The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1896. LIBERALS DEFINED.

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 116, 14 November 1896, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1896. LIBERALS DEFINED.

The Hon. W. Rolleston who is a candidate for the Riccarton s^at, was very outspoken, according to his wont, in a recent address to the electors. Of Liberalism he said in the old days it was a reality, but it was fast becoming a cant cry ; it was a sham, a delusion, and a snare. There were, he thought, two or three kinds of Liberals at the present time. The great dominant power, Seddonism and "eddonites, formed one class, who followed the Premier, a resolute man, with a great deal of intelligence, ability, and grit, and they followed him implicitly and did what he told them. There was another class, and the House would soon have a large number of them — the Independent Liberals — and they were the worst, for one did not know where to have them. They were an untoward and mischievous factor — intrigue as-you please Liberals. He hoped there would be in the new Parliament a third class of Liberals, and a great many of them whom he called real Liberals, and he was one of them. The country did not want, he said, cant phrases and parrot talk about Conservatism and Liberalism, but required men who would do their duty and not depart from the forma which should guide their constitutional government. He was very severe oc the departure of the Govern rae»£ from the non-borrowing policy the adv6eacy oi which placed them in power. He said " Imposture was not too stroog a

terra to use when talking of Ministers after they had claimed to be a nonborrowing Government, and having the interest of the working classes at heart, and then had been borrowing and heaping up taxation as he had described." We wanted, he declared, no baneful system of paternalism. The true Liberal would fight for individual ' liberty, for equality of opportunity, for r levelling up instead of levelling down, ' and he would fight against State inter- ' ference.for freedom of speech, thought, ' and action.