PUBLIC MEETING.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 962, 9 March 1871, Page 2

PUBLIC MEETING.

In pursuance of advertisement, a public meeting was held in the Council Chamber on the evening of Tuesday, the 7th instant, Mr Colenso having announced that he would on that occasion explain his views on various public matters to his constituents. meeting was largely attended. Mr T. Morrison proposed that Mr Lord take the chair. No other proposition being made, Mr Lord took the chair accordingly. The Chairman said the object of the present meeting was too well known to need any explanation from him. Mr Colenso needed no introduction —he was an old and tried friend of Hawke's Bay, and it was to be hoped that Jie would receive a patient hearing.

Mr Colenso then came forward, and was received with considerable applause. He said he was glad to meet so many of his fellow-electors this evening, and before proceeding further he must thank them for the position in which they had placed him. The honor had not been altogether unsought by him, but he had only sought it in an honorable way. On Thursday he had no idea whether he had been elected or not—whether they had returned him or left him out in the cold, and he had no opportunity of add reusing ihem then. It might be asked why he had not come forward and stated his opinions on the day of nomination, and some had even represented this omission as an act of intentional discourtesy; but this was far from being the case. He considered that, politically speaking, he had served his apprenticeship—a double apprenticeship, in fact—he could, so to speak, show the scars received in old conflicts ; and he had not thought it necessary to come forward before the election. He did not wish to influence their votes by anyihing he might say, but to leave them to do exactly as they thought proper. A short letter appeared in the Herald just previously to the election. That letter he did not like. Not that his personal feelings had been wounded —he had said publicly in 1861 that a public man must noi be too thin-skin-ned—but that that letter reflected upon the people of Napier. It said that if they returned him they would " commit a suicidal act." Now in what way was it suicidal ] Had they committed a destructive or a felonious act in returning him as their representative 1 He was reminded of a remark of a Professor of Mathematics at Oxford. A young student was complaining bitterly of the insult offered him by a person who had called him a liar. The professor did not seem to see very great cause for indignation. " Why," said the student, *'has he not brought a wicked and unfounded charge against me?" "True," said the Professor 3

" your course is this—challenge him tq. prove his assertion. He will fail to do., so—then he is the liar; not you." He did noi ordinarily trouble himself muck about what was said at election times,; yet he would gfoe sixpence to know the author of a scandalous yellow placard, which followed in the wake of the letter signed X Y Z, to which he had already alluded. It would be scarcely possible.. to compre&s a greater amount of falsehood into, the number of words of which that placard was composed. He was in the first place accused of having opposed separation. To confute this statement he need only quote from a speech he delivered on the subject at a public meeting on the 20th September, 1858, as correctly reported in the first volume, of the Hawke's |Say Herald :—-

He thought that all saw the existing need of separation. It was a matter in which no. bond Jide settler could be uninterested. He believed that Dr Featherston, if a resident in this district, wonhi be foremost in, such a m0vement............. Had Hawke's. Bay

obtained separation three years ago, in how, different a, position would it now be I Would not the roads of the interior and the streets of the town be in, a very different state from what they are ?. All they wanted was leave to manage their awn revenue—they wanted nothing from Wellington. All they bad: to say to. Wellington was this,—We have dissolved partnership ; han.d over the ba1ance............ He trusted in conclusion that the motto, " one and all," would be theirs., that day; that unitedly they would fight the battle of separation. T?hat day four years a great victory was obtained at Alma: let the victory of that day be, in a, moral sense, no less complete.

—Either the man. who made that statement knew nothing about separation, or, knowing, told a deliberate falsehood. If he did not know, what right had he to publish such an accusation ? The next charge was that he (Mr C.) had. "sold his constituents for place and 1 pay." The walls of that hall, could they speak, would testify to the.false-, hood of this assertion. When he was. Provincial Treasurer, with grave responsibilities —with bondsmen responsible to. the extent of thousands of pounds that he would duly perform his duties —he had been cut off from his, office at a moment's notice. Why? Because he voted against the Superintendent. The truth was, that he had made himself poor by standing up forthe rights of the people. Then followed a series of untruths about the Maori: Lexicon. It would take a whole evening to go, thoroughly into that, subject. He would not do. so, however, but would confine himself to a necessary explanation. In the first place, had the Assembly ordered that work when he. first, proposed that >'t should be undertaken, he could have *had nothing to do with it. At that period he held the offices of Provincial Treasurer, Inspector ofSchools, and member of the Provincial Executive, and his time was fully ocCu-. pied. Had the work then been ordered, he should merely have placed his notes ; at the disposal of those appointed to, perform it, and have had no more, to do, with the matter, His only wish throughout had been to see some worthy record kept of a beautiful and elegant language, —the noblest of the Polynesian dialects. When the work was at length ordered to be undertaken he was out of office, his time was not so fully engaged, and the duty was assigned to, him. It had been asked why the work was not. finished; but none of his fellow townsmen would need to ask such a question. They all knew the affliction that had befallen him in 1867, which had deprived him of the use of his right hand for writing ever since. They need not expect an oration from him to night; if they did they would be disappointed. His intention was. to deal truthfully with the subjects he would bring forward, without seeking to enlist the sentiments of any party. He wished he could tell of better prqspects in store than we had before us—that there, would be no more rust in the wheat nor Hoods in the rivers; that the prices of wool and flax would rise; that gold would be foun4 at Kaimanawa; or — far greater than all—that a good, large, diligent, hard working population would settle among us. When, years ago, he. published the " Tract* for the Times," he loudly maintained that it would be more profitable for Hawke's Bay to have 2,000 good settlers than ,£200,000 in gold,—and money then was of greater value than now. Having been elected as their representative, he would do his duty in the Council; but they must not expect great things—these had long

"been cleared off the boards. • His Pro•vincial Council experience, and his experience in the General Assembly-r-------extending over five years —had taught him that it was no use seeking in a legislative body for what you want—you must tiy for what you can manage to get, so far as is right. Time was i jvhen a year's revenue of was scrambled for in that chamber. That time had gone—never to return. One element of power was much neglected by the electors—the press. The bystanders usually saw most of the game, and therefore the constituents should and consider the actions of their representatives. The three daily papers they now possessed would give ample room for the expression of their ideas. If they found one paper too old or too crabbed to publish their views, they might find another young or green enough to do so. He noticed ,that the candidates on the nomination day were interrogated on three subjects—the tollgate, the education rate, and the so ealled Permissive Bill. The toll-gate—-that fine monument of ancient days—had, he was happy to say, been decided upon since he left the Council. Had he been then in the Council, he would have opposed it to the last, though—as the book of the chronicles of the cil would tell lie had often done before —he had stood alone on the division. At the race-time he could not but think of the three shillings —for our own Olympic games, it seemed must last three days—to be paid by each regular attendant from Napier; while visitors from all other parts of Hawke's Bay, from Wairarapa, or from Wellington, might go scot free. Visitors co the province had been struck with astonishment at finding a toll-gate in the midst of a desert; they had asked him to explain it; but he had never been able to .do so. If the Government could not with this source of revenue, he hoped they would see fit to remove the gate to the great bridge over the Ngarxuorq. There would be some excuse for it there, for no man could grudge to my toll for crossing ihat fine structure. The next subject was the education rate. They knew that he had opposed the payment of that rate to the utmost; he counselled them still to resist it, but in ft constitutional manner. The Council had deluded tjae public by the promise that the tax should be merely temporary, and had made it permanent, but this was the Avay with all Governments, The last year he was in the Assembly a Stamp Duties Act was brought "forward, and wa§ largely dismissed in t|he House and considered in (Comniitte. The Government assured them that it was to be meiely temporary, but the Assembly were not to be thus cajoled, and rejected the bill. In another session, however, it was unfortunately allowed to pass, as a tern porary measure, and now we were saddled with it for a permanency. His ideas on the subject of education could be expressed in a few words. Public education should be .carried out by the State; the Government should educate the people. All should have access to it, and it should be of a secular nature. Ttiis was a 'sufficient explanation of his general theory of education. As regarded ourselves, our rising generation must be educated. Could this be done in all cases by the parens s ? No. Then the onus fell upon the State. TJie new member for Havelock, Mr Tanner, had been reported to have said he would rather see the education rate doubled than abolished. Of course in a condensed report qualifying or explanatory remarks might have been overlooked, hut in a certain way he quite agreed with Mr Tanner. He would not object to the tax, or a double tax, if it was applied to the support of a regular system. On this point he would quote from Mr Huddlestone, one of the candidates for a seat in the Canterbury Provincial Council :

The next subject of importance, in his opinion, to the settlement of the country in Canterbury was eduction. This subject would, he believed, come nnder tbe notice of the Council at its next sitting, as it was felt to be an all-important one. During the last session of the Council it had been under discussion, and :t'ie Nelson system had been spoken of by those who did not kuow anything about the working of it except from hearsay. He, as an old Nelson settler, knew far more about the system than those who had spoken of it in the Council. The system possessed the merit of being a system—beginning at an infant school, and ending $ a college; all under the same system; and there

was every inducement held out to pareats to send their children to schools by making every householder pay a tax for education throughout the province. The Government provided an infant school, and next there were village schools, something similar to those in Canterbury, from which clever children who distinguished themselves in the various classes could pass to the High School. From this the seholars eould go to the College, as there were several scholarships offered during the year for competition, open to ehildren from the High School, which scholarships, when gained, would carry them through a course of academical instructions free of cost to their parents. This was the system, and he believed one of the very best that could be adopted.

—Now, if we had anything like that here, who would object to pay £1 per annum to the support of the system 1 Next session he would endeavor, if it was not possible to do anything more, to make great alterations for the better in the obnoxious education rate. (Applause.) Last year he found £895 16s 8d was realized from the education rate, of which only £832 had been spent. In view of this fact he hoped that in future no householder would be called on to pay more than his £1 —that he would not have to pay another pound for his workshop, smithy, or cobbler's stall. He hoped, also, that a man who was taxed by the Government for education might claim that they should educate his children—that he should not have to pay his tax and education expenses too. Perhaps no person in Napier paid more for education than himself. He might be blamed for sending his boys out of the country ; but it was because he could not get what he sought for them here. [to be concluded to-morbow]