The Political Campaign.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 3554, 1 August 1905, Page 2

The Political Campaign.

CONTEST for the mAnaWAIT SEAT, MR FRAN ELAND'S ADDRESS. (Continued from SilUil'Ty’s issue.) Ills OWN’ SPECIAL PLATFORM. “ This allusion lo our new ‘ cave of Adnllam,’- wittvits dnughty -troglodytes (cave-dwellers). —its Taylor, its Fisher, its Bedford—reminds me that I have said nothing as yqt about the specific planks of my platforri; Fdr these brilliant parliamentarians, if I understand them aright, have committed themselves to lines of policy that are very clear cut; arid perhaps .startling. As 1 assume the badge of* independent Liberal,’ it behoves me to define my attitude towards ‘ planks ’ that have been constructed by those who have worn the badge before me. Instead, howdver, of quoting from the Adnllamites’ utterances, and then expressing my measure ot agreement with or difference therefrom, I shall perhaps best read to yon the ‘ planks ’ with which I am credited—quite correctly—by the ‘ Rangitikei Advocate ’, and the ‘ Feilding Star.’ They are as follows :

“ I. Land Tenure ; I favour the freehold tenure as recommended in No. i report of the Larid Commission. “2. I will give general but discriminating support to the existing Administration, much on the lines formulated'bv some members of the present Independent Liberal Party in the House. “ 3. Liquor question : I favour Prohibition as the ultimate ideal ; but under no circumstances without adequate and liberal compensation to existing vested interests. “4- Referendum : I favour referendum, with initiative, as an indis pensahle safeguard against the possible future introduction into the colony of phitocratizing tendencies that are at work nearly everywhere else in the world. “ 5. Bible in schools : On this vexed question I advocated (he aprilication of the referendum, i.e. I favour the Bible-in schools Referendum League. “6. Imperial: I favour any measures —fiscal or other—that would tend to strengthen existing ties between the Colonies and the Motherland, and to give the .Colonies a proportionate voice in Imperial management.“7. Local : I would endeavour to secure for the Manawatu a fair share of expenditure of public money.

“ I had better sunnlement this enumeration of ‘ planks ’ bv recallingto your memory what our local newspaper Wd about mv views a little more than a week ago. The Manawatu Herald then wrote: —‘We understand he will favour, among other things, (he freehold tenure of land, with certain restrictions; maintenance of the independence of labour interests; the referendum with initiative- elective Uoper House; and (theoretically) elective Executive. As. however, Mr Frankland avows himself an ardent Imperialist, he would not press the last proposition, which might conflict with Imperial traditions and sentiment.’ Now these political convictions, though they refer to matters that have been frequently discussed in the newspapers of late, require a little explanation. It is not that thev have been wrongly put into mv mouth, for thev represent in fact an important part of mv political creed and were communicated to the firess bv mvself. But, since formulating them, it has occurred to me that there are ambiguities at one or two points, ambiguities that require clearing up.

LAND TENURES. “To begin with the first. As formulated, the plank looks like an unqualified endorsement of ah that appears in the ‘ No 1 report on tenures’ signed hv Messrs McKerrow, Had. McCardle, McCutchan. and Malheson, of the recent Land -Commission. It might seem as if I saw 10 force whatever in the reasoning by which (he ‘No. 2 report’ has been so al)lv buttressed. Snob is not the case. As a matter of theory, I have more affinity with the ideals of No 3 and. in the case oflarge urban centres.even believe that much might he done to practicnhze its conclusions. But in country districts, like the constitnancv in which we stand, we are confronted, not by a theory, but hv a condition. The interests of immediate settlement are paramount: and we must trust to taxation for the adjustment of ideal equities later. There recently an neared in the 1 Rangitikei Advocate ’ an article on the condition of the people in Denmark, as tollows: “ Denmark affords an excellent object lesson on the advantages of the freehold tenure and its benefit to the State, and the results attained there should he studied by the theorists who are advocating the State serfdom of land users. Towards the close of the last ccntnrv the peasantry of Denmark were described as a class physically and mentally degraded, living in serfdom, oppressed by the nobles and Crown Lands regulations. It was Frederick VI., of Denmark who was wise enough to see the causes of the degeneracy of the people. He initiated a better state of affai-s when Crown Prince and carried it further when he became' King. He removed restrictions from Crown Lands which kept back the peasants, and gave them everv facility for acquiring freehold farms, with the result that in less than one hundred years, out of 280.000 families in the country districts of the Kingdom, 170,000 were owners ot land, and the spread of the freehold still continues. Pauperism has practically vanished, schools have flourished, and the people are educated, industrious, honest and capable. The freehold tenure is, indeed, the main requirement t® create national prosperity and ensure the freedom of the people. 1 At the same time, while thus an advocate of the freehold in country districts in deference to the exigencies of the Colony’s present stage of progress, I am earnestly in favour of such

restrictions in area as will for ever prevent the growth in ihis Colony of a landed aristocracy like those aristocracies which have been the curse of many an older nation.THU LIQUOR QUESTION. “ i" nt.'Mt come lo the liquor question. What do 1 (tledn By favouring Prohibition ‘as the nub-bdo idPal ’ ? I moan favouring Prohibition A \Ve can got it, <xncl if we c.ui get it With out injury to rating interest. Failing this, ■or if thd financial burden of compensation without direct‘7 reuniting revenue to the Government he tiiohght- too heavy then I favour the buying out of existing interests by govertriental authority - and the rilnning of the liquor trade as :i government, mohdfioly-—either colonial or local. A local govern nlcut inonoply df the liquor trade has been opeiTd-xl for mdriy years, with excellent results, at the large tovVii of .Gothenburg, in Sweden, and —1 believe in othei places, and has come to ho known as the Gothenburg system. Us superiority ovei 1 the present system is obvious, il only because the interests of private individuals arc no longer opposed in the public good. The gov.ramPiif or borough purveyors of liquor being paid by salary, ?re interested not in selling as much liquor as'possible hut rather in selling as little as posable, in otdoi to have a tninimun ofWetih It is like paying your doctor by annuity ds long as yon live, instead of by fee for work done. It becomes his interest to have yon ill its seldom as possible, instead of as often as possible, in order that he may draw his annuity wlthdi.lt doing more work tor it than need be.

CONSTITUTIONAL PLANKS- “ i will "group together the various constitutional measures for which I have been made sponsor by the newspapers. And hero I may be pardoned a little natural pride at finding that measures which I preached in colony,- just as I did female suffrage when' hardly more than a boy (for these constitutional questions always interested me most keenly, when I Was a young man) have—thirty years laterbeen raised to the dignity of quasipractical politics by enlisting the sympathy of such brilliant advocates as the Independent Liberals of the present Parliament. The Initiative and referendum, an" Elective Upper House, • an Elective Cabinet these are the measures I contended for then, and these are the constitutional changes, which, in a sense, I advocate still ; but oil, that I could adequately impress on you how different are my feelings towards the three measures enumerated! An ‘Elective Upper House’? Yes: but how elected ? Do wo wa ita Counr. I which, boasting a popular election that shall raise its prestige to a level with that of the House, shall yet—he it through larger electoral areas, or be it through some narrowing of franchise become an engine of reaction the elective second Chamber of a sister colony or that millionaire club which is known as the Senate of the United States ? Surely a nominated Chamber, however it may fall, short of our theoretic ideal, serves our purpose far better than those checks on democratic progress, these bringers about of crises and deadlocks ? The elective second Chamber of the Swiss Confederacy, the 1 Standerath,’ as it is called, is, indeed, ideal. It represents the separata cantons even as the United States Senate represents the individual States; but, unlike the latter, it has succumbed to no plutocratic influences and co-operates with all the other elements of the Swiss constitution in forming a harmonious, a model Republic. But hen,, in New Zealand where we have no co of provincial districts —in syito of the belated attempt to reintroduce onwhich we road of in .the newspapers—we have not the machinery to constitute a second Chamber like the Swiss ‘Standerath.’ One method only of electing our Legislative Council commends itself to me. It is a method I have advocated for thirty yea s ; and. if I understand them Aright, it is the method favoured bv the Adn'lamites ot the Independent Liberal Parfv. [ mean election by thf House of T! -presentatives. But, ladies and gent! man, is there anythin" urgent about a constitutional change like this ? Does it possess ranch more than a more academe advantage over our present system ? 1. should not believe in it, even as an academic proposition, were if. not coupled with the Referendum as a means of appeal to the people -n of a deadlock between the t/vo fl'-am-virs. Ah. but the Referendum ! W" ih! that I could impart to von >nv sons- of the importance of that! No mwe n-ademic reform here. No mere caption i criticism of existing arrangements in the pursuit of theoretic perfection. Perhaps, on the contrary, the one. indispensnb') safe,guard against submergence of dl wa hold most dear by the plutocrati • wave which is sweeping over the planet. Let me te'l you a little story. I was once verv familiarly acquainted with an exmember of the New York House of Representatives. ‘ I am very inTons to hear details about your political career,’ I said to him. 1 Oh, Mr Frankland, it was the most disappointing thing yon can hpaginn For instance. I was promised *OO dollars for such and such, a bill in connection with New York City, and—would you believe it?—l never saw a c°nt of it! T was promised 250 dollars for such and such a bill in connection with Brooklyn, and —you would hardly believe mo—l never saw a cent of it!’ Ladies and gentlemen,'legislation is not bought and sold under the British Hag. But, if that tune ever comes, it may bn too Ir.D to talk about Initiatives anl Rcferemhms, because you mteht never- be allow d to get them. If tao (1 v delays to nr i its wings til! it is actually oUamrol in the spider’s web, it mav f’n ' that ah the subsequent buzzings are ineffeetu: 1 to restore its lost frewt-m. In the int -rest of our ch‘l Iron, and of ou" child mi’s children, f he-.each you to ‘ b-> wb • in time’ ! Build an efYe'c:n-ddamag.mvst the tidal wave of pluto- • ur that is even now sweeping toward the N-w Zna’and shore. But. if the P.U-c ■■ivs U -nor House be an academic mu*, and the Referendum, per contra, perhaps poo most burning question of the ago, what are we to say of that third propowd measure—the direct electron of ‘he Cabinet of the House of Representa-

tjves ? I would say this. Not- only d» ‘ ' I think the advantage of such a ifiethoii over the existing plan is little more that?w academic, hut — I am afraid of ' ik/V Without going as fur as the Premier* who said,' if my memory serves’ m&,' ‘I : (car it would lead to chaos,!- '■ we may rcao’giiific a certain danger from tho breafv it would implyv with; .tnwlitioha and forms that are dear to Britons all i over the world. It might thus render m*ore diillcuii the consolidation ■ of the Empire and even operate unsatisfactorily in New Zealand alone. The danger,* | however w.e estimate its magnitude hardly seems worth incurring for the sake of h'C very problematic an advantage. It is triso that the plural elected Executive —elected- hot by the people, t-Mt by the Legislature has proved itself the ideal administrative committee where alone it is at present tried, viz., in Switzerland 1 . In the Federal Palace at FerrfeT have stood’ in the Chamber of the Swiss B'underath, —that Supreme Executive Council of the Republic, that 1 Cabinet of seven men, each with a port* folio cl bis own, who are elected by tho Federal Arfsomblv and administer tho laws of the Confederation. And never have I felt such a thrill, politically, as when an attendant ushered nje hito this (.mpiiv chamber where holds its* sessions the ideal executive government of the earth. Well can I understand the feelings with which, in the remotest hamlets of Switzerland, householder® hang up pictures of the Supreme Seven*/'**" evert os in our houses are to be found portraits of our King; and, in American, homes, pictures of the President and Vice-President of the United States, Those seven Councillors are elected fot three years by the two Houses of the Legislature sif ting together from among their ov/n number. They represent no party, thev sorvo of loading tho House; they are not required _to initiate legislation, and while retaining their scats they lose their votes in the Federal Legislature so as to impress on them that they are its honoured servants, hut in no wise, its masters. You see at once what a break the introduction of this system would involve in our organic structure, Ic would constitute no gr adnal evolution, Where, in IVords of the ooet, ■ Freedom slowly broadens down From precedent to precedent,’ but would resemble more those sudden ‘limitations’ in plant structure lately observed by Professor de Vries, which now threaten to profoundly modify the Darwinian theory. While cherishing the elected Executive as an ideal, and watching appreciatively its operation in the model republic of the world ; and while seeking to, accustom the, Anglo* Saxon iidad to the ideas which it em* bodi's, I think y/o should bo wise to defer ad iptiug it—at all events until ouif 1 Empire inis been transferred from its . present rather amorphous condition into 1 a more organic and consolidated 1 structure. -

THE BIBLE IN SCHOOLS. “Incidentally, I have how dealt with plank No. 6, and even touched on plank No. 5. For. if the Referendum is such a lifo-and - death matter on general , grounds, we are predisposed to favour its application, other, things equal, to a' specific problem that is in any case troublesome, if only to accustom the people to political habits of thought which we deem essential to their salvation. Besides, unless our secularist friends are afraid that the decision of the people will bo in favour of scripture reading, why do they so bitterly oppose the Referendum in connection with the Bible-in-Sohopls 2 My dear friend; Mr John Gammell, is writing to the Wellington newspapers and deprecating the popular reference as ' bowing to what ho calls the ‘ no abmated servant-girls ’ and as flouting the m qr-Cy of that ‘ Palladium of our liberties ' —Parliament! Oh, if only Mr Gammell. instead of spending his time in New Zealand where the House, whatever its faults, has as yet been truly the servant of the people,— if onjy , , Iv» witnessed what has been well called, , the ‘ Break luwn of Parliament ’ in some of the older countries, —to say nothing of the unblushing purchase and sale of legislation in America! fie would then have less trust in mere ‘ reprea : . « sentalive ’ government as a ‘ Palladium of liberties,’—loss awe in the presence of the mere representative chamber which in other countries is sometimes so n»iarepresentative. Danger there might be, I can conceive, in mere direct govern* ment by the people without any repretentative assembly at all; though where it has been tried, as in the forest cantons of Switzerl.vnd, ic is .ideally successful. But what ‘ Palladium ’ can be more safe, more inviolable, than a Parliament checked by oicasional direct exercise of sovereignty on the part of Parliament’s masters ? I’ ifilamentary government, with the p ipuiir initiative and veto as sovereign in the background,— that is a combination which we may indeed call a ‘ Palladium of human liberties.’ “Th me remains now, of the seven planks, only the last, —the most directly important to us of all, i.e - ., the pi ink of adequate expenditure of .. public moniy on (he wants of the district. On this all-important point I hope to meet yon frequently in the future. We shall handle such subjects as the Heads Railway, the extension of the wharf, the improvement of the river channel, the\ Shannon bridge, all of which I need hardly sa y I am in favour of, and other local wants, on early future occasions when our time is not taken up with the discussion of general politics, and when I have had opportunity to inform myself, better than I am at present informed, of the special wants of the Northern end of the electorate, with which two of my opponents arc as yet much more familiar than I j,m. Meanwhile, I would suggest onefxceedingly practical thought to you. What representative would be more likely to obtain justice for oar district than one who is a supporter ot the Government, who yet is not its tiedvdown (or hide-bound) supporter,' and who has been accustomed j as civil servant and as under-secretary and departmental head to personally deal with Ministers for many years However, this may he, 1 leave the issue in your hands—with a calm spirit; satisfied, to s'ightly change an utter* : unco of Herbert Spencer, that, if you I elect me, ‘ Wei!.’ *lf not, well also,— (hough not so well.’

Amidst considerable applause Mr Frankland closed his address and re.

sumed liis seat. An invitation to questioners was not accepted, and Mr A. Jonson, sen., alter briefly referring to'the many excellent qualities possessed by the candidate as a citizen, moved a hearty vftto of thafnks for Ins address and or confidence; in him as a

candidate. Tins was seconded by Mr J Cameron, ’ and carried by acclamation.

The customary compliment to the chair closed the meeting.