THE NO-CONFIDENCE DEBATE.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1758, 8 October 1879, Page 2

THE NO-CONFIDENCE DEBATE.

[FBOM OTTB OWN COEEESPONDKNT.I WELLINGTON, October 6, The Grey Ministry is at last defeated, and whatever may succeed it, it is hardly possible that New Zealand will ever again be ruled over by a Government at once so boastful and so imbecile, so costly and so inefficient, so omnipotent for evil, and so powerless for good. Just one week was occupied in the no-con-fidence debate, and the discipline of both sides must have been good, as not a single member spoke on either side except as appointed by his party, with one exception. Mr Andrews proposed the reply to the address in a very harmless speech, showing the utmost goodwill and the most earnest loyalty to his chief. It had been carefully prepared, without being a mere recital. It was delivered in a nice clear voice, hardly powerful enough for the galleries, and his manner was very faultless. It would have been better for him if he had been addressing a Council, as it would have prevented such a frequent repetition of his original word 'ouse. But by far the greatest fault of the speech was the unmistakable evidence which it gave that Mr Andrews had confined his reading entirely to one side of the cate, that he had sought information exclusively from Government sources, and was as innocent as a nursing child of what had been and could be said on the other side. He would never set the Thames on fire under any circumstances, but ho might be heard without ridicule if he would make himself acquainted with the history of New Zealand, and take his facts from blue books instead of from Grey’s trumpeters. Mr Hurst, the seconder, has a stronger voice, and a great deal more fire, and did his work very fairly, but put his foot into it sadly before he sat down by evidently expecting to bring over the whole House by informing them that when he had privately applied to Sir George Grey for instructions as to how he should act, Sir George at once replied, “ Do as you like, Hurst, you know that I want nothing but what is right.” These two new men were very well chosen as evidently implicit believers in Grey and his good intentions.

Mr John Hall next stood up to propose the no-confidonoe amendment. Ho is in many ways a striking contrast to the late leader of the Opposition, who proposed so successfully a similar amendment such a short time ago. He is less of an orator, and more of a statesman than Sir W. Fox. He speaks entirely to the ear, whilst Sir William speaks so much to the eye—he delights in safety as much as Fox delights in daring, and will reef his topsails when Fox would hare been putting out stuneails. It Sir W. Fox was the right man to dash at the enemy with a strong majority, Mr John Hall is the right man to lead in a more equal fight. He came forward with a calm, methodical, careful array of charges of a character that were all capable of proof if true, of refutation if untrue, and he made them in faultless language, in gentle manner, and without any exaggeration of existing facts. He lost no time in introduction or peroration, but made the most of an hour and a halt to state as powerful an array of ugly charges as was ever brought against any modern Government in a civilised community. _ He most carefully and wisely avoided giving Sir George Grey any bit of bye statement that he could take up and fly at as an excuse for not replying to the serious charges made against him, and it was evident that Sir George did for once mean what he stated when he rose and almost complainingly said, “ I expected to hear a very different sort of speech to what we have heard.” lit was just the sort of "speech that the Premier could do nothing with, and after saying that the charges were untrue and contemptible, he went off in a highly eloquent strain with the most suitable parts of the speech that had been doing duty in supporting so many of his candidates and himself, and which contained the highly interesting but rather irrelevant account of the number of persons who own England, Scotland, Ireland, and France, finishing up with the handwriting on the wall of Babylon, and the three cheers_ he says Disraeli elicited for the Irish famine. The only charge which he seemed to admit was what he had done with the Hinemoa and express trains and telegrams to promote truth and enlighten the electors throughout the colony, which, he said, he would do again to even a greater extent than ho had ever yet done. Mr Saunders was as much puzzled to know what to do with Sir G. Grey’s speech as Sir G. Grey had been with Mr Hall’s, but for the opposite reason. There was nothing in the speech to answer' and he did not care to go to Prance and Babylon after him, or to defend Disraeli from the absurd charge of getting up three cheers for the Irish famine. He made the most of the Hinemoa; and in the presence of such a multitude of witnesses who knew exactly what Sir G. Grey had done to give a double honorarium to the members and to rob Canterbury of £227,000, he produced a strong sensation in the House when ho read from the 11 Dyttelton Times ” the denials of ;the truth which Grey had made in Christchurch, and the audacious claims he had made to the gratitude of the very people he had done so much to injure. Next day the Ministerialists put up their new orator to reply to Mr Saunders. Mr Speight is no novice at public speaking, and has a groat and ready command of language. He is xnown in Auckland as the Hew Bump from

the old Grey ditch, and he spouts Greyism. even more fluently than the old pump, but in a far less winning manner. He is in many points singularly like his predecessor from. Auckland City East. He is even morefluent, and has a far less disagreeable voice. But he gets his inspiration from the same source, and has already taken charge of other members’ consciences, a proceeding that argues little for the modesty of so young a man in his first speech to the House, He is very likely to be as greata bore as his predecessor. His sound is so utterly without sense that he actually said that he could himself have made a far stronger set of charges against the Government than Mr Hall had done, and immediately added that he would support no Government against which any serious charges could be proved. His manner proclaimed in the most unmistakeable attitudes the impression he expected to make on the House, and be even asserted that if Mr Hall’s speech was considered so good, he was glad that the House was so easy to satisfy. The Opposition put up a member to succeed Mr Speight, who was about as great a »*ontrast to him as they could find ; not ha... so fluent, nor half so young, but a gentleman in word and manner, and a radical by education and by nature. He hod been appointed before that gentleman had bsen heard to answer Mr Speight, but he was too good a. judge to flatter the young man in that way, and disposed of him most beautifully by saying, in the most modest manner, that he could not follow the honorable member for Auckland City East, as be had none of his great fluency, and, as a new member of the House, be could not undertake to direct any other members as to how they should vote, or dictate to them in a matter that appeared to him to rest entirely between the representative and his constituents. He also quietly told Sir George Grey that Mr Disraeli was not a man that he admired at all, but he did not think he was a brute, and if he was a brute, he was certainly not a fool, and ho must be both before he could outrage an English audience by eliciting three cheers for an Irish famine.

Mr Moss followed. Ho always clears the house—not as Mr Rees used to, by a general rush of members to the door, but by a quiet stealing away one at a time, and lately he has taken to record the fact in “ Hansard ” by making it a subject of complaint. His clear nice voice sounded well amongst the emptybenches as he undertook to enlighten them on several constitutional questions, and then descended to the geography of New Zealand, of which he showed his profound knowledge by informing the benches that the Cheviot district was as large as Middlesex, and yet it was divided into three large freeholds. Next came the Minister for Mines (Mr Gisborne). He is not half as good a speaker as Mr Moss, but every one expects some fun of seme sort when ha gets up, so the benches began to fill, and the members were not disappointed. After a lot of very commonplace and rather hesitating remarks, the style suddenly changed into the most fluent and grandiloquent language ; and it turned out that he had just entered upon a long and. most elaborate eulogy of the Premier, that might have been prepared by Dr. Johnson, and must have astonished the Premier more than anyone else at the extent of his own virtues. The violent contrast between this peroration and the rest of the speech, added to the grotesque manner of the speaker, was too much forj the solemn minded members, but they had to laugh as quietly as they could in the midst of such pretentious language.

Still adopting the principle of putting up good contrasts, the Opposition put up one of the simplest and most unpretending, and yet one of the best and most impressive speakers in the new House, and answered the old Conservative, who now spouts Greyism, with the old radical who scorns to talk bunkum. Mr Dick has grown old and white headed in the advocacy of the most advanced liberal measures. He is the warm hearted, earnest, sincere supporter of every proceeding to really elevate the poorer classes. In every public proceeding of his life he has been guided by a desire to procure the greatest good of the greatest number, and he knows that Grey’s endeavor to make them seek wealth or competency in Acts of Parliament is the sure way to make them realize neither. He speaks slowly, almost solemnly, in a fine mellow voice of great power, but his ability to detect and quietly expose pretension gives a spice to all he says that makes him well listened to. Deferring to the mere boy who had attacked him so rudely, he said “ the honorable member for Auckland City East has informed us that those of us who do not vote for Sir George Grey will soon be consigned to the shades of oblivion. Notwithstanding that information from so high an authority, I must still consult my own conscience as to how I ought to vote in this House, and bo prepared to meet my fate, however formidable. The honorable member’s speech is so rich in words that they quite conceal his arguments, or, at least, I find it difficult to discover them.” Mr Ireland next spoke, in the heated, stuffy house, with a tremendous white comforter round his neck, the ends of which reached below his belt. In slightly defective English he made a speech which had the merit of being short, and gave expression tothe feelings of many simple-minded men in the House and out of it. He hoped that the“great” liberal measures would be passed,, and the “ little ” shortcomings of the Government passed over. The Hon. James Temple Fisher next made the longest and the worst speech he has ever been known to make in the House. It must have been quite five minutes long, and consisted entirely of very coarse allusions to the private affairs of the leader of the Opposition, whom he charged with the enormous crime of getting rich and acquiring a large block of land. The speech would have been very discreditable to Farmer Fisher in a pothouse—from the Hon. James Temple Fisher, on the Government benches, it was a humiliation to be remembered by those who heard it.

Mr Murray came next, and spoke well to begin with. But when he got into Native affairs, the House did not think him qualified to enlighten them, and thinned out _ considerably. Dike Mr Moss, the House is not fond of hearing him, though it is often hard to say why, except that he theorises too much, and is too fond of giving advice gratis. Next came Mr Barron. Ho had defeated Mr Outten, and evidently thinks it his duty to take the place of the funny man of the House, which he seems very fairly adapted for. The bitterly persecuted Mr Masters came next. He is a nervous thin-skinned manterribly afraid of doing wrong, and the Ministerialists have taken cruel advantage of this, not only in their “ whipping establishments,” but also by means of a constant relay of telegrams from the West Coast correspondent at Wellington. Without appearing to intend it he gave his persecutors a good retort in tho House by telling them that he had never promised to support any Government blindfolded but had told the electors that when he got to Wellington he would be able to judge for himself. He had come, he had seen, he had judged, and had decided to vote against them. One of the new members for Hokitika who who has succeeded Mr Barff is in many respects not unlike him. He is nearly as large a man, nearly as loud, though with a less harsh voice, quite as fond of hearing himself speak but he believes that the letter H should precede every vowel; that the world, including Sir George Grey, was made for Hokitika, and that the one duty of every West Coast man is to support the Government that will promise to spend the lion’s share of the five million loan on the railways and water races of that part of the colony which « Though it’s nothing to the world. Is all the world to him.” He fortunately rose with his back straight to the ladies’ gallery. A disorderly titter ran through that critical department as with bold and stentorial voice he said—“ Muster Spaker, I rise to hexamen a few of tho harguments that have been hused by tho hopposition,” After speaking more than two hours ho expressed his entire willingness that the hen. member for Geraldine should now be put up “ to pull hall his harguments to pieces,” Mr Whitaker at once assured him that tho Opposition were neither so extravagant nor so improvident as to use their biggest gun to crack a mosquito. Ho was a new member himself, but he hoped the hon. gentleman’s ambition would bo satisfied with having only one of the smallest minnows from amongst the new members to reply to him. Mr Whitaker proved an exceedingly well-chosen contrast to the second great windbag of tho new Greyites, and promises to bo one of tho most lively, racy speakers in the House. After Te Wheoro had spoken in such a way as to keep up the delusion amongst both parties that ho was going to vote for them, Mr DeLautourtookuptho rest of the evening with a speech that greatly delighted his party, and was one of his best. In nicely chosen, temperate language, and a disagreable

nasal twang, he tried to mDlop' •» th * prejudice of'the 'House against Mr Mau a P Canterbury man, and succeeded pretty All hi* “facta ” were from the a T and were easily-shown to be day. by Mr tßowen. Though -still lifeless, spmtless, and insipid. MrCeLautour improves as a speaker,'and' i* 1 undoubtedly • the coming man amongst his party. His worst faults «an be easily'traeed to his-close attachment to Sir George'Grey, as misrepresentation and appeals to [the Howest class . prejudices are' not a part of’his own. nature. _ j Mr Bowen*s speech was characteristic. - Sir George Grey would have found him ah awkward disciple if he had- ever got hold of ' him. Out comes everything straight and clear, whether advisable or not, and any party who uses him had better have nothing to conceal. After seeing how. easily-all bis fictions were scattered to the-winds by-Mr Bowen’s facts, Mr DoLatour’s _ face «nd a deep sigh seemed to say, "I wish 1 1 had to ■peak in a better cause.” The antipodes to MrDowen -who conld never be corrupted even hydip George Grep. With -him; the . only..use ojf wolds is to conceal intentions or facts. His speeches used to be very witty, .but have, been very disappointing in that way of late,' for, although he shows the same desire, he has by no means the same power, tl .must now say that his wit invites us by his i leaks to come, but when you knock it never -is at hornet At an ago when he ought to be-w«xing ho is decidedly waning, and as T have called Mr DoLautour tbe.eomingl may callMr-Sheohan the going man of his .party. Bo referred to and praoticaliy admitted tne-charges that had been brought against him by Sir W.'Fox and Mr Hobbs, hat .asserted, amidst mingled cheers and nose, 'that so long as -lie did hia public work well it was .no business of thq House what hie private character might be. It had been agreed by both sides that bis should he the last speech of the debate and he overrode 'bis advantage by ■bringing charges against the 'leader of the Reposition that were completely answered by their evi-. dent absurdity, though it .cannot bo said > that Mr Hall’s face and attitude received them with the disdain they deserved. j The last and by far the most objectionable speech of the debate was made >by iDr. ■Wallis. Besides being the one member of the House, to speak in violation of the agreement .made between the leaders of both parties, ho was i the only speaker who was deliberately and; strikingly profane. Angels and devils, heaven and hell, eternal bliss and .eternal fire were, all dragged upon the floor of the House-by. the only clergyman in it, for no higher tpur-j pose than to draw a miserable laugh from the. most unthinking portion of the House. Some: strong expressions of disapprobation from Mr; Dick and Mr Saunders seemed at last to .cadi. bim to his senses, and he acknowledged that; ho had gone too far. ■ The division bell now rang, and the i, Greyites walked with dejected countenances: into the “ lobby to the left,” but oven there a i gleam of sunshine awaited them. Major Te | v. Wheoro had made himself scarce, having • , promised Tomoana that ho would vote with . r the Opposition, and yet fearing to vote 1 against the Native Minister. Mr Hamlin | * brought bim like a culprit to the door of the | .... the House, persuaded him to step inside; . - the doors were instantly locked on him, and j. poor Te Wheoro was obliged to vote with his .pursuer, amidst the cheers of the party who . cpuld rejoice in such an acquisition, obtained in such a manner, to their number. It was a worthy termination of Mr Sheehan’s Native ".?ple.