ELECTIONEERING. IN OTHER PROVINCES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 19, 23 January 1871, Page 2

ELECTIONEERING. IN OTHER PROVINCES.

'By bur Southern files received " on Saturday night by the Taranaki we. notice that the elections are proceeding with great spirit throughout the various • provinces: In Wellington, especially, a. bitter contest is being carried on, between Messrs. Pearce and Huoterj two local merhants, who are warm supporters of thepresentlGovernraef.ts, arid Mr. J. C. Riemond ," and Mr. Travers, who anuouuced himself as a candidate on Thursday last, ; both of these gentlemen being determined opponents of the . FoxiVogel Ministry, whose sch ernes... they denounce as ill— cousidered, and calculated to end in tbe: utter ruin of the country. An open-air meeting of the w orkirig men. of Wellington was held on Thursday evening, and seems from, the report of it which appeared in the .Post to have been somewhat dis-' orderly. Mr. Travers was frequently interrupted by Mr. Drnnsfield, the mayor, and several others. At the conclusion >of his speech Mr. Dransfield mounted the table and . attempted to address the meeting on behalf of Mr. Hunter, but., was 'greeted with cries' of "Aire-; you a candidate!?" ■' Shame to the Mayor for settinga disorderly example." These and the' more commonplace recommendations to " get down," "shut up," &c, had their effect, and the "disorderly" mayor was compelled to- resign the post .of. honor to Mr! Boflase, who, in his turn was quickly hooted down. , A_. . Miy . Anderson then ess%e\Tt6 sppiik, but he coiild iiot get a hearing, and ; Mi.. i ßi*chmohii then mounted "the" table amid loud cheers, which"* were redoubled when,he]said: he was. a working' man, had been apprenticed to ah engineer,. ;had- (Worked w ith * his Jiammer. an d chisel, and knew more prac-tidally about railways' than'the* Government and Mr; Dransfield put together;* After'a time, Mr. Hunter's friends' began -to: interrupt the proceedings, and Mr. Richmond -was scarcely to be' heard through, the .uproar,; ;.O.n; .his descending, .from, .the; t table, Mr. Hunter -mounted it, but...th£ .meeting ..absolutely refused, tp.. listen, to, him _ after the conduct of his' supporters^ and he j was compelled to retire amidst hisses and groans,*: The Meeting 'theii'adj'burhed until the* next evening. The "prevailing excitement is not confined to public meetings, but has extehdecl'fay-ithd newspapers, whose adver-* 1 ' ti^ugAcolYumns are; filled with skits *^nd sensational "pieces of advice to the electors, 11 while ihe 'articles' 'abound with abiise, and!, 'indicatiarjs oY anything* but a friendly Teel-r; ■ 'injg between the rivkr journals,the i language"^ ia* 'which I 'fh'ey 'are expressed- ! -being in many cases more forcible than elegant. At Canterbury, *'; politics -'have been the absorbing subject* of - iuterest, "aiid'*-at the election* for ' Christchurch East, Mr. E. J. •Walcefifeli] ihas -bdeh - elected,' beating his. opponent,- Mr.- Ai'Bbucan,' by 169 to 154.' On-theresultof the poll being deelaredjrMr,; Wakefield., is reported; to- have commenced ■ ■ a long speech as follows:— r'f: The victory had beon Won by a; neck ; but he could, had he so, desired, haye; polled :many more ; ; ; than-he had,,do,ne. It nad been said, " Ob, , Wakefieid will be found.drunk in a ditch," but he was there before them as a Member of the House of Representatives, for a part of ithe constituency which be felt more proud of representing than *he could express. He could go* to Wellington on ,a, ; footing of equality with the, wandering Yogel, Fox, Hall, .and other gen tiemen,.an.d to, [consult; with, them on -quesi tions affecting the, interests of the colony." Personally, we know nothing of JMr. E. J. Wake,iield_no ; r,are,we .in any way acquainted with/ii^ ;*habit^ ricid ' therefore when we- are told By f that gentleman that people had said" ""Oh, Wakefield will be founddrunk iia a ditch," we are" not in; a, position to. form an opinibn on the probability -or "other wik&b'f such' a propfiepy cpTjQvii^ catVftokj&M : Wk *-*«•- J « Wakefield has by .his pj^vjqus , } conduct, furnished grounds^ foi* io' 'diistgracefufl 1 a prediction,! j we ! '"caii_ot ; congratulate the electWfe- of' ■iChristchurch East on ihe.:cfioice~Xhey n 'htfy.e';rna_e ; of a* r'epre_etfWtiveV; 'ii*lh|T Ijas .npi'jaid' hiiriWlf ob 6n f t , o''gach;^jjbiargtf he certainly* >as placed r himself ;'pg|^|_.ost undignified .ppfLtjon. by repeatlng|fl:.»s he. did c before *a 'Ift-rge* ! assembl_ge xyms the. " ■Canterbury '&!eetor_7 * i Mr. E. JXWake^. field is, we presume from the epithet he

applies to Mr. Yogel, an opponent of the present Ministry ; so are we, but we have no desire to see them ousted by men who are likely " to be found drunk in a ditch." Mr. Wakefield concluded his speech by stating that the electors had given proof of their being convinced that "Teddy was the man." For our own part we mu3t say that, before giving utterence to such au unqualified expression of opinion, 'we should like to be thoroughly assured that there was no possible chance of " Teddy " ever " being found drunk in a ditch."

Mr. J. C. Richmond on Protection. — At a meeting of electors recently held in Wellington, Mr. Richmond spoke as follows on the question of protection : — Ifc (protection) was a difficult subject to treat at a public meeting. It tried the patience of persons who had. taken the trouble to read on the subject to have scientific truths questioned by ignorant people. Carpenters had a plan when they had not a square at hand for setting out a right angle, .by measuring a triangle with sides of 3, 4y 5. This, they knew:* would form a right angled triangle. Whatr"! would an intelligent carpenter think if some conceited lad were to say, "You are quite wrong ; it's true in England that vjrould give you a right angle, but it's qjiite^different here?" Would the car.p'enter argue ? No ! he would say, "Go to school, and learn to multiply and add, and learn the fij.st,book of Euclid." The doctrine >of free trade rested on grounds as sure as the carpenter's way of setting but a right angle. To project anindustry was, to induce people toembar]s iv it who could employ their industry in'some other way' with greater advantage to the general •wealth. Permanent protection was always public waste. Ifc was true that protection might increase the wealth of the protected trade, at the cost of. others. But the particular, case which Mr. Yogel wished to deal with was beyond even . that. Agriculture could not be, protected here. .We already exported grain, and prices must be ruled- by the open market of the world, protection or not. But it was certain that a popular legislature would not fail to pass the thing found if it granted ifc to any. vfaihad already had claims from many trades. All would come in one after another. Then ifc was obvious that no one would he benefitted, and the fruits of the whole industry of the land would be, diminished. 'Que class would suffer, the * common laboring class. Whilst. you were restricting i'mpor.tatipn of produce nnd manufactures, ..you would be giving a bonus to importation of labor. by helping immigration. Protection -with immigration was anabsurdly inconsistent policy. Mr. Yogel was continually appealing to Victoria asAu example of the good* results of protection tariffs, and he pleaded also that he only wanted a little protection, not a ruinous amount as in America, Novk, opinions in Victoria wei*e : not at all with Mr. Yogel. j The best newspaper in the southern hemisphere, the Argus, wrote .thus.:-**---" .'.Give,, .give,' .says the -Book of Proverbs, and ' protectionists all over the world emulate the rapacity of the horse-leech's, offspring. [ Ifc was so in England, and it is' so,' in, the United States and in Victoria. In a weak moinenfc the head' of the present administration, when the chief of^'a former Government," surrendered his convictions as a freetrader, and yielding, to the; clamour of tho •""'least instructed portion of the community, consented .to make protection the basis of our fiscal policy.. -As a, matter of course, that .concession has led to increased demands for •protection, y The tariff which xjspa. to exclude British and foreign ■ mepffiandise,- to 'keep alt the gold in iheJjPony, to. diffuse universal "prosperity, transform/Victoria into-a fool's pa^diae, has disappointed the expectations-ofiits enthusiastic partisans. 1 It has not repealed the laws of nature. It has not dotted the country with raanu/g^. - tories, covered our mountain 1 slopes with vineyards and olive gardens, nor 'scattered plenty o'er a smiling land.' Therefore the Melbourne disciples of Col. Sihtho.rpe," assembled iii public meeting at St. Patrick's Hall, have insisted upon the.imposition of additional aud heavier duties."' So. much for Victoriau experience. One instance

more of Mr. Vogel's ignorance— he would not charge him with wiful mis-representa-tion. Mr. Yogel, in his Auckland speech described the pauperism now existing in England in pathetic language : "We have all heard much of the result of England's far-famed freetrade. We know that one of those results is that the country has become enormously wealthy — that whereas, in olden days, millionaries were very few, they are now, comparatively speaking, not at all rare animals. I meant no disrespect by the phrase ; for I can assure you, I think that millionaries are very fortunate persons. That is one result, or condition of free-trade in Great Britain — millionaries are comparatively plentiful, But what is Another result or condition of freetrade ? What of the great mass of the laboring population, the products of whose labor we are told we ought contentedly to consume and to enjoy in preference to like articles produced in our midst ? Labor in Great Britain is, to a pitifully great extent, so little remunerated that we in this Colony should look upon such a state of things as worse than starvation. In England and wales, with a population of 22 millions souls, there were recently no less than 1,039,000 paupers, exclusive of those who are technically classed .as " vagrants " and " casuals." I find too in Dorset, which has sometimes been termed the garden of England, no less then one-sixteenth of the population returned as in the receipt of relief ; and that, too, in a country which is one of the chief feeders of the metropolis. That is a state of things wholly alien from our ideas of colonisation." The electors would see Mr. Yogel audaciously attributed pauperism to freetrade. Now let them hear the evidence of another sort of friend of the people : John Bright, in a speech delivered in 1845, before the repeal of the Crown Land. "We . find that throughout England and Wales the proportion of one in eleven of our whole population consists of paupers, and that in the South and South-western Counties of England, where squiredom has never been interfered with, the pauperism is as one to seven of the whole population." So that since the establishment of free trade, to which Mr. Yogel had attributed pauperism, pauperism had been reduced from one-eleventh of the whole population of England and ; Wales under protection M oae-twentietb, and in Dorsetshire from one-seventh to one-eighteenth. What did the electors think of a Colonial Treasurer who ventured, though himself so utterly ignorant, to lecture a constituency ?