PUBLIC MEETING.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 17, Issue 962, 10 March 1871, Page 2

PUBLIC MEETING.

[CONCLUDED HR.OM LAST NIGHT'S TIM^S.]

He now came to another subject—a ticklish one, he confessed, and one on which Jie was as yet casting about for light. To any man who would give him light on this subject, he would be thankful. It now occupied a large share of public attention; but it deserved to be discussed more widely than it was at present. He had no doubt that the editors of the local papers would be glad to receive correspondence on the sulgjeet from all parties. One of the heavy duties of legislators was so to balance the laws that they should impinge fairly on all classes in the community. To the outside public it might seem an easy matter to pass a law ; buc with thofe on whom the responsibility rested it was different. In an English paper he lately met with some correspondence between the Protestant Association of Birmingham and Mr John Bright. Mr Bright, as they were no doubt all aware, was a member of the Society of Friends, and, as such, the Protestant Association directed his attention to certain carryings-on of the Jesuits, and asked him to use his influ-. ence to have them expelled from the country. Mr Bright replied that they knew him to be a good protectant, but he could not agree with their-proposal; their object must be brought about in a different manner. He did not know whether the fact had ever-struck them, but ideas, in themselves right, were often greatly exaggerated by those who. held them. Human nature was certainly progressive; but it never progressed in a direct line. Why was the Government of Great Britain-the most perfect in the world ? Because of the "Ins" and the " Outs,"~-the" Whigs and the Tories. Ideas of reform were tossed backwards and forwards like tennis balls between contending parties, and it was in this zig-zag fashion that real national progress was accomplished. Right ideas were always started in a more or less crude and imperfect form, and required to be licked or moulded into shape in the contests between men of vaiying view*. These remarks were preliminary to his bringing forward the principal subject of the evening—the so called Permissive Bill. If he had addressed the electors on the day of nomination he knew he would have been interrogated on this subject; coming forward voluntarily, as he 4id on this occasion, he could have avoided, it; but he did not choose to do so. The question was one on which the electors themselves should think a greal deal. It was a new matter, this Permissive Bill, and he might be wrong in some of his ideas concerning it; but he believed its object was to veto public-houses. This power was to be given to twothirds of the people, including women —young women, too, he was sorry to say. All who were present must know of two deleterious plants growing in these Islands —the karaka and the tutu. With the exception of water, almost: the only drink of the natives before the arrival of Europeans, was the delicious and wholesome eupressed juice of the berry of the tutu plant • yet a few of the minute seeds contained in the same berry would cause death. The kernel of the karaka berry was prepared and laid up in large quantities for winter provision; it was a valuable article of diet, analagous to the cassava or tapioca; yet those same kernels in a raw state were a deadly poison. If these fruits had been brought by the natives to Europeans, who had eaten Ihem and been poisoned the natives might have been prohibited from bringing auv more. Would this have prevented other Europeans from going to the bush and getting the berries 1 . Let them examine the application of this permissive principle. At Port Ahuriri there were two hotels; the shipping trade of the port rendered them a necessity. Some person had told him that two-thirds of the population of the Port were Pechabites No one could find fault with this, and he was glad to know that the number of Bechabites was increasing. But, under the permissive scheme how would this result 1 Why, next licensing day the good folks of the Port would call upon the Government to shut up these houses. Would this be fair? [A. Voice : No.] Let them not suppose he approved o? the drinking of deadly liquors. He

jjeld in his hand the first English book printed in New Zealand—•< he Keport of the establishment at the Bay of Islands, in August, 1835, of the New Zealand Tempt'ranee Socieiy. In Napier there Ave re now living only two men who had been concerned in the formation of that Society, and he was one of them. He iad never deserted his old Temperance colors; but he could not give his assentto an Act which could be brought to jbear injuriously on vested interests as the Permissive Bill. That some' thin 0 " must be done to check the tide of intemperance all would admit; but it must not be a plan which would impinge ■upon existing interests--which would allow a majority to dictate to their neighbors. A few days since a young man had been carried to his long home, a victim to intemperance—Harry Birch, the son of Colonel Birch. Seventeen years ago, when that young man first landed in Hawke's Bay, his (Mr C's ) was the first house to which he came, and he thought at the time that he had never seen a finer specimen of the English youth. No doubt many among our fellow townsmen were following in his .steps, unable longer to hold the reins of their appetites : something must be done to restrain them; but something different from closing public-houses. The permissive clause had beenincorporaied into the Auckland Licensing Act, and it was said that before long it would be Jnmight into effect in many districts; hat the case of Auckland, where the population of the city and suburbs alone equalled ten thousand, was different from that of this place. The advocates of the Permissive Bill pointed out that the large sale of liquor was a fertile source of crime, poverty, disease, and death. This all would admit, and the matter was grave enough ; but if on these grounds the population of one district closed the public-houses, what then ? If the public-houses at the Port were closed, would not a man who was inclined to drink go to town for his liquor? If the Auckland measure was not confined to public-houses —if, like the Maine law, it prohibited the manufacture or sale of the liquor in any way, so that not one drop could be found in the place —he could understand it better. If they could do this, they would accomplish what had never yet been done —making a population sober by Act of Parliament. He gave all honor to the teetotalers ; but in earning out their extreme views they should guard against attempting to coerce people who thought differently from themselves In olden clays he had a young friend in this Colony who took snuff to a prodigious extent —who carried the habit to a greater excess than any other person he had ever seen. Even when on his knees in church he would have recourse to the snuffbox two or three times during the prayer. Yet this young man could not endure to see anyone smoking. He had known him chase a native and take the pipe from his mouth, convinced that the man was doing himself great injury by his bad habU —while all the time he was snuffing himself to death. If ever he was pressed by his constituency to support such a measure as the Permissive Bill, he Avould ask them if they were prepared to pay the publicans a certain amount of compensation, as England compensated the slaveholders of Jamaica. A late Daily Telegraph—of England--contained an account of an interview between a French gentle-, man and the ex-Empress. This gentleman had seen Count Bismarck and other prominent men on the Continent, and sought to establish a basis of peace. After three and-a half hours' conversation with the ex-Empress, he had to give his object up, for the reason that she was perfectly inaccessible to any logical argument—and so it was with the advocates of the Permissive Bill He would now touch upon other subjects. He hoped if anything great or special occurred before next session, that it was necessary the Council should know, that the Government would make it public before the meeting of tha Council. By so doing they would s ive a great deal of time, and materially shorten the session. As for the future, lie did not take so gloomy a view as some, but our prospects would have been now nujuh brighter had we done better in the past. Had the scheme of our first Superintendent —Mr Thos. Henry JTitzGerald, who had the welfare of the

community at heart —been carried out, and the fertile plains of this Province been acquired and colonized when the natives were willing to part with them, there would now haye been no fear of Hauhau invasion, no calling out of the militia, no frittering of tens of thousands annually on colonial defence. He well remembered when the first battle on this subject was fought between Mr Fitz Gerald and Mr M'Lean. The latter gentleman was then Chief Native Land Purchase Commissioner, and no man was better fitted for the office. Had he at that time throwu the weight of his influence into the scale with Mr Fitz Gerald, we should now have had hundreds of families settled on those plains, prosperous and happy. What was the millstone round the neck of this Province '? He could tell them in one word—interest. Thousands of pounds annually went from the Province as interest on borrowed money. Our runholders would shake themselves free of the incubus if they could, but it clung to them like the Old Man of the Sea to Sindbad the Sailor. Their life blood was being drained from them year by year, v\hile they waited—waited—for a rise in the price of wool or mutton. When he thought of the nations who had lately turned their attention to sheep-farming, he shuddered at the prospects of the runholder —the case seemed so hopeless. Year after year more and more wool was thrown into the markets of the world. Who could say what the price of vool might be twenty-five years' hence, when we considered the fact that the teeming population of China had begun to turn their attention to the animals introduced by the outer barbarians, and compete with them in the wool industry 1 He should rejoice to hear of a rise in the price of wool or flax, but he feared it was not to be. Some of the other resources of the country —and it had other resources—must be biought into requisition. So long ago as January, 1843, he wrote as follows in the Tasmanian Journal :

Her natural productions—her fisheries, her metals, her timber, her fto, her pork, and her barks for dyeing and tanning—will doubtless prove an inexhaustible mine of wealth ; but, ere these can be available, the spirit of labor and industry, of energy and alacrity, must be infused into her present occupiers; contentment and unity must dwell among us—aud self denial be extensively practised.

—lf those words applied then, they applied now with far greater force. The only way by which the people of this Province could escape from their present difficulties was to practice the virtues he had mentioned. He would give them one bit of advice—whatever their portion might be, whetber they had much work or little, let them live within their incomes. When he first came to New Zealand his income was ,£3O per annum, and for a good many years it was not more than £1 per week—occasionally less—yet he had always kept Avithin it. Let them do this, let them be honest and industrious, keeping a cheerful spirit, and ever looking up to the Great Father of all, and they would succeed. Gold was not to be picked up in the streets, out it was to be gained by the honest and hard-working, by the man who would put bis shoulder to his own dray, instead of imploring Hercules to come to his assistance. From his dwelling on the hill he sometimes looked round Napier, and thought of those who had prospered in it, and it was those who had put their shoulders manfully to the wheel, We might not be able to do a great deal; but we might all do what we could. One more remark, and he had done. All must have noticed an evil which had lately arisen—a number of minor bankruptcies. In the West of England, where lie came from, two persons were held in abhorence —the public informer and the needless bankrupt. These failures caused a shaking of confidence very injurious to the in terests of society. One instance he had noticed in which a man became bankrupt who stated that lie did not owe moie than <£2o. He hoped the public would set their faces against this low crawling system of petty bankruptcy; for it would be a bad day for society when the Insolvent Court came to be looked upon as the panacea for those in difficulties. He would add a word of advice to those in trade—Don't be too hard on your poor neighbors; and

above all things don't clap interest upon interest. If your debtor cannot pay the principal, how ' can lie. paytwelve and-a half per cent, interest. Immigration to a large extent was about to be encourrged by the Government. Of this he disapproved—he should not like to see immigrants until work was provided for them to do. (Hear, hear.) Let the people help one another, and above all things follow out the golden rule. He would now conclude, as he hoped to hear some remarks fiom some of his colleagues and he] ©Ould not clor.e his address better than by a quotation from our dear old Englishman, William Shakespeare : To thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. —Mr Colenso resumed his seat amid great applause. No other person seeking to address the meeting, the proceedings terminated with the usual vote of thanks to the chairman.