MR. HURSTHOUSE AT WAIMEA WEST.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 7, 8 January 1878, Page 2

MR. HURSTHOUSE AT WAIMEA WEST.

Mr Hursthouse, M.H.R, addressed tbi ■*■ electors at Wainiea West last night, when"' there was a fair attendance. Mr W. Bell, having been voted to the chair, called upbn ■" Mr Hursthouse to address the meeting' and that gentleman commenced by saying that he should like to commence by reading from Hansard his remarks upon the Impounding Bill, as exception had been taken to them by some of his constituents and one of the local newspapers. Having read whit he was reported to have said, Mr Hursthousfe Z went on to say that perhaps in his great zeal for the good of his constituents he might have overstepped the bounds of prudence, but still he thought that in measures of a social character such as the Education/Impoundingj and Fencing Bills a 1 good J deal more interest was taken by the country settlers thau im the broader questions of finauce or of the abolition of the proviuces. It had been said that .in making such remarks,. he . was attributing great ignorance ito his ponetituents, but he repudiated any idea of that kind, indeed, in view of the fact that a dissolution would probably take place shortly, it would have been most suicidal on his part to do anything of the kind. He proposed to gire a very brief account of his proceedings, and would, therefore, touch only on one or two matters which he considered; of special interest. He would commence: with the finance of the colony, and here would take the opportunity of saying that hejwished. ,the. r people would take more interest in > these matters, as it would greatly, /strengthen the hands of- their representatives * if j they kept better acquainted with the Opinions of those they represented; instead of only ascertaining them,' as it' were, by a side wirid. : (Mr Hursthouse then read a number of figures allowing the debt, the revenue, and the expenditure of the colony, 'as also the amount of money expended upon public ' works, and upon the purchase ,of native landß, all of wh|ch have appeared from! time/ to time in the papers.) One thing was especially deserving of notice, namely, that while large sums of money were expended upon railways and other works in the more important and thickly populated districts, the out districts were left to famish, although bearing more than their share of the interest upon the loans. He thought that more money should be spent upon roads in those parts which were not sufficiently ' important for railways, as the people living in them were utterly unable to compete with the larger and more favored districts, as the rates raised by the Boards were insufficient to keep the roads in repair, let alone making new ones. There was a growing feeling that more attention should be devoted to opening up the outlying districts, and in this direction he should always use his best endeavors. He then proceeded to refer to the Acts that had been passed. He had supported the Education Bill, although he did not think it by any means a perfect measure, or even so good as their Provincial Ordinance. Great stress had been laid upon education being made free, but they must not forget that it had to be paid for out of the pockets of the people whether they paid the household tax or not, and for his part he would prefer to have a direct to an indirect tax for the purpose. A great deal of time and labor had been bestowed upon the Land Bill, which was a consolidating measure, adopting many of >the provisions of the Provincial Acts and repealing others. When the Bill came from the Waste Lands Committee he found that ;the minimum price had been raised from 7s 6d to 10s an acre, and not approving of this he had endeavored to get it reduced, but ( the Nelson members formed but a minority, and as usual voted against one another. Eventually indeed, the price was doubled! He thought the price of the lands should be regulated by their reproductive , qualities. To show what members kuew about the quality of the land in other districts but thenown, he might state that one Southland member had actually stated that all land was worth £1 per acre, because a man could, take a team of horses and plough 60 acres in a month. He should like to know how much land of that description there was in Nelson. He had always advocated that the Land Fund should be made colonial reveuue, and was glad to say that the wise men of New Zealand had at last agreed to this in passing the Land Sales Bill, although he objected to the mxuimum price being made £1 per acre. He believed that the Canterbury land was far cheaper at £2 than the Nelson at 10s per acre. This was proved by the agricultural statistics, which showed that the average yield over hundreds of thousands of .-acres was 30 bushels per acre. Indeed if they I could transport some of the Canterbury i lands to Nelson in; place. of "some;iojEi,tne' barren hills it would be found to be worth at I least £10 per acre. We were twitted with having given away our lands and with bein^ Sleepy Hollow, but he considered tha't^ the j people of Nelson were quite as ; wide awake as their neighbors, and that . the reason.jthat this part of the colony had .not progressed like the others was that there, was so little land available for settlement. ' "His opinion was that these measures dealing with the waste lands were but temporary, and that the whole question would have to' be gdae' f into again. He thought that an uniform price should be adopted according to, classification, but a great deal would depend; upon who were the classifiers. This should not be left to the Waste Lands Boards or to surveyors, but to practical men who knew What they were about. A great deal of "timepmoney and energy had been wasted in.. the House upon discussing points of order and questions' of privilege, which were of not the slightest interest to the settlers. His constituents however, could not blame him in this respect, for though often tempted to speak he had remained quiet, as he thought that by so doing he was better serving their interests. With regard to the change of Ministry he would say that he had not voted for Sir George Grey. When elected he had said that he would support the Atkinson party so long as he approved of their measures, and although they certainly had made mistakes he did not cousider that they were ot a sufficiently grate nature to justify him in opposing them. One of the outcries raisedjigainst the late Government by the Grey party was that they gate appointments to their friends, and euabled them to obtain lands, but the first three appointments made by Sir George Grey were to his thick and thin supporters One was to Mr Grace, for whom an appointment as additional interpreter in the "House was specially created, another was to a young gentleman called Baker, who was made private secretary to the Native Minister, and another whs the Commissiouership of Annuities to Mr Bunny. In 1876 the Disqualification Act was passed, which provided that no appointments should be bestowed upon members of the House within a certain time after their resigning or losing their seats, late Superintendents aud officers of Provincial Executives being execpted. Last session a Bill was introduced by Sir George Grey for doing away with these exemptions, passed the Lower House, and was sent to the Council, where it was kept back by the Government until the very' end of the session, when it came back to the Lower House with amendments. There : was' then no time to go into it, and Mr Sheehaa proposed that the amendments be considered that day fortnight, which tvas equivalent to shelving the Bill. This was carried, the oiily roice, however, that was heard in its favor was that of Mr Bunny, who said' -'.'.'Hear, hear," in a very loud tone. The native policy of the late Ministry had been con-

demned ,in the most wholesale manner by Mr^Sheehan when in opposition, but upon taking office he found that the department was 'in the most perfect order, and the policy he enunciated was precisely the same as that of bis predecessors. He regretted that. Mr Larnach had made so grave a mistake— he" did not like, tovsay that it was. intentional—as to assert in his financial statement that the colony was going to the bad at the rate of nearly £2000 a day. It was a most injudicious thing to say at the same time that he was proposing to raise a further loan of 4£ millions, and what was worse, it was not correct. At the close of, the session Sir George Grey had shadowed' forth four things for the next session. Of these the three that had struck him most forcibly were, manhood suffrage, triennial Parliaments, and representation on the basis of population. For the first of these he did not think that New Zealand was ripe, as it would not be fair to those who had made the colony and borne the burden and heat of the day, to bestow equal privileges upon those who-had just arrived in it. He would make a ;twelvemouths' residence in the colony a condition of the franchise. With regard to triennial Parliaments he had no very strong feelings, for, as it was, they seldom lasted over three years. He disapproved of representation according to population as it would give so much power to the towns, and without wishing to say anything derogatory to the townspeople he would state his opinion that the country could far more easily dispense with the towns than the town with the country. Jt was clear that the time was coming, ifit had not already 'arrived, for a change in the incidence of taxation, as at present men of small means were paying far more in proportion than those who had large estates, whose properties had been increased tenfold in value by the public .works. A : property tax was' much talked of and it seemed perfectly fair to adopt it, but he thought that ifshould not be levied on properties of less than 200 acres, as, if it were', it would seriously affect small holders, who in most instances had.already as much as they could do to pay their road rates. In conclusion he would say that'he hoped his constituents '' had carefully thought over the votes he had given in the House, and were prepared to question him upon them, as he was most anxious to ascertain their views. There was no doubt that a representative gained a great deal of useful knowledge in attending Parliament, but it ,had r its drawbacks. For poor men like himself to be. sent to such a wretched climate as that of Wellington there to spend five months was to a serious matter, as to a great extent it unfitted them for anything else during the rest of the year. If the session were always to last that time he feared it would end in the legislation of the country beiug thrown entirely into the hands of the wealthy. Two hundred guineas for five months sounded a great deal, but when it cost £150 to live iv Wellington for that time it would, be seen that it was no great catch after all. Mr Hursthouse

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then Bat down after expressing his <WiUingneßß to reply (o any questions. > After Borne delay, Mr Arnold asked : You voted, agfliuet Sir George because of his appointing Baker and Grace to the Ministry, Was tbat your only taotive ? '■' Mr Hursthooee explained that he had not said that Mr Baker and Mr Grace were made members of the Cabinet, and then stated that he bad always voted against Sir G» Grey. Mr Arnold : Thai's vary good. LarchiiT(? Ltiroacb) said tbat he had only five days to look over the accounts of the colony, and that was not sufficient iiine for him to make his financial statement. Now, didn't the houorable Mr Gibbs Bay (hat five days was plenty of time to do it hi ? ( Mr Hursthouse: I really do not recollect. ,Mr Arnold : That shows that you were not attending to your duties in the House, Do you yourself think that Sir George and Mr Larchin had time enough allowed them to look over the books and see that things were right? Mr Huistbouss : Tbat depends upon what you mean by looking into the account*. If you mtao, to satisfy themselves upon every item, I dont think five months would have been enough. Mr Arnold: One thing's a great pity that Sir George didn't take Gibba into the Ministry as he's such a good bockkeeper. I shall write to Mr George and tell him this. Now tell me — did you epeak all the time you were in the House as loog as you did to-night ? Mr Hursthouse: I did. Mr Arnold : Then you were very badly ieported, for I haven't eeen nearly bo much of your speeches in the papers. Do you think tbat the Atkinson lot are better than the Grey ? , Mr Hiirsthouse : I do, but I shall never show any factious opposition to Sir George Grey. It [ fiud, he has a majority, and I approve of his measures, I shall not offer him opposition. Mr Arnold : Should we ever have got the Port railway if Larchin had not come to Nelson ? Mr Hursthouse: Certainly we should, as it had been ordered by the House. Mr Ford': Do you think there is any likelihood of a railway to Motueka ? Mr Hursthouse: I can hardly say a likelihood, but there may be a probability. My action in this matter will depeud entirely upon the report of the surveyor. Mr Arnold; Don't you tbink it's time immigration was stopped. Mr Hursthouse: I thick ihere is still plenty of room in New Zaalaud lor immigrants of the right sort. Mr Arnold: Did you vote for the £3000 to Yogel ? Mr Huißthouß«: I did. Mr Arnold: A lot of credit to you that is. Mr Hursthouae: I did so because New Zaaland wanted an able and au influential man to represent her at Home, and Sir Julius Voget did the work with which he wav entrusted remaikably well. That he was extravagant there is uo doubt, but he served the colony well, and deserved some recognition. I voted for it last year and heard no signs of disapprobation from my constituents, and I did so again this session. Mr Arnold: How much did you vote for Sir George us a loan ? Mr Hursihouse: Two and a half millions. We thought that was quite sufficient. Mr Hurstbouse: If Atkinson had asked for ten millions you would have voted it wouldn't you ? .v r. Hursihouse: Certaiuly not. .Mr Arnold: It's the likes of us and our children as will have to suffer for all this borrowing, t'm done vow. :! No more questioos being asked, a vote of thnnks to Mr Hursthouae for his address was unanimously agreed to on . the motion ot Mr Kent, and with another vote ot thanks to the Cluiirm&o, the meetiog sep-tiaied.