Island a very great saving could bo effected by making alterations in the existing arrangements of Superintendents and Provincial Councils, and other paraphernalia of responsible governments—in fact there would haA r e been a saving Avbicb might have paid for tho construction of a line of railway from Foveaux Strait to Kelson or Cook’s Strait. 1 am told that it is very likely that the direction these changes Avill take will be towards the abolition of the present Provincial system. Ido not think anything practical will be, or can be, carried out in that direction by the Assembly, I believe that the Pnmnces must reform themselves if it is to be done practically, permanently, and satisfactorily. It is a very difficult thing to reform ourselves, but it must be done in this case, Ido not believe in reform from without, Ido not believe in any cast-iron form of Government for this Colony of Kew Zealand, and the reason is obvious. Every Province has been founded ou a different principle, and emanated from a different origin, and therefore I think it Avould be practically impossible to introduce any cast-iron form of Government applicable to them all. They have nothing in common, nothing but that abominable debt incurred by their oavh political indifference, and perhaps that might be arranged. I tabled and successfully carried resolutions in favor of retrenchment in the departmental expenditure of the General Government. There is no doubt that this is the giant which is overcoming us, and which no one seems able to tackle. There is an enormous expenditure going on from one end of the Colony to the other in connection with the General Government Civil Service, I showed clearly hoAV that expenditure could be reduced, namely, by a reduction in salaries, and by an amalgamation of offices, to the extent of L 50,000 per annum. It is a large sum, but I think the country can be governed for L 50.000 a year less than Ave are now paying. I also Avish it to be understood that I did not propose to interfere Avith any official receiving a salary under L4OO per annum. I only proposed to reduce the salaries of those officials Avho are receiving above that amount —of those Avho are receiving from L4OO to L 1750 per annum.—(Applause.) Well, the resolution Avas carried against the Government this time ; but as they could not well interfere with the salaries for the current year, it took the form of enjoining the Government to frame their next year's estimates upon these reductions. I notice that I have considerably exceeded the time which I assigned to myself to address you. It is seldom I make a long speech; and, although there are many things which 1 might dilate upon, I also know that many of you wish to ask me questions. I can only say that I shall be glad to give you any explanations that you may require regarding my conduct as your representative,—(Applause.)