Election Items.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 4 October 1890, Page 2

Election Items.

i -♦ i The N. Z. Thi,i.< states thai the Govern- ! ment have determined, after giving the matter due consideration, that the elections shall bo hfld. on Fridn.T. the s»th of r><?remi ber next. i Mr John Stevens has spent the week here with the result that he has secured a good working committee, with Mr Levers an Secretary. A meeting was held on Thursday evening and much important work transact d A committee room has been secured in the building lately occupied by Mr Osborne's tailor. Mr Wilson's committee are anything but idle, and a meeting is advertised for Mon- j day night. i The only candidate's supporters who are apparently doing little are Mr Pirani's as we are not aware that they have even a committee. Rumours are' current that when Mr Pirani addresses tho electors here, steps will be taken to secure a vote of confidence, and thai his speech will be a reply to Mr Wilson's circular. P. E. Thoreau, a police constable, announces himself as a candidate for Timarn. Mr H. I). Bell made his first potitical ppeech fit the Wellington Opera house on Thursday night. The meeting is described as being the rowdiest that has taken place in that city for years. Mr Bell appears to have made a manly straight forward address, and stated that if he wont to Parliament he should not go as the representative of any class, and whoever wanted a class representative must vote for someone else. He agreed with the view of Mr Ballanre that the Colony should cease the Bale of land, and thnt all future parting with the land should be by the tenure of the perpetual leasehold. ' The Colony would retain the freehold and retain for it's posterity the land, which would go in reduction of taxation. He was in favour of the property tax, as without it the Governm nt could not find the necessary revenue. Except for the purpose of bursting up large estates he could not see why a land tax should be imposed in place of property tax. If they were going to say that land should uot be held in large areas, they should say it by direct legislation. The short way of doing it, he thought, was to say in the holder, it you won't sell it, we 11 pin vo 1 and sell it for you. If the Colony \voie bent on progressive taxaii.m for ilio purpose of "bursting up"' they would bring all the land into the market at once and he didn't think anyone wanted confiscation. If, however, the death duties were graduated so as to provide tor a heavy tax if a large estate was not sold within a curtain time after the owner's death, they might solve the diflicniu. V-. Parliament had already admitted tho prinoipril of graduation into the death dutieV, hr. thought what hr suggested was qnilo feasible.

As to absentees, the great majority of I them were pioneers of civilisation in New Zealand — men who laboured to form the Co'ony ; ami he said it was shabby to turn round on them in their old age and say tiny should be specially taxed, lie had not a single friend among those absentees ; and in any case, if this was what he thought, he hoped the meeting would agree with him that he should Bay it. He was in favour of free, secular, and I CDmpulsory education. j Mr Bell was accorded a vote of thanks.