SIR G. GREY AT DUNEDIN.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1251, 11 March 1878, Page 3

SIR G. GREY AT DUNEDIN.

[By Telegraph ] [from the correspondent of the press ] Dunedin, March 9. The following is a full report of the last port ion of the Premier’s speech at Dunedin, on Friday owning last : —Most of the money spent on your public works has gone to give enormous value to propel ties. It has added to many properties the value of £l, £5, or oven £6 per acre, in some cases more than that, and has made some people suddenly millionaires. Some of these people, who have had their properties made so enormously valuable, and who may live in a club or small lodgings, have not paid more to tho public revenue of tho country than you have extracted from many a little child in New Zealand. [Cheers.] Everyone will agree that a system of taxation of that kind is unfair, and that the real rule should be that every man should contribute to the necessities of the State in exact proportion to the advantages he derives from the State. [Loud applause.] If you allow your present system of taxation to go on, you will be creating a class in New Zealand of enormous wealth, whose wealth has been derived from money taken out of the pockets of their fellow countrymen. On the other hand, you havo already by the present system of taxation created a poor class, and every additional burthen you put on in the same form will render that class poorer. You will create a vast pauper population in this country through no misconduct of their own, through no wrong they have done to society, who will become little better than the serfs of those men whom iou have rendered wealthy, but who have done nothing to deserve it, and who wore perhaps mere speculators; men who have grasped the land lor tho purposes of speculation and for selling it again at an enormous profit. Now you cannot blame men for making fortunes in that way, if you will lei them. (Laughter.) If they had done it honestly, he found no fault with them. Amongst these men wore many of honorable disposition, of great generosity, who had told him, “What you say applies to us. We admit it, and we have no desire to shrink from our fair share of tho burdens of the country. Rest upon us to support you, although you apparently attack us.” Therefore do not condemn persons who had done what was natural, ami many of whom are desirous of retracing their steps, and of seeing the very best done for the country. But nevertheless see that justice is done to the country; see that a fair system of taxation is established. See, for instance, such a thing as this -If a man holds, say fifty or sixty thousand acres for the purpose of speculation, or solely for sheep, and endeavors to prevent men getting thereon say this; Take landed property, such as a man can hold without injuring anybody, put no tax on that; but immediately that amount is passed, put so much per acre on bad land, so much per acre on better land, and so much per acre on the best land. Put; that on annually and these holders of large properties, for the purpose of speculation, would soon get tired of paying amounts of that kind, and would part with their properties to their fellow-men. [Prolonged applause.] Let those who draw large incomes from New Zealand go and live in England, and pay their fair share of the burdens in New Zealand. There was nothing radical in that notion. [Laughter.] All other nations do it, and why should we not do it here ? There was an additional reason why that law should prevail here. We had an enormous landed estate, which they had not got inEngland—a landed estate which every infant in New Zealand had tho same right to as the wealthiest squatter. Well, this land was leased on terms ridiculously small, to a portion of the population, and from which enormous incomes were obtained. Ought not a part of those incomes to go into the pockets of the people of New Zealand 'i But, however, that was not the case. They went into the pockets of individuals, who occupied these large tracts of land with sheep, and many of them lived in England and spent their money there. If people with property in England were forced to pay an income tax, surely then, where the money was taken from our own land, which was not the case in England, there was additional reason why these gentlemen should contribute their fair share to the taxation of the colony. He told them plainly if they did not insist upon a law of this kind, they would create a class rolling in wealth, and a class steeped in poverty, such as never ought to exist in this country, and such as those that founded it never intended should exist here. Therefore he said again let them in the next session of Parliament acquit themselves upon this subject like men, and do their best to get a reform made in this great and pressing question of taxation. “ I said that I should tell you why the system of taxation in this country is such as it is. The reason is, that owing to the right of the franchise being in such few hands, the people who have made the laws and imposed the taxes are tho persons who have benefited by the system of taxation. That is the real fact, and as I have said in other places, you may rely upon it that is the interest of all legislation. If you trust the legislation to any class, I don’t care what class it is, that class will believe that laws which are for their benefit are for tho public good. They are never able to disembarrass their minds of that idea. Mr Gladstone has said that the wealthier a man becomes the more selfish he is, and that as you go down lower and lower in the degrees of wealth you come to loss selfish men and men of more self denial. I do not believe in that myself at all. I think that men are pretty much the same. But what he says exists from another cause. Where you' place in men’s hands the whole power of legislation, they only legislate for their own good. For instance on the subject of land they will make laws under which great and unusual powers are given to the Governor. They will make use of the Governor’s name, and wo hear of Orders in Council, or of the Governor in Council. The poor Governor has nothing to do with it. [Loud laughter.] Ho is only a blind. The wealthy know perfectly well that those about the Governor, who have votes m the House of Legislature, have various means of influencing the Government and getting certain things done for themselves, and they think it is all right. They say we shall get this money and spend it freely. They think that it is good to set up a great landed aristocracy, and say no country can thrive without it. If it is good why should not wo be that landed aristocracy 9 [Laughter.] They know, for instance, that they must get certain men of influence in the Land Office, and then the clerks will respect their Interests. Thus, being in the Legislature, they know where tho roads ought to ho made . they have tho moans of getting railroads made hi certain directiqns, and you may depend upon it, they will necessarily legislate in that way. Now, when you come to most poor people, what takes place P I believe they are equally selfish, but their case is different. It is no use their going to a Minister. He will send them away. Perhaps ho will give a civil answer, and perhaps he will ask them to write to him, but further than this they can never get any information. They cannot get to a distant land office, or see after many other things. Well, then, the best chance for them is to get a fair law passed, eo that iu*

fluencc is nothing, and knowledge nothing—a fair l.iw by which every man has an equal chance of acquiring land. That is the beat chance for them, and they will go in for it. You see by that means they get a good law and a fair law, although they get it for a selfish purpose, but I feel such a constituency as I speak to now, of adult males, will always endeavour to have a fair land law, and a very different one from any you have had in this country. These matters are very much misunderstood. I will give you an illustration of what I mean. You have heard something you ought not to have heard, because you have heard the advice I gave to the Governor and no one ought to have heard that. No one ought to have told it, but you have heard reference made to it, and there is no harm in my saying that it is true. It somehow or other leaked out that I advised the Governor to disallow a laud law. 1 was said to be an autocrat, and people said, “ was ever such a thing heard of ? Here two Houses passed the Land law, and they having done it, the Crown was recommended to veto it, who ever heard of such a thing ?” Now what does the law say P The law in fact says there shall be three branches, the Governor, the Legislative Council, and the House of Representatives, and if the House of Representatives make a law which is very much in favor of one portion of the people and injures others, the Legislative Council shall have the right to disallow it.” And then, the law being wise, says —“ Now there is another contingency to be provided against, supposing a great landed aristocracy happened to have a majority in both houses, and, first, the House of Representatives makes a law and then the Legislative Council alter it, and send it back to the House of Representatives, and the House of Representatives finding it is even better for their views than the majority of them thought, they adopt these amendments at once. The law says—“ It is quite possible these Houses may have passed a law which will benefit one portion of the community and oppress and injure the other. Well, now, we will say: if they do that, there shall be a. third branch, the Governor, who, strictly speaking, has no interest in the country, and he shall be able to disallow the law and to rectify the thing in that way.” You will see, therefore, that to ask the Governor to disallow the law, if ho is advised to do it for a proper principle, is only availing yourselves of that power which the Constitution gives to the Ministry of a country to save the interests of a large portion of the population, if they think it right. You must not imagine this is a thing anyone likes to do. It requires a pretty bold heart to do that, because you have the majority of both Houses of Parliament upon you in a moment, and a very great effort will bo made to raise a great outcry in the country on the part of all the disappointed people. But it is not a new thing. If the Governor does not do it, the Queen herself would do it, if she thinks the people are injured. Now there was one remarkable case. The Legislature of New Zealand wanted to reduce the expenditure, wisely I think, and they said, we will begin with the Governor, and will pass a law reducing the Governor’s salary. The Governor has not yet arrived, and we will do it now, while there is no Governor here. So they passed a law reducing the Governor’s salary very much, and that law went home and the Ministry said, * Oh, we have a law to prevent any of the Queen’s subjects being injured by legislation. We cannot see the poor Governor injured. We will protect that person’s rights;’ and in order to protect his rights the Acl. was disallowed. [Laughter.] So, therefore, it was clear that if I believed that I could save the rights of the whole population of New r Zealand by that —I do not mean males alone, but men, women, and children—by getting the Bill disallowed, I say that I was quite justified in doing so in order to save the rights of the whole of the inhabitants of New Zealand. [Loud cheers.] The point was this—the leases or licenses of the Canterbury runholders terminating in 1880, until that period of time they hold their leases on most favorable terms indeed. The present Parliament expires, if it be not dissolved, before those licenses expire. I argued—You have a majority in Parliament at the present moment, but that majority was returned on a. totally different question, I say, honest men, you should not prolong the tenure of these runs without consulting the people of New Zealand at large. [Loud cheers.] My idea was that these enormous runs could be broken up into holdings of 4(J00 or 5000 acres each, and made to produce a fair rental. Therefore I felt, and still feel, strongly that that which was accomplished last session of prolonging these leases ten years beyond 1880—that is to 1800 —was a fraud on the entire population of New Zealand. [Loud cheers.] The meaning of the Act is that large runs which could be broken up into four or five, and still leave the holders with large incomes (because broken up runs would carry a great deal of stock, as more grasses would bo sown), therefore you injure New Zealand commercially by leaving them in single hands. Furthermore, if the rent paid is inadequate, the sum lost to the public in rental is put on every one of you in taxation. For, as I said before, every little child in New Zealand, in wanting a plum pudding, or in wanting shoes, or in wanting perhaps the doctor in times of illness, pays its contributions to go into the pockets of wealthy men. Therefore I felt, and still feel strongly, that the act which was accomplished last session of prolonging these licenses for ten years, that is to 1890, was a fraud upon the entire population of New Zealand. I [Hear, hear, and laughter.] I say that every man, every woman, every child in the country, is robbed of the surplus sum which goes < into the pocket of the rich squatter. Under these circumstances, was I not right in demanding that an appeal should be made to ■ the people of New Zealand before they con- * sented to allow large sums of money that be- - longed to the public to go into the pockets ■ of private individuals? I never hesitated in expressing these views publicly; 1 said so privately when spoken to ; I said that j I would resist it to the last. Every means which the law gives mo to defeat what I beiievc to be a wrong act I will resort to. [Loud cheers.] Then when it came to the question that the law was carried in spite of me, I had to decide this, w r ould I go out of ollicc or would 1 try to get the law disallowed. II may be said that on my being defeated on this question, if I was dissatisfied, I ought to . have gone out of office. But to a certain I extent it was not a Government question. I believe every one of my colleagues voted against me from conviction, and I think, if i . had allowed them to carry the law, and then : simply retired, I should only have made bad worse. I believed I should ] succeed in getting an appeal to the people of New Zealand, and in getting other things done. I thought it best to use every means in my power to get a wrong law set aside, and still remain where 1 was. Now you will see that in trying to get it disallowed I did no harm to license holders. I left them exactly where they were. I did not try to take their lands from them. That, i say, would have been wrong. The simple thing I asked was this —“ Before you confer enormous benefits upon friends of your own in the manner you i are about to do, making those to whom you are personally attached wealthy men for another thirteen years, ask the people of New Zealand, whoso money you are going J o take to do that with, whether they wish to give money up for that purpose or not; whether they will consent to additional taxation,whether they will consent to forego sumo money, to abandon some savings, in ardor to give money to those wiio are o| no service to their fellowcitizens or countrymen, or whether they will have the runs put up to auction and sold. Lot every! lung be fairly and openly done, after the constituencies have been consulted.” Now I have given you that as one instance of the manner in which persons will legislate lor their own interests, if you give them the power of doing so. For instance, I heard one gentleman say this—“ If you do not give these runs up for another ten years, what wall the result bo. The runholders are indebted to the great English money-lending companies, and these money-lending companies will seize the leases and sell them and the result will be a crisis, and wil, suffer. Therefore it is best that the Legislature should lot us have these licenses tor another ten years. Wo will agree to g' vw 1111 iucreaeing reataK-we will agree to anyone

appointed to assess these runs, but we won’t give them up.” I don’t believe you would get a man to do justice in this way. It would be a very hard thing to go to a man and say—“ Your run is worth so much.” In a private conversation later we hear the runholder say he was ruined, and I am sure no commissioner would have the courage to value them fairly that way. The only way is to let them go to auction. The public entered into the contract with the runholders ignorantly, unwisely, and greatly to their loss, and fulfilled that contract fairly to the letter. What injustice is there if they looked to their own interests afterwards? Now I have touched upon what I really believe to be the principal points to which we should now direct our attention. But I say this, that if you do not attend to the question of franchise, you will achieve nothing. You may get some temporary remedy applied, but unless you get the power into your own hands, abuses will spring up almost instantly again. I feel that will be the case. That is the main point to which we must direct our attention.”

Mr Stout, in the course of bis observations, said that he would have addressed his constituents before, had it not been that he thought it would not have been proper to address them in the absence of his two colleagues, Messrs Larnach and Macandrew. He was glad of this opportunity to correct a false impression which had gone abroad with reference to Mr Larnach. It was true he hud gone to England, but lie hoped he would be able to be back in New Zealand before the business of next session of Parliament commenced. This was the reason why he had not resigned his seat. He did this, however, which some representatives had not done. He said he would leave his resignation in New Zealand, so that, if it were seen when the session was near, that he could not come out again to Dunedin, it should not be said that Dunedin was not represented next session of Parliament. Considering the hurry in which lie had gone on Government business, and for the convenience of the colony to London, he [Mr Stout] thought the course Mr Larnach had taken was the proper one. [A Voice : “ No.”] He did not believe there were many in Dunedin who would wish to see Mr Larnach retire from political life. At the conclusion of the Premier’s speech, the following resolution was carried : —“ That this meeting desires to express its thanksj to Sir G. Grey for his lucid and valuable address, and to express its entire confidence in his Government.” .

At about 9.45, the proceedings were brought to a close.