MACANDREW BANQUET.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 348, 6 November 1875, Page 2

MACANDREW BANQUET.

PBOYINCIAI.ISM; DEPENDED.

, Mr. Stout was not afraid to say he was a Provincialist, and he asked " any unprejudiced man to take the Provincial Councils with all their failings, and then compare them with the House —where many of the' big men, as soon as they had made a big speech, rushed into the library or Bellamy's, leaving the business of the country to be looked after how and when it might by others. He considered that Provinvincial Councils were far better conducted, and did far more good than the General Assembly. (Cheers.) The change was not asked for by the people themselves, but by those who had a big pastoral interest in the country. This change had not been asked for by men wishing for small holdings—not. at all. They would not find on one of the division-lists on thi3 question, a single man,on the Abolition side who was not in the large pastoral interest. Every newspaper that was within the influence of the pastoralists had been Abolitionist. (Hear,-hear.) The Alpha and Omega of Abolitionists were those who had large' blocks of land. (Hear, hear.) And now, why was it demanded ? . It was said tha,t Provincial Councils had too much paraphernalia. "Why, then, did not the people alter this state of things ? He knew a large number of members in Otago who voted against Abolition at one time, but now were staunch Abolitionists. It was a strange thing that these very men had tried to get into the Provincial Council but had failed: .hence their down on Provincialism. It seemed to him that these were the men who should have spoken against this paraphernalia, and put it down. Some men might find their wives very expensive, but he had-yet to learn that a long draper's bill was a cause for a divorce. No : the real remedy was to cut the bills short. And the same with Provincialism —if it was not quite right, let them .rectify it.