CITY ELECTION.

Evening Star, Issue 3153, 28 March 1873, Page 2

CITY ELECTION.

MR REEVES AT THE MASONIC HALL. The third of the candidates for the seat rendered vacant by Mr Cargill’s resignation —Mr G. S. Reeves—addressed the electors at the Masonic Hall last night. Mr Rossbotham occupied the chair. Mr. Reeves said he appeared before the electors under a very great disadvantage, because on the two previous evenings they had listened to two gentlemen who were known to be public speakers, one of whom, especially, could always command greater audiences than any other man in the City. He bespoke the indulgence of his audience on account of his youth in public speaking, and hoped when be had spoken half-a-dozen times more to be better able to express Ills views. .A.t tlie last general election, when there was a score of candidate*, he was defeated, but polled nearly 400 votes, aud several of his fellowcitizens having intimated a wish that he should come forward on this occasion, it could not be said that he was presumptuous in doing so. He did not intend to detain them with a long speech ; what he would say would be to the purpose, and what he did profess in the shape of ideas would be practical. It was very difficult, indeed, at the present tim*, when there was no great subject before the constituency, to manufacture a speech, and the difficulty was greater still for him to make one after the two gentlemen who had gone before him, seeing that, to a certain extent, his policy was their policy. Before he entered upon a statement of his views, he wished to make a remark or two concerning what fell from the proposer of Mr Fish on the hustings. He regretted that he should feel himself called upon to make any remarks at all of a personal character. Mr Barnes came forward on that occasion, and said that one of the two persons who were oppos ng Mr Fish was a high-minded man, while the other was an old woman. For himself, he had to say that he believed that he was as high-minded a man as Mr Fish or Mr Barnes himself. As for Mr Prosser, he (Mr Reeves) knew him to be high-minded. Then as neither Mr Prosser nor himself was the old woman, the question was, who was she ? How long since was it that Mr Barnes, at a public meeting in the Octagon, condemned M r Fish ? (Applause.) What were the characteristics of old women ? They changed their minds : turned round with every change of the wind : they fell out one day, and made it up the next. He took it then to be the case that Mr Barnes was the old woman ; and when he came on the hustings to propose Mr Fish, after having a row with him, he (Mr R.) was astonished, and there at once passed through his mind the remark made by one old woman to another old woman. Mrs Sairey Gamp and Mrs Harris quarrelled, but made up thtir differences over a cup of tea, one day. Mrs Harris said, “ Sairey, you was born to be a benefactor to your sex, and bring them safe over it.” It w as to be borne in mind that Mr Barnes had declared himself some time ago that he would offer himself for Mayor some day ; and that they had Mr Fish declaring, in his first address, that, if elected to the Provincial Council, he would not stand aga : n for Mayor, leaving it to be inferred that, if he were not elected, he would stand for Mayor. (A Voice: No.) The electors could think for themselves what had caused such a wonderful reconciliation between Mr Fish and Mr Barnes ; he left it to them whether there was not some understanding between Mr Fish and Mr Barnes about the Mayoral chair. (A voice; No.) He regretted exceedingly that he was compelled to mention any matter of a personal kind. Personalities were despicable in politics; and, as he said at the hustings, he considered that a cause, -which depended for success on personalities and recrimination, was a poor one indeed. But his cause was not a poor one. He had been ten years in the country, had a large stake in it, and therefore he repeated that he did not think it presumption on his part to come forward and ask the electors for their confidence. He would state, briefly, his political views. There was one thing that must strike every man, viz., that there were too many governments in New Zealand. The fact was New Zealand was one of the most over-governed countries in the world. They had General Government Acts, Provincial Council Ordinances, aud if they went a little farther in the process of ramification, they had municipal ordinances. To show how one ordinance clashed with the other, he referred to existing measures relating to municipalities. There was a General Government Municipal Act, under which the Municipal Council elected the Mayor; and a Provincial Ordinance, unier which the Mayor was elected by the citizens. Thus there were two sets of ordinances for one purpose. He mentioned this difficulty of distinguishing between General and Provincial Governments for the purpose of remarking that it was the same ju regard to politics, thus Cplonial politics must necessarily have great power for good or evil on the Provinces. Because of the number of Colonial Acts and Provinial Ordinances, and the consequent mixture of laws, it was difficult to separate one class from the other; and this extraordinary difficulty suggested the desirability of a codification of the laws. Codification meant bringing tlie laws into such a settled form that any man in the country could understand them. It had been carried out in India, where it was foupd to answer remarkably well. It was now being agitated in Victoria, and, if carried out here, would have a beneficial effect on the people of the Province, in m iking them acquainted with the laws. He would give an instance : Mr Fitzjamea Stephen, who had recently returned to England from India, where he filled the office of legal member of the Indian Council, had called attention to the process of codification of the law which had for some years been going on in India; and in an address at the opening of the English Law Amendment Society, he gave a most interesting account of the history of the recept legislative change? Ip India. Said Mr Stephen — Codification is a new experience to the English lawyer, to see how easy these matters are when they are stripped of mystery. I once had occa : sion to consult a military officer upon certain matters connected with habitual criminals. |He was a man whose life was passed in the saddle, and who hunted down Thugs and Dacoits as if they were game. Upon some remark which I made, ho pulled out of his pocket a little code of criminal procedure, bound like a memorandum book, turned up the precise section which related to the matter in hand, and pointed out the way in which it worked, with perfect precision. The only thing which prevents British people from seeing that law is really one of the most interesting and instructive studies in the world, is that English lawyers have thrown it into a shape which can only be described as studiously repulsive. If wo had codification here, we should understand the laws better. In America, men carried the laws of the country in a small book. When a man there wanted to buy laud, out came this little book, which contained all information about the land laws; here we had such an immense number of laws that a man did not know what he was doing. As to the Provincial Council, he certainly said that the Council, as at present constituted, had more members than were required. Of the 46 members, Dunedin itself returned seven, but if other portions of the Province reduced the number of their membeis, he thought the City could get on very well with three or four members. Then again, the Council aped Parliamentary forms too much. If the Superintendent was chairman, and managed the business like that of a municipal corporation, the work could be carried on at very much less expense, because, after all, it was the heads of depart*

ments who did the work of government. The gentlemen forming the Executive had very little to do, beyond attending for an hour or two a-day in the Government offices. As to the land question, it Lad been a stand ing topic for all political speeches for many years past. On the first of the present year our new Land Act came into force, and by it there was every encouragement given to people to settle on the land. It provided that land could be purchased on deferred payments ; and 30,000 acres could be thrown open for selection in any one year. He hoped it would be so successful that before long we should be able to throw open at least 100,000 acres. It was, therefo'e, to be considered that the land question was virtually settled. Be would like to see the Act administered as liberally as possible; because there was nothing like settling people on the land, A great deal had been said about railways. It was one of those questions that might he talked upon for hours. There was no doubt that cheap railways were a great benefit, because they brought the interior of the country down to the seaport, as it were, and more especially when they calculated the innumerable ways in which money was saved by railways which did not appear under the ordinary profit and loss account. For instance : if a person was going from Dunedin to Invercargill, the journey at the present time would occupy him four or five days; if we had a railway, one could travel to Invercargill and back probably in one day, and at less expense than at present. Yet this saving of time would not appear in the profit and loss account of the railway. It was a well known principle in political economy that a saying to the individual was a saving to the nation. Then, again, take our coalfields ; we had excellent coalfields in the Province, Shag Point coal, for ordinary house and steam purposes, was nearly equal to Newcastle. If there was a railway from Shag Point to Dunedin, we could get coal delivered here at half the rate we now paid for Newcastle. Everyone wanted coal; with a railway people could get it for half what was now paid ; yet that saving to the people would not appear in the profit and loss account of the railway. Then, again, railways would help farmers by carrying their cattle. Cattle, if driven any considerable distance, lost not only their weight but quality, and railways would enable the people to get better and cheaper meat; yet that gain would not appear in the profit and loss account of the railways. Any one opposed to railways was, in his opinion, opposed to one of the greatest civilisers of the age. (Applause.) Now, it had been said that we should lose a great portion of our trade if we did not push on the railways along the coast. In his opinion, what should be done was to use every exertion to have the railways carried on to the goldfields and the interior. They should be carded to the Dunstan, and then we should get the whole of the Lake trade—it could not then possibly go to Invercargill—besides opening up a magnificent tract of country, which was at present (..Town land. It would then become available for settlement, and would make farms where now were only sheep walks. Railways benefited the agriculturist, because they furnished with a cheap means of sending his grain to the port for shipment. Indeed, the benefits of railways were not easily calculated. He would be in favor of the Government engaging the services of a first-class mining engineer or inspector—a man who thoroughly understood the process through which quartz went to extract gold, and who would be able to give proper instructions as to the way the quartz should be manipulated. He (Mr Reeves) was connected with a number of mining companies in the Province, and could see the great want of knowledge on the part of mining managers in the country. If we had a man on whom we could rely, by sending.him to try a certain quantity of stone put through the batteries, it would be manipulated as it should be, and would cause confidence among business people here who had money to invest, in developing the resources of the country, and in encouraging mining enterprise. He, therefore, thought it would be well to engage the services of such a man. It could be arranged that companies requiring his services should pay a small fee, which would, he believed, recoup the Government for his salary. The meeting understood that it had been lately mooted to have a harbor trust appointed here. In his opinion it was late now for such a thing to be done. It should have been done tep or twelve years ago; now it was absolutely necessary. Had it been appointed ten or twelve years ago, it could have availed itself of scientific information, supplied by men who were now lost to the Province : he alluded more particularly to the late Mr Balfour, whose plan embraced a dock at Dunedin, and the deepening of the chaunel, by which not only could we have the inter colonial steamers come up to town, but large vessels also. But there seemed to have always been an objection to having the channel between Dunedin and Port Chalmers properly dredged. The dredge at present at work was hardly worth calling a dredge. At Newcastle-on-Tyne and on the ( lyde were dredges that would lift more stuff in a week than ours would in two months. What was wanted was one of those powerful dredges that would steadily eat its way up to Dunedin; then we should have a deep water channel. A harbor trust was therefore absolutely necessary, but it should be free from Government interference. It was proposed to endow it with land, the wharfage dues might be given to it as a source of income, and it would no doubt be of very great service to the Province. There was another matter which he wished to mention. It was not exactly a question {or the Provincial Government: it was more one for the General Government. He alluded tp the Board of Health. It consisted of the Superintendent, Executive Council, and three members appointed by the Governor. At present the three members selected were the Collector of Customs, the Mayor, and Dr Burns, who was a member, but having resigned, was succeeded by Professor M‘Gregor. In his opinion there should be more medical superintendence on that Board ; for the health question not only affected themselves, but their families and the inhabitants of the Province. If by chance disease should be imported, as was likely, by the Charlotte Gladstone, which was admitted to pratique against the wish of the medical member of the Board, tl*e consequeucea might be disastrous. He thought, therefore, the members appointed by the Governor should be medical men. With regard to education, he considered the correct system was that it should be secular, compulsory, and free. It was well known that it was easier and cheaper to govern a well-educated than an ignorant community, and therefore money spent on education was well spent. He would also be in favor of what were termed halftime schools : by which he meant that if ten or fifteen children were in one part of a district, and ten or fifteen in another, five or six miles apart, instead of the children walking distance daily tp go to the school, the sphoolmaster should devote half his time to each portion in turn. There was such a provision in the Victorian Act, and he thought it would work well in Otago, He considered also that night schools would be necessary, for as manufactures were established, many youth of both sexes would be so engaged during the day, that unless they had opportunity of acquhing knowledge at night they would grow up ignorant. With regard to toll-gates, he looked upon them as vestiges of barbarism. He would not only have them removed three miles from town, but would have them abolished. The difficulty was to do without the revenue, and if one source was abolished, it would be necessary to supply it by some other tax. He thought a tax on shod horses and vehicles would be more satisfactory than toll from gates, © far as Dunedin was concerned, the inhabitants paid the tolls indirectly in the prices paid for vegetables, milk, and firewood, although the direct tolls were paid by

market gardeners, milkmen, and wood carters. With regard to the Public Works and Immigration Act, upon which our prosperity depended, there was no doubt that it was the first beginning of a national debt. He himself was perfectly satisfied on that point, and he was free to acknowledge and recognise it. He did so with pleasure, although in saying so he was opposed to many, who thought that the old stylo of bullock drays and waggons was fast enough. But in these times there must be advance, especially in a young country, otherwise it would go backwards. The national debt had been commenced —that was really what was meant by the loan. Possibly in ten years it would amount to twenty millions ; nor should he be sorry. The colonists had come to a new country and found it a wilderness. There was no track through it; roads and bridges had been made, and we were now making railroads, Townships, villages, and cities had been built, and was it reasonable that all that should lie upon the shoulders of the present generation ? For his part, he thought as posterity would enjoy the fruit of our labors, posterity should help us. To argue otherwise was absurd. A magnificent estate would be transmitted to posterity, and it was only reasonable they should pay something towards its improvement. (Cheers.) Comparing the present indebtedness of the Colony with what it was ten years ago, he had no hesitation in saying that the Province of Otago was better able to pay the whole debt of New Zealand, than New Zealand was to pay its debt ten years ago. And so it would be in another ten years. It was not to be wondered at that our Donald Reids, Master Humphreys, Sir David Monros, Mr Staffords, and people like them could not see how the community was benefited by the outlay, when some of the greatest men of past ages held similar opinions upon the first founding of the national debt of England, We were but a pigmy by the side of the old country—Great Britain—but what applied to it applied to us. There would be no question that when the national debt of England was first begun, David Hume and Adam Smith, men who were philosophers and statesmen, wrote works and articles to prove that as soon as England contracted a debt amounting to L 20,000,006, she could never rise again ; that in fact it would be better to be conquered by another nation than be L 20,000,000 in debt. The late Lord Macaulay alluded to that in fine language. He said ;

Such was the origin of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that over perplexed the sagacity, and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair . At every stage in the growth of that debt, it has been seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing, and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever. And that debt was considered not merely by the rude multitudes, not merely by fox-hunting squires and coffee - house orators, but by acute and profound thinkers as an incumbrance, which would permanently cripple the body politic. Nevertheless, trade flourished; wealth increased ; the nation became richer and richer. , . . Men of theory and men of business almost unanimously pronounced that the fatal day had now nearly arrived. David Hume, undoubtedly one of the most profound economists of his time, declared that our madness had exceeded the madness of the Crusaders. . . . And yet this great philosopher-- for such ho was—had only to open his eyes to see improvement all around him —cities increasing, cultivation extending, marts too small for the crowd of buyers and sellers, harbors insufficient to contain the shipping, artificial rivers joining the chief inland seats of industry to the chief seaports, streets better lighted, houses better furnished, richer wares exposed to sale in statelier shops, swifter carriages rolling along smoother roads. ... It was in truth a gigantic, a fabulous debt, and we can hardly wonder that the cry of despair should have been louder than ever. But again that cry was found to have been as unreasonable as ever. . . . The

beggared, the bankrupt society not only proved able to meet its obligations, but while meeting those cVbliya-tions grew richer jvtkl richer so fast, that the growth could almost be discerned by the eye. In every county we saw wastes recently turned into gardens. In every city we saw new streets and squares and markets, more brilliant lamps, more abundant supplies of water. In the suburbs of every great seat of industry we saw villas multiplying fast, each embosomed in its own gay little paradise of lilacs and roses. While shallow politicians were repeating that the energies of the people were borne down by the weight of the public burdens, the first journey was performed by steam on a railway. Could they see no growth in Otago ? (Voice : “Yes ”) Look back two years, and say if so much had been done in two years, what would he the growth in ten years. Why, in another ten years probably Dunedin would have one hundred thousand inhabitants. This was what our statesmen like Sir David Monro, Mr Stafford, and others amongst us who were generally crying the Colony down, should read and think over :

It can hardly be doubted that there must have been some great fallacy in the notions of those who uttered and of those who believed that long succession of confident predictions, so signally falsified by a long succession of indisputable facts. . . . They were under an error not less serious touching the resources of the country. They made no allowance for the effect produced by the incessant progress of every experimental science, and by the incessant efforts of every man to get on in life. They saw that the debt grew; and they forgot that other things grew as well as the debt. Of all his contemporaries, Burke alone was superior to the vulgar error in which men so eminent as Hume and Smith shared. “ For my part,” says Burke, speaking of a work written by Grenville on this subject, “ I can perceive the burden as well as he ; hut I cannot avoid contemplating also the strength that supports it. From thence I draw the most comfortable assurances of the future vigor and the ample resources of this great, misrepresented country.” The debt of the Colony was growing, but the ability to pay it was also growing. A national debt was fast being formed, but he did not think it would involve the Colony in ruin. With regard to the present Executive, he might repeat what he stated on the hustings, that unless it was pointed out clearly to him that they were not fit for their position, he should support them, if elected. Some electioneering clap-trap had been made out of the registration of voters. He found it had gone abroad, and was pretty generally believed by the electors, that if they registeredfthey could vote at the present election. That was a mistake. He had been so often asked as to the qualification of an elector, that, if they had no objection, he would read over the clause in the Constitution Act defining it Every man of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, and being a. natural-horn or naturalised subject of the Queen. 1. Having a freehold estate in possession, situate within the district for which the vote is claimed, of the (dear value of LoO above all charges and incumbrances, and of or to which he has been seised or entitled, either at law or in equity, for at least six calendar months before the 30th April ; or, 2. Having a leasehold estate in possession, situate within such district, of the, edeaq annual value of LlO, held upon a lease which upon 30th April shall have not less than three years to mu, or of which he has been in possession for three years or upwards next before 30th April; or, 3. Being a householder within such district, occupying a tenement, and residing there six calendar months previous to 30th April, if within the limits of Dunedin, of the clear annual value of LlO, and if without the Hunts of Dunedin of the clear annual value of L 5.

No person not on the register would be entitled to vote before next (September, so he trusted they would not be under the impression that they could vote. He could only say, if he had the honor of being elected as their representative, he should do all he could to forward the interests of the City and the Province. He would not always confine his attention to the City, but strive to benefit the Province, for on the prosperity of the Province as a whole, the City depended. Cut off the goldfields and take the agriculturists away, and where would Dunedin he ? It would be as wise to cut the arms and legs off a man, and expect him to thrive, as to expect Dunedin to flourish without them. He would, there* to *

fore do his best for the Province, and, if elected, he would not be a mere talking member, but a working one. He would speak when necessary, but not otherwise. He thanked the meeting for their attention, and trusted they would vote for him. The usual resolution was moved by Mr Evans, seconded by Mr Meenan, and carried n n m. con. On the motion of Mr Reeves, a vote of thanks to the chairman was carried.