THE ELECTIONS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2354, 19 October 1881, Page 3

THE ELECTIONS.

Mr Treadwell addressed the electors at Addington last night, and received a vote of confidence.

It is stated on good authority that Air J. A. Cunningham, Loburn, will be requested to come forward for the Ashley district.

ME OOWLISHAW AT PHILLIPSTOWN. Mr W. P. Oowlishaw addressed a crowded meeting of the electors of Stanmore last night in the Phillipstown public school. The chair was taken by Mr E. Jones, who briefly introduced the candidate.

Mr Oowlishaw, who was well received, said that he had asked them to meet him in order that they might hear an exposition of his political views, because although he had resided amongst them for about eighteen years, ho had not for the last ten years taken a very active part in political affairs. He had been content to do his work as a citizen, endeavoring to make himself useful in a quiet, unostentatious way wherever the opportunity presented itself. It was true that during the early period of his residence in Christchurch he was actively engaged in provincial politics. Por some years he represented the constituency of Papanui, and subsequently that of Heathcote, in the Provincial Council. Ho was a member of the Provincial Executive for a considerable period, and he flattered himself that he assisted in passing some very useful legislation. He was associated with the prosecution of the early public works of this province at a time when public works were not so favorably regarded as now. It was true that the initiation of our public works scheme was due to their departed friend, the late William Sefton Moorhouse, but he (Mr Oowlishaw) was a member of the Executive, after that gentleman’s first retirement from political life, and he was a member of the Executive when the Perrymead railway was opened, and when the Government decided to extend the railway to the Rakaia. He would shortly state how it was that he had been induced to emerge from the quiet shades of retirement. Shortly after the dissolution he was asked—and frequently asked—to stand for a Canterbury constituency, but ho declined, and it was not until some members of a committee appointed by a public meeting held at Biugsland waited upon him and urged that he owed a public duty to hia fellow citizens, and had no right to expect to reap the benefit of the services of _ his fellow colonists in various useful public capacities without being himself prepared to help in the great colonising work of the country. [Hear, hear J Having carei fully considered these things, he felt it was his duty to offer his services to them, and it I was for them to say whether he was to be drawn from the quiet shades of business life. He thought it was a source of congratulation that the .Legislature, in what might be called its dying gasp, saw fit to pass the Representation Act—a measure which secured to the inhabitants of the colony representation upon a fair and proper basis, that of population. That was a principle which had been long fought for and earnestly desired by all truehearted liberals. They were to be congratulated also upon the passing of what he might call a sister measure—the Corrupt Practices Prevention Act. This had been stigmatised as hard and oppressive, but he thought it was a necessary corollary of the Representation Bill. Many very eligible people were deterred from coming forward as candidates owing to the expense involved in the employment of paid canvassers and agents, but under the Act he was referring to hie objection was done away with, and it would be necessary for the electors themselves to work heart and soul for the candidate whose views they approved of. For himself, he intended to work this election strictly upon the principles of the Corrupt Practices Act. He would carefully abstain from infringing the principles either of that measure or of the Ballot Act. Another question of great interest to them was the Qualification of Electors Act, or the question of plural voting. One of the anomalies of that Act was that it was possible for a man desirous of possessing great political power to place himself on the whole of the ninety-one rolls of the colony. Another anomaly was this—A man owning a piece of land in town let it on a long lease at a small ground rental. The tenant erected valuable warehouses upon it, at a cost, perhaps, of many thousands of pounds ; and yet, under the existing law, the freeholder, whose interest in the land was not present, so far as occupation was concerned, and was represented by a monetary annual value, was entitled to be placed on the roll in respect of that property, while the leaseholder was not. It might be, and in many instances was, the case that the leaseholder’s interest in the land was six times as large as that of the freeholder. The tendency of modern legislation was to place real estate and personal for all practical purposes on one footing. The succession to personal estate was now the same as in the case of real estate, and the old legal distinction between real and personal property was now, as far as this colony was concerned, absolutely abolished. Therefore, if property was entitled to representation, personal property should have an equal claim with real property. Under the present law, while the owner of a small section of the value of £25 was entitled to a vote, a man possessing £50,000 worth of shares or other securities, and who, consequently, had a larger interest in the wellbeing of the country, had no vote. This was a manifest injustice. No monetary value ought to be placed against the qualification which every man should possess as a man—the only qualification for an elector should be a register residential manhood suffrage. [Cheers.] When the Government were endeavoring to pass the Leaseholders Qualification Bill in order to give a further vote to property holders, the number of votes which an elector should have was limited to three. Now, he was unable to understand upon what principle candidates should declare themselves in favor of three votes. If the battle of the registered residential manhood suffrage was to be fought out, it must be upon some consistent and logical principle, and there was no logic or reason in saying that property should have three votes. The number must either be left unrestricted, or they must rely upon one qualification, and he contended that the registered residential manhood suffrage was the proper qualification, fCheers.] Another important question was that of taxation. They were doubtless aware that for various purposes—the prosecution of the Maori war, the construction of railways and public worts and other objects—the colony had borrowed large sums of money from time to time, until at present the colonial debt amounted to about twenty-eight millions, entailin g an annual charge payable by the colony for interest of £1,473.000. This divided amongst the population of the colony, which at present was 489,000, made the indebtedness per head £SB, or an annual charge of £3 4s 9d. In addition to this annual charge upon what might be called the income of the colony money must ha raised for the purpose of carrying on the necessary work of government, to the amount of £1,750,000. So that, in order to enable the colony to carry on, it was necessary to find three and a quarter millions every year This was done by means of taxation and by money received for services rendered by tbe Government. The sum of £1,800,000 was contributed in the shape of taxation, derived principally from tha Customs and the property tax. It was laid down by political writers that taxation should be equal. This did not mean that it should be according to a man’s means, but rather that every man should con tribute to the support of tha Government in proportion to his ability to pay. Ho would give an illustration of this, and he would take the case of two men, each possessed of an income of £3OO a year, the one being a bachelor and the other a married man with a family. The bachelor would, of course, be able to pay a much larger amount of taxation than the married man, who had greater claims upon his income. It was found in practice that this basis of taxation could not be worked out owing to various causes, and Governments had endeavoured to arrive approximately at an equitable basis by giving to certain classes advantages with reference to particular classes of taxation which were imposed upon other classes of tha community. Whether a man was rich or poor, he would consume nearly the same amount of dutiable goods, and that being so, there was an infringement of the equitable basis of taxation to which ha had alluded. In England this was supposed to be remedied by exempting the poorer classes of the community from payment of the income tax. The same doctrine was suppored to be applied in the colony in the case of the property tax. Sir George Grey’s Government parsed a land tax, which he (Mr Cowli shaw) thought was, so far as it went, in the right direction ; but in many respects it was unequal and unjust, as all class legislation aud class taxation was. [Hear, hear.] The pre-

sent Government introduced instead a Property Tax Act, which originally provided that both real and personal property should be taxed, lees an ex-

emption up to £SOO, which he supposed was adopted in order to eoualise the taxation os between the poorer and the richer classes of the community. The amount of the :i. emption wag utterly inadequate for the purpose, for taking money as worth 6 per cent, per annum, it only relieved from taxation those persons whose incomes were represented by £3O a year. The property tax was also rejected, because its incidence fell to a very large extent upon that class who was most heavily taxed under the Customs duties—because a merchant who was taxed upon his stock in trade raised the price of his goods to the consumer in order to cover the amount thus paid, so that the consumer really paid a double tax. This should be remedied, aud a system of taxation devised which would more approximately comply with the principle that taxation should be in accordance -with a man’s ability to pay. To enable this equitable basis to be arrived at he would maintain tho present system of taxation through the Customs ; he would introduce a land tsx, and he would advocate the imposition of an income tax. (Hear, hear.) He forgot to mention that another defect under the present system of taxation was that practically a vary large portion of the community escaped taxation altogether, except through the Customs. There were lawyers, doctors, bankers, merchants, and others who made very large incomes. They might not have much capital, but by virtue of their association with their fellow colonists, by virtue of the kind favors which they received from their neighbours, they managed to make very good incomes, and they seemed to be toierably comfortable. [A Toice: Particularly the lawyers. Laughter.] An income tar would reach this class of persons, and make them pay in proportion to their means. It was scarcely necessary that he should dilate at any length upon the question of education. They lived now in a free community enjoying great political rights, aud liseiy to enjoy still greater privileges. If they possessed as the only electoral qualification a registered residential manhood suffrage, it would be necessary that every rising citizen should be properly educated, so as intelligently to exercise his electoral right; and therefore it was of the utmost importance that the State should be respoaaible for the education of the children of the colony. Holding this opinion, he would resist with might and main any attempt to interfere with the present system of education. [Cheers.] They had enjoyed the benefit of free and secular education for some time, and he did not think the colony would sanction a retrograde movement in this respect. He hoped the electors would make this one of the cardinal points in the present contest, and say that no one whose voice was uncertain, or whoso views were unsound on this doctrine should be returned to the Legislature of the colony. [Cheers.] There was another question of great public interest, which involved large rights, and upon which it was expedient that he should at once declare himself. He alluded to the Licensing Act recently passed, and in regard to which the Legislature had again affirmed the principle that the will of the majority should rule. Many of them had, no doubt, read in that morning’s newspaper an account of the operation of the local option principle in the State of Kansas, where, out of a population of 173,000, 93,000 voted in favour of prohibiting the sale of liquor, and 86,000 against such prohibition. Notwithstanding that the majority was so small, the minority were obliged to submit. Now, that was a proceeding scarcely applicable to this colony. A licensing law had been in. existence in New Zealand under which licensed houses had been established, the owners of which had from time to time, in compliance with the demands of the Commissioners, expended large sums of money on improvements and in affording accommodation to the public. They had gone to great trouble to supply a public want, and it would bo grossly unfair and unjust that vested interests whioh had thus been created should be taken away without proper and sufficient compensation being given. [Cheers.] The question which at the present moment he supposed was of the greatest interest to the colony was the question of the Maori difficulty, upon which, however, most candidates refrained from speaking. They seemed to think that if they touched upon this subject they would get beyond their depth, and probably shew conclusively their entire ignorance of the question. His view shortly was this —that it was a matter whioh a Government should dea with with patienee and firmness, and with an overwhelming sense of a desire to do justice to the Maori race. [Hoar, hear ] He did not intend to dilate upon this subject. It was one in reference to which they should have all the pros and cons before them before attempting to elaborate any policy. It seemed to him that the present Government were fully alive to their responsibility. They knew that important interests were at stake, and that posssibly the future well-being of the colony would depend upon their action in the present crisis, and knowing the careful and prudent character of the men, he did not think they were likely, rashly and foolishly, to involve the colony in another Maori war. [Cheers.] Ho had shortly and succinctly stated his views on what seemed to him to be the leading political questions, and if any elector desired to learn his views on any point he had not touched upon he would be happy to answer any question. If they elected him as their representative he would go to the Assembly determined to do his duty and to try as far is possible to deal justly with all classes of the community. [Loud cheerr.] In answer to questions, Mr Oowlishaw said in his opinion the Bankruptcy Act required important amendment in many respects. The system was too cumbersome and expensive, and the estates were generally frittered away in costs and trustees or agents’ charges. Not knowing the facts, ho could not say whether or not the property in the hands of the Church of England Property Trustees was honestly acquired. Under the income tax, which ho advocated, imported capital would be taxed. Absentees did not escape taxation at present, because their agents were bound to send in a return of their property, and to pay the tax. With regard to local option he did not think a tyrannical case should be made of the will of the majority. While in favor of limiting the number of public houses he thought it better to recognise that the colonists would have liquor and not to encourage smuggling and law breaking by restricted legislation. With regard to the opening of licensed houses on Sunday he did not think they should interfere with the existing law on the subject. He thought that at the expiration of the pastoral leases the runs should be put up to public auction, and disposed of to the highest bidder in blocks suitable for convenient occupation. The amount of protection at present afforded to local industries was in his opinion sufficient. Volunteers who had gone to the trouble of making themselves efficient, who were ready to go to the front, should receive some consideration for their services. Ho would protest against increased powerc of borrowing being given to the Drainage Board nr any other local body, except on condition that an affirmative expression of opinion was first obtained from the ratepayers. It would be necessary to go in for further colonial borrowing to a certain extent in order to carry out public works, and afford employment to the people. If the East and West Coast railway was an undertaking that would warrant the Government in parting with its lands for the purpose, it ought to pay the Goverment itself to carry the work out. Ho would bo against the Legislature entrusting a large undertaking of this hind to any private company. He would bo in favor of either largely reducing or altogether abolishing the honorarium to the Legislative Councillors. With regard to the existence of largo estates there was always a certain quantity of land which • ould only be utilised in largo blocks. Attempts to prevent tho acquisition of large estates by stringent land laws often hau the effect, as in Victoria, of allowing largo blocks to be acquired by rogues end tricksters, instead of by people who would use the land with advantage to tho colony. If it was proved that the property of the Church Property Trustees had been unrighteously acquired, of course it should be. taken arsy from them.

Mr G. Beattie moved—“ That a vets of thanks and confidence be accorded to ilr Oowlishaw." Mr Oowlishaw would prefer only a vote o thanks, leaving it to the electors to try through the ballot-box whether or not they had confidence in him.

A vote of thanks was then carried ■_r.inimoosly. The proceedings terminated with a vols e£ thanks to the chairman.