MR ALLWRIGHT AT LYTTELTON.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2225, 14 April 1881, Page 3

MR ALLWRIGHT AT LYTTELTON.

Mr Harry Allwright. M.H.B. for &«?!& addressed his constituents lust night, intuL „'•>,,' toi: Colonists'Hall, upon the course pursnecl by him pis their representative in the .ast Bessio.a of Parliament, and as to the course he is likely to pursue in I ho coming session. Mr Allwr.ffhtt.pon Souilng forward, requested Mr Adam Ch liners to take tile chair, and that gentleman conplyingintroduced the member and asked for him a patient U Bo'fOTO cuterin,? upon the topic of his rarliamentarv career Mr \llwright said he would like to SIH refer to tlie accnsation which his opponent at the last Mayoral election had inade pnbl.c one hn pntmiilnr»il nnite out oi time and place when it »a™Za"t one ho felt hound at .Ids meeting rr, ,ir.Ff.v,,i Tto raferred to the charge tint he h° tt a d ts£ted the 1* under which to eleoMou contests had i.ceu fought and won—the so-called libera Hag He woukl quote from the reports of thospeocl.es he made to the electors be ore they honored him by sending him to Parliament. He then cl limed, as ho did now, that he was not to he the blind follower of one man ... carrying outtrue Liberal principles. He claimed to go to Wellington an independent man, untrammelled by any influence that would interfere with his exercise of conscientious and consistent political action fHear hear.] Mr Allwright quoted at length from t'ho newspaper reports of his speeches befcre his election, showing that his platform was to support, not Sir George Grey, but the policy—the liberal policy of which Sir George was at the time the avowed exponent, or, in tho words used by an elector, "the measures, not tho men.' Ho was now, ho said, prepared to go further than that, and to assume that, as the representative of tho work- . ing class, the class to whom he owed his seat, ana -~~' to which ho himself considered ho belonged, had he even pledged himself to snpport the lato Government, his present position would have been in no wise altered. In support of this, ho quoted from Blue Books he had with him to show that while the late Government had made such loud professions of friendship to tho working, the laboring men throughout tho colony, they were actually, at a time when thousands of workmen were on the verge of destitution, unable to procure employment here, they were paying the passages ot thousands on thousands of equally poor men from tno Ulcl Countrv, bringing them here to still make matters worse in the labor markets of the c lony. From Angnst to November, no less than 3i>B7 Government immigrants, ho said, were imported and 6 n 03 had been sent for who, had the policy been carried ont, would nave arrived hero from England in the dead of winter. In thefaco of tins he contended ho conld not but havo seceded from such a Government the moment ho found these things to exist, and ho would appeal to his constituents whether he would not bo justiHed in so doing. [Applause.] Tho telegram, he said, which was sent Home for COCO able-bodied laborers was signed by Sir George Grey, and in proof of the determination of the lato Government to have those men bronght ont, he quoted from a speech of the then Minister of Public Works, delivered in the House, endorsing and commending tho proposal. Ho felt convinced, that had the late Government had their way in this matter of immigration alone this country wonld havo been m a very much worso position than it is. [ Hear, hear.] It ~w continually bein; drummed into the people s ears; ho said, that the late Government was the liberal one, hut he would like to ask where, after their two years of power, were tho liberal fruits of their endeavor.-'. The present Government had proved thoir liberalism by their works in carrying some of tho most liberal measures which could bo asked for by the greatest Liberal of liberals. He referred to the electoral laws. [Applause.] The late Government's liberalism had shown itself, he thought, in the liberality which characterised its polioy of briuging poor people into the colony without regard to the number of poor already hore.and in getting away with the borrowed money. no inconsiderablo portion of which he was inclined to think served as nice pickings for friends. He did not wish, however, to go further into this, his chief and sole pnrpose being to explain his position with his constituents, and to refute the charge of deserting his previously avowed political principles. TApplanse.] As ho had predicted when he last caine before the electors, the last session found no sort of orgunised Opposition. It was so disunited one could hardly tell who was leader, and who follower, and it appeared to him that the only approach to anything like unity was in tho action taken by those who claimed to bo in Opposition to obstruct the business of tho conntry. Mr Allwright spoke at length respecting tho part Sir George Grey tookiu moving the repeal of the property tax and no-confidence motion which followed. He said it was shami-fnl to witness the conduct of some of the reputed loading liberals in these debates, talking against timodny nnd night, frittering away in this manner nearly one-third of the session at a heavy cost to tho country. One lion, moniber, a great liberal, spoko, he said, by way of illustration, three and a half honrs, at a cost to the oonntry of jE'l5O, and what ho uttered he believed con'd have been expressed in ten minutes. There was, he said, no attempt made to show how the country was to be extricated from the fearful financial muddle into which it had fallen, and when the result of tho whole matter was reached, he said the division'of the Honso showed a larger majority against the no-eonfldence motion than had ever been known, he believed, on any similar motion in tho House. He was not an nnmixed admirer of the property tax—[cheers] —and had Sir George Grey offered something better ns a substitute, he would have probably voted for its repeal. He found he had personally to pay very much more under the Property Tax Act than he would have done under tho land tax, but for all that ho preferred it to the latter as being a moro equitable moasnre. He could not, for instance, see why, if one man invests £IOOO in land and another in a like sum on a mortgage, the first man should be made to pay and the other escape altogether; nor why largo monetary institutions should escape if taxation must be resorted to. Ho voted against the repeal of the measure becanso he balieved taxation was an imperative necessity, and because thoso who advocated its repeal advocated an inferior method of taxatioj. As to thesixKeuny beer tax brought down by the Government, o opposed it on the ground that it would press too severely upon a home industry employing a great many wo kmen, and for that reason he was found with the majority thnt carried the tax at threepence. [Applanse.] The Amended Municipal Corporations Act he supported, recognising it ns a most important Bill. Ho also succeeded in incorporating a clause in it giving power to municipalities to rent or lease their properties by pnblic tender as well as by public auction. Tho arbitrary public auction S3*stem ho knew had caused this borough no little expense, and not unfrequently witbont yielding any benefit, heuce ho felt the necessity for snch an amendment. Many important measures he would like to have seen carried, tbotigh he regretted they were slaughtered during the Ilast session, partly through the fractionsness of the oppositionists, and partly because there were too many of them to get through with. The Regulation of Elections, the licensing Act, and the Redistribution of .* eats Bill, ware some of those that came to grief. Next session he believed Government would be compelled to carry them through, and ho had no doubt bnt the present occupants of the Ministerial benches wonld find a sufficient number of true liberals, '' real " Liberals, at their backs to get them carried. A Charitable Aid revenue was also imperatively needed. He hoped that next session the Government would, in place of bringing one hundred and sixty Bills down, deluging the House, just bring such as gave fair promise of becoming incorporated with the laws of the and. [Hear, hear.] The Regulation of Elections and the Eedistribution of Seats Bills he was certain must be passed the coming session if Government would retain their scats. Ho now came to what he termed that most obnoxious 10 per cent, business. fA voice—"Hs per cent."] He knew that Government had been charged with being the authors of it, but he could assure his audience positively that tho Government were not responsible for it. Reductions had to be made, and ho Government would have made them had discretionary powers been theirs. But the House insisted upon a hard and fast rule being fixed—heuce tho 10 per cent, all round carving. Had that not been fastened on the Government he did not think but that a very largo reduction wonld have boon made without the wages class being interfered with to tho extent they had been. [Applause.] The gentleman, Mr Allwright said, who had called out " 25 per cent. " from the body of the hall he should like to see any time after the meeting, and inquire from him of tho circumstances by which ho had been reduced 25 per cent., as such a reduction was entirely unwarrantable. It was folly, of course, said the speaker, to shut one's eyes to the condition of the country's financial difficulties, and ho felt sure that no true colonist, certainly no Englishman, wonld complacently eutertain a proposal that New Zealand should repudiate her past responsibilities, A speech delivered by a gentleman at Nelson lately on tho subject, whereiu ho asserts his readiness mther to get into corduroys and pitch in with pick and shovel than listou to such a dishonorable and unprincipled proposal as repudiation, convoyed his own sentiments exactly. Government had to rodnco and reduce the expenditure largely. Tho late Government had coolly spent in ono way or another some £11,000,000, had kept up a weekly squandering of about £IIO,OOO, and the country, he said, had to face the fact that evory morning of the year that tho snn rose upon it, £4153 18s lfjd was required from it to pay the interest on the money it had borrowed. What he should like to have seen in preference to the ten per cent, reduction, was to have purged tho Civil Service list of a pack of high.salaried officials, who were sucking away the life's blood from the country. It was tho drones that shonld bo ousted. He thought, however, if the presont Government were permitted to go on they would bring the country back to a sound financial state. In proof of the sincerity of tho Government they had reduced their own salaries by 20 per cent., or from £1250 to £1000; but when ho, the Speaker, moved thot hon. members' honorariums be rednced by but 15 per cent., ho was accused of not being a liberal by liberals. Ho still hold tho opinion, however, that members who received £lu'o for their expenses during tho session were »mply reimbursed, nnd it was not very liberal for the shining lights of the great liberal party, so called, to vote with such avidity to reduce laboring men's wages, and to vote against a reduction of 15 per cent. on their own houorarimus. He had been accused of voting for tho 10 per cent, reduction, whereas ho was not in Wellington when tho vote was finally determined. His opinion of it was sufficiently known, though, as bolere ho loft Wellington, ho had strenuously opposed any reduction of salaries of £2OO, and whon drivon from that position, had taken up a stand in defence of Balarios of £l5O and under being exempted from reduction. There was, ho thonght, little more to say on tho work of the last session. In hisopinion, it was an exceedingly barren ono as to results when compared with what it cost tho conntry. There was ono matter he felt ho mn*t say a word on, namely, Mr Bryco's resignation from tho Ministry. Never had ho felt a deeper sense of regret in the loss of a political gentleman than tho 'resignation of Mr Bryce as Native Minister had caused him. Ho regarded it as almost of the importance of a national loss. It was not often that tho country witnessed the voluntary sacrifice of a seat on its Ministerial Benches to principle, and Mr Bryce had done this. Whon his colleagues were not with him in his work in t lie settlement of tho Native question, when they opposed tho carrying ont of tho scheme by which Mr Brreo's hope of success was to be realised, and his pledge to settle the Native difficulty redeemed, he honorably laid down his portfolio, and stepped down and out of the Cabinet. He. the speaker, believed in both Mr Bryoi and in his Native policy, and though the present Native Minister might succeed to an extent in tho department, he regretted tho change. [Hoar, hear.] Of the future courso ho shonld pursue he, Mr Allwright, conld only repeat what he had Baid on a former occasion. Ho wonld go to the next session untrammelled by any influence save that of a desire to best servo those who had done him tho honor of sending him to represent them. Politically, ho would bo freo and independent in bis actions, supporting liberal measures wherever and by whomsoever they wore presented. Ho wished not to bo understood that ho was so opposed to any

member of tho late Government that he would vote against what his convictions and judgment declared to bo right, simply because such a member ot the House was found advocating it. [Applause.] He believed that when tho session opened the present Government would bo found to bo supported and backed by a strong following of staunch Liberals who would stand by thorn as long as they honestly and zealously administered public affairs. Mr Allwright then spoke on a few local topics—l he new police barracks he had caused to be erected, the settlement of a long-standing claim of £250 for borough property that had been taken for railway purposes, and the moiety of 10s in tho pound for charitable aid, which was duo to the borough, troui the fact that it administered its own charitable aid j and ho declared his readiness, so long as he was their representative, to at all times attend to any real grievance they might bring to his notico. [Cheers.] In this ho knew not, nor should ho know, political foes from friends, but endeavoielto do Lis duty to all. [Applause.J A number of questions were then put to Mr Allwright, and satisfactorily answered, with the exception, perhaps-, of one put by Mr Illingsworth. who wished to know how tho railway tariff charged Its more for bringing sixty bags of chaff from Christchurch to Lyttolton than sixty bags of grain cost to bring, though tho chaff weighed two tons to six of tho grain. It was ono of those puzzles that had befogged Mr Illingsworth a good deal was that chaff charge, and ho wanted a promise that the member shonld see that these things were carried " bag for bag." Mr A 1 vright thought that if any explanation of t.'io question was really possible, the head of the Eailway Department was about the only man who could give it. After a few more questions had been put, Mr Illingsworth moved, and MrStinson seconded, a vote of thanks to and confidence in Mr Allwright, which was cirried by acclamation. A vote of thanks to tho Chairman haviug been carried and responded to, the meeting terminated.