MR HUTCHISON, M.H.R,, AT WELLINGTON.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2213, 30 March 1881, Page 3

MR HUTCHISON, M.H.R,, AT WELLINGTON.

WELLINGTON, March 20,

Mr Hutchison addressed his constituents tonight. There was a small attendance. He 1 characterised last session as a barren one. • Although the Government had flooded the i House with Bills on all imaginable subjects, they did not seem to care very much about these measures, and allowed most of them to slide, i They had not the courage of their opinions, if, indeed, they had any opinions. Ho reviewed I the history of the measures promised in the Governor’s speech, not one of which passed. He believed that there was no such thing on record in any country. All that the country had got from last session was a strong dose of additional taxation. He condemned the beer tax as being excise duty, and also strongly condemned the property tax. Increased customs duties had failed to produce a corresponding increase in the revenue. The worst feature last session was the depreciation of the credit of the colony by Ministers, which had led to a serious commercial crisis. Ho approved of retrenchment, but did not' consider tho scheme thorough or fair in its measures. In many respects the reduction was cruel. The present Ministry no more represented the people of New Zealand than they represented the people of England. They had no sympathy with the working population. He instanced Dr. Pollen’s pension as a sample of tho policy of Ministers. Having served their purpose, they now dropped their cry of danger of financial collapse. There was never any fear of snob a thing, although no doubt our debt was a serious item. He advocated the establishment of a Government Bank of Issue, to render the savings of the people available for public use, and to save tho people from institutions which gave money freely when plentiful, and in hard times came down on thorn with iron hands. Ho condemned the Government scheme for tho re-distribution of the representation and single electorates as calculated to encourage plural voting. The only fair basis wa* population. Ho considered it absolutely hopeless to export from the present Government any sincere effort to promote settlement on onr waste lands. Ho strongly urged tho necessity for the settlement of a yooman population and peasant proprietary. Our railwajs, he thought, should he maintained on commercial principles, not on a cast- i iron rule over the whole of tho colony He did not < think that Mr Bryce had really let in any light \ on the working of the Native department. The ] Government deserve credit for resisiing Mr Bryce’s advice to attack To Whiti. It would have been as fair and just to have proposed the arrest of the Mayor of Wellington. British honor and British law had been_ trailed in tho dust by the present Government in taking innocent men prisoners and detaining them untried. No previous Government had ever so di graced the colony or itself. Inoffensive Natives had been sentenced to two years for what Europeans would have been fined five shillings ; and others had been kept in gaol untried for eighteen months. Ho was heartily glad that Mr Bryce no longer had any power. He ridiculed Mr Bryce’s charges against tho "Lyttelton Times” correspondent, and tho " "VVanganui Herald.” He had great faith in the West Coast commission, and only feared that Te Whiti would not listen to the overtures till as justice demanded the prisoners were unconditionally released. The chief aim of legis- - lation and administration in future should be, he thought, not so much to do things for the people, as to give the people power to do things for themselves. Electoral and representative reforms were required, and the incidence of customs taxation required immediate revision. Tho property tax should ho abolished, and an income tax and land tax bo substituted. He characterised Major Atkinson’s taxation arguments as those of a tax gatherer, not a statesman. He would tax large landed estate* for political as well as for fiscal purposes, and would also sweep away every vestige of primogeniture. He objected in toto to the system of game laws apparently growing np, and urged the necessity for bankruptcy reform. He postponed his remarks on edneation, intending to hold another meeting. A vote of thanks and confidence was carried after a speech from Mr John Dnthie, defending Mr Bryce’s Native policy, in the course of which he pointed out that tho Governor’s letter to Te Whiti was written during Mr Bryce’s absence from Wellington, Mr Dathio expressed his individual opinion that had it not Ibsen written Mr Bryco would not have resigned.