Sir Robert Stout's Speech.

Manawatu Herald, 14 March 1895, Page 3

Sir Robert Stout's Speech.

. : ♦ ■ > On Monday night at the Wellington Opera House, Sir Robert Stout addressed his constituents and made, according to the report in the N.Z. Times a severe reflection upon the present Ministry. After reviewing the stories of past Liberalism, as to how they fought lor political and social reform and pure Government, ho went on to show what were the fundamental principles at the root of true Liberalism. First, obedience to the law ; then there was equality in the eye of the law. Then : there was the further position that they must have pure government, and no corruption, • and iurther that neither the Par-: liament nor the people should be deceived by any party or set of men. They must have the State selfreliant and independent, they must provide that the Parliament shall be ■ a real, live, .institution representing the people, they must have progressive political life, and social reform, because they must have ideals. Obedience to the law. Now, could they as Liberals truly answer that this fundamental principle of true Liberalism, and he might say of true government, had not been violated by the Liberals of New Zealand ? ' Unfortunately for our history they could not. For the first time in the hi3tory of this Colony the Liberal Party had with its eyes open broken the law. Now it seemed to. him that it had not P only broken the law, but had openly declared-^-ae he'ivould show further on — that this breach of the law was part of the policy of the party in rewer at the present moment. Sir Koberfe|Hs9nt then went fully into the Sergeant-atHArma appointment and saß -there had been a deliberate evasion of the' law and the House knew it. This was not the only violation of the law that had taken place. The Civil Service Act of 1886 had been deliberately set aside. Under this Apt there were different ways of 'getting into the public {service. Some departments did not come under that Act, but most of them did, and the only way to obtain entrance was as a cadet after competition, as an expert, or as a temporary olerW This Act had been deliberately Bet aside. There had been wholesale dismissals, and there had been wholesale appointments. It wife not the idea to aelect the best men for the service, but they had had political corruption of the worst kind. That led up to the violation of another fundamental principle of Liberalism ; that was, equality in the eye of the law and that all should stand on the same platform. It had been freely recognised and carried out by the Government during the last two or three years— at any rate during the last 18 months to his own knowledge— that lads and men had been taken into thfmpublic service not because oi theirintcllectual ability, or of then * experience or moral worth, bul absolutely and entirely because oi the political opinions of theit parents, or of those who recommended them to the Government. That y was to the destruction of all true Liberalism, and struck at the root ol all good government. They could not call it anything. else but political corruption. They bad nor right tc ask- whether a man was the righl colour or not. If they wished the Civil Service placed on a propel footing they had first to ascertain whfithec^ man had ability and honesty Trad could perform his work, His political opinions they had nc > more right to enquire into than tc ask bis religious opinions. The next point he came to was Ibis : that no Parliament or peopk ought to be deceived by any leaden or party. What had become oj their 1 non-borrowing policy ? Befort the last general elections it was thdtideted'from a hundred platform: that the Government were going t( pursue' a non- borrowing and self reliant policy. It was said that th< Government proposals for the futun we re, figjfr, self-reliance and nc loans. Waa it right, he asked, to s( deceive the people ? What liability

, had already been incurred this year ? The liabilities this year sanctioned i by Parliament amounted to over £7,---000,000. There was first the guarantee to the Bank of New ZeaI land of £2,000.000. Coming to their loans, they had borrowed half'a million for consols, 1£ millions for i land purchase, three millions had been sanctioned for advances to . settlers, and half a million for lands , and roads. Altogether the liability incurred by the Colony was no less I than 7£ millions. Not only had . their debt increased, but the interest had increased also. During the i past three years it had increased by . more than £IG,OOO a year, and this year there would be an increase over I last year of about £40,000, and in the coming year it would have increased two or three times more i than that. Sir Robert declared the advances to settlers should have been made from the Departments and not from , money borrowed in London. This , borrowing in London and lending , the money to the farmers meant that the men who were lending them the money were to be continually absentees, and they had a Government created and worked simply for the interest of those absentees. Nothing perhaps had destroyed Ireland more than its absentee system, and yet they were about to introduce that system into New Zealand. They were told in the House that there were a great number of people in the Colony who had money put away in their stockings and teapot?, and that if the consol system was introduced all these savings would be j emptied into the Government Treasure Up to December last they had £151,000, but £150,000 of that came from the Bank of New Zealand, and he did not know where the Other £1200 came from. They would perhaps get some information on- that point when the House met again, but he did not think it came from the general teapots of the people. He was in favour of labour legislation. His view of the Shops and Shop Assistants Bill was that if they required a half-holiday they ought to have made it universal and fixed it by the State. The present conditions made the whole thing absurd, and the only way to deal with the question was for the Act to say that Sunday should begin on Saturday at 2 p.m. Sir Robert favoured an elected executive on the ground if an executive were elected for three years we would get rid of the " spoils to the victors " system of political corruption that was acting like a cancer in our political life, and we would have some chance ot carrying out political reform without every Bill being decided, not on its merits, but on how it would affect the Ministry of the day. The Licensing Bill of last session was never intended to pass when it was introduced. It was simply impossible to get a Bill of several hundred clauses through the House , under three or four weeks. He did ' not hope to find anything done in this direction next session, unless it , were a short Bill brought in to remedy the defects in the existing law. Confidence could not be restored unless the people believed that the Government was actuated by high ideas of justice — that it would act justly to all classes of the community, and would not punish anyone either because he had got wealth or intelligence, or because held certain political opinions. If we as a com* munity would give the security he mentioned, and above all if we insisted upon pure government, then we might expect brighter days for > i his colony. We must not only, however, have pure Government, but we must attract to our Parliament and especially to our Civil Service our abkst men— intellectually great . men fired with an ambition to do the [ State some service. The " spoils to [ the victors " system would not give us that If the people arose in their ( might and said " the party or the I Ministry that will not give us pure , government must go, 1 we would ob- - tain pure government. At present f we had not pure government, but . corrupt government, and our liberties . had been threatened. Take for ex- ■ ample the Libel Bill. 16 showed the , cloven hoof of autocracy under the I great coat of Liberalism which our [ rulers put on. [ Sir Robert was frequently api plauded during his address and also • at the termination of it. ) The following resolution proposed f by Miss Kirk and seconded by Mr t Morrison and passed " That this I meeting thanks Sir Robert Stout for his address, and assures him of its > full confidence in him as a repre- , sentative of the city in Parliament."