THE PREMIER AT CHRISTCHURCH.

Mataura Ensign, Volume 6, Issue 353, 2 May 1884, Page 2

THE PREMIER AT CHRISTCHURCH.

The reception of tlie Premier in Dunedin was quite bad enough in point of taste, breeding, and manliness, but the treatment he received in Christchurch was perfectly outrageous, and stamps the mass of men there as brainless idiots who have no thoughts of their own and won't be taught, and who either as a whole don't possess ordinary human, courtesy, or have not the manliness to compel a minority to show it. It is the duty of every organ of public opinion outside of Christchurch to reprobate the barbarous indecency of the behavior of the mob there to the chief Minister of the Crown in this Colony. It says very little indeed for the intelligence of a city when a crowd of more than two thousand people will not allow the best informed politician in the country to speak two consecutive sentences without such yells and groans, as some of those two thousand- may be expected to emit in a future state. Can the fact that Christchurch is the headquarters of the Salvation Army have anything to do with the absence of brain and manners there? Mr Edward Wakefield was at the Christchurch meeting, and showed his want of chivalrous feeling by attacking when he knew he was sure of cheers the man who for two or three hours had braved the mob alone, and who was not likely to get a fair chance of reply. This gentleman set forth an amazing theory, which, however, was quite sound enough for the addled condition of the Christchurch brain. He said the Government had no constitutional right to raise the . railway tariff without the express.-vote,-of Parliament. Haising the tariff was imposing taxation. If the Government by reckless spending inMe a deficit it would only have, on the .principle followed by Ministry^ to put on the. tariff, to I coyer it, . Nothing more unworthy ofs Mr Wakefield could be imagined- -except modesty. The tariff is taxation, but payment for service, rendered. , The management of ;tß.e railways is intrusted to the Government, and they are responsible to the , country for making them pay as well as possible. The tariff is not now raised to make up a deficiency in ordinary revenue, but to make up a deficiency in railway irevenue. And as to the tariff being capable of being made an. engine for unconstitutional taxation, it is simply impossible. As soon as more than a reasonable charge is made the revenue fails off. So long as the Government cannot compel the people to use the lines at any price, the tariff cannot be an engine of arbitrary taxation. Mr Wakefield seems to have found the addle-headed-ness of Christchurch contagious. 1