SUBURBS ELECTION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 204, 27 August 1879, Page 2

SUBURBS ELECTION.

MR. STAFFORD'S MEETING.

Mr Stafford addressed a meeting of electors at the Agricultural Hall, Richmond, last night tthen there was a full attendance. M„ A. Harley was vote^ to the chair and said he had much pleasure in introducing Mr Stafford to them though he needed no introduction as he was well known to all He had great confidence iu him, having known him for a great many years, in fact ever since he was a gay young man, but he had sown all his wild oats and settled down now. They all knew that a wild young colt generally tiirned oiit a right 'ud, while a qtiiet and tariie ohe frequently proved a duffer, and sometimes an ass. Mit Stafford said : I sincerely thank you all for coming to meet me and hear my views on politics. I have heard ifc stated that I never took an interest in politics all the time t have been amongst you, but altbough I have tafeen no active part in them I was in my earliest davs brought up among them in the old country. My father was a Liberal and returned in his time seven member to the, House of Commons and could at any time have been returned himself, but ill health prevented it. My brother's views I need not mention as you all know them. I have always taken an interest in politics and have closely watched what was goiug on, but I should not have come forward now, had I not been solicited to do so by a number of the electors who like myself are dissatisfied with our late member for not doiug his work, and looking after our interests. The preset ig a great turning point for Nelson which from this time must either &o a_ead or struggle on in the low way she is now, uuu i."C must have members who will be active and energetic and work to get our rights and our share of the loan. There will not be another large loan for a long time, hot that the country is unable to bear tjbfe burden for I believe it could bear double what it hast, and 1 ask you to look back 20 years wheh .. first came here and see what it was then, what it is now , ahd what it will be five years hence if we only get oilr fair share: Wfe , must, tetufn the right men, men who wiu wi.fi, irho will always be in their places in the House, a__ w ho are to be depeuded on when they are there, not political adventurers or dead heads, but who will always be ready to avail themselves of every opportunity t,o benefit us, and right our battles shoulder to s_b_lde_. 1 once remember talking to a ______ her on his return from Wellington, and askiug why they did not get us our rights, and he said that they did not pull together, and so the larger provinc.es shelved Us. J. remember an old nursery tale and I daresay you do too j it wa9 about the lion and the mouse. My whole interest like yours lies in Nelson, and I will always work for the common good. The first thing to be done _3 to turn out tbe Grey Ministry, who give us nothing but promises, but plenty of them because they cost nothing ; aud we must have men in the Government who will give us our fair share. I must now state my views. I am a Liberal, though not such ah one as Sir George Grey wno sets class against Class fot his own objects, and who, I consider, is tlie greatest autocrat out of Russia. I quite agree with Mr Saunders in his views of Liberalism. I believe in perfect political equality with no special privileges to any class, an equality that c_n only be obtained by free education, no corruption with tbe public money, no appointments or rewards for part^ services,and above all no bribery of the press, the governors to be quite as strictly subjected to the laws as the governed, and economy in the expenditure, lam in favor of free and secular education, and triennial Parliaments, for I consider it better for the country that the Parliament should only last three years, as then if we have bad members we can get rid of them. I now come to the knotty point of the honorarium, and I think that £1 per day is quite enough, as it was thought to be for many years, and that the Upper House should hare no pay, and then there would be no such bribes for supporting the Government, (A voice : That's it.) I must now talk of a subject we all hate, and that is taxation, though we have to pay it. All merchants aDd capitalists should be taxed, and it should not all fall on the poor farmers. There is a tax now ou land over £SCO in value, but next year it will be down to £100, and the year after to .£SO, and we shall all have to pay it. And now for a question which every Government has found it most difficult to deal with, and which at the present I moment is of deep interest to all the colony. I mean the native disturbances. Of all the aboriginal races, the Maoris are tbe most intelligent, and I question whether there is such another anywhere. Many of them have a high sense of honor, (A voice : do you mean Te Whiti ?) and they require to be treated in good faith as they are most tenacious of their individual rights, and they should have the same justice and rigour dealt out to them as the Europeans. (A voice : They get a great deal too much justice.) The other day wheu I was out shooting I sat down on a heap of stones, and on looking round I saw that I was on a Lunatic section, but no building had been erected there, and I supposed that those stones i had been piled up as a memorial of our former members. Some year3 ago a Commission was appointed to report on the best site for a colonial Lunatic Asylum, aud here was a section just suited for it. but when the other places found that it was to be at poor old Kelson there was a hue and cry, and | Nelson never got it, all owing to the lukewarmness of its members. With reference to the Waste Lands of the Crown I was | always of opinion, and I have had many a talk about it, that in a new country it did not matter at all whether you gave the land away or st>ld it for a small price so as to get only money enough to opeu up roads and harbors and all kinds of business. You want to open up the lands for settlers and tben you will have a wealthy country, but by charging high prices such as £1 per acre for much of the Nelson land you cannot get rid of it. On the Coast there is plenty of good land. I had a run there 14 years ago, and I remember giving a man 150 acres for making a fence ten chains long, and some of that land he sold for £30 an acre when it was wanted for a road ; that shows it must have been good land. Free immigration I consider ought to be stopped, that is for laboring men (hear, hear;) but we want more young women (Cheers,) the young men could then get married. As it is, I see by the last statistics that there are a great many more aingle men than women, so tbat there is no fear of Mormonism in New Zealand. The distribution of seats is another very knotty question, and Nelson members and tbe members from all the smaller provinces will have to be very careful about this. Nelson has not too many as it is aud if they take away one from us and give more to the larger places it will be a bad look-out. The smaller provinces ought to band together and guard against this. There is Liverpool, one of the most important cities in England, with a population of three quarters of a million, and only four members and they consider she has members enough. If that is the case there, why should you give the large towns so many here ? (A Voice : What do they do in Ireland? Another: Oh, shut up about Ireland.) I will state another of the views I have, and I will try and get it for Nelson. That is the railway. Here is Mr Blair's report and a map with any number of black lines in Canterbury, but up in the North there is only one little one in Nelson,

khbtkct in. Miflboro-jfh, and ariother at Westport. I ne. ef _$ad' a better report made for a purpose than that ii* _i_d tlie man who' drew it up must haye had his _a_.ructio__- I before he made it. He goes out of hi- v. _tf to recommend things he had nothing to do with, and says they should sp.nd £600,000 on a harbor at Greymouth. He reports that although he knows nothing about it. He ignores __.itw_.y9 -_..ept one from Dunedin to the West Coast, which 1 he says might pay by cfi.rying coil to th- ,So_.h. Then he says there is no good !__<_ between here fi__ tbe Coast, but I know better; aid I have speflt a year there for every day he Aa'S. Thef. there was Mr Calcutt. He said the sa_2_',-bi<i_ what could he know about it when all he d_s. was to ridp for three days through the hail and snow 1 Don't we all know that instead of looking to see what the soil was like he would be thinking when he was going to get to his journey's ehd? ..I say there is as good land there as the W___i-_ swamps. (A Voice: No.) But I say yes. _ __«v _ field of 150 acres of oats, where I lost myself _s they were a foot above my head, and on the Totoira _._at there is plenty of good land. I never saw sach potatoes in my life as are grown there except _'_ce at Oamaru, and as for cabbages I saw four he_d? that would iOake a horse load. They allow there __ some §ood timbe-, and I know there are thousand. _n_ thousands of acres of it. In round numbers Mr Blair salys the railway from Brunnev to Nelson, Nelson to Picton, and Westport to Reefton, to meet the West Co_st line, wou'd cost £1.600,000, and what is that for these provinces that never got anything? If lam returned I will never lose an opportunity of urging our claims, for we ought to get our fair share and be treated as New Zealanders and fellow-colonists, and this can only be Secured by getting men into Parliament who will work for irs a+rd see that we get public works as well as othe. districts. It is with

Tegret that I now say what lam goin.- toI met one of my opponents at "Richmond the -other day, and we both agreed there were to _>e no personalities used during the electta'ti nnd nothing but what one gentlemeD might say against another, but the veiV next night I saw this in the Mail, f» t Stafford here ___!*_ 11 * t,mt Mr Richmond intended to distribute bis honorarium among the libraries &c_ (Hear, hear, and « Bit «_i _• .«£ * hnb - e 0r not? < A Vofce: It's E PO" 1 "" of thc funds we grahted i__' } * V 5- y , d,d he not P»^e it as _obn a.s he ««re to Nelson, and do yott helieve vou wr,nld ever have got it if t had not been'opposing him? Did he fever give a pound to these things be*o*_ . (A Voice: Don't vilify your oppon^n.. I have collected money from him before for the Brigade.) Do any of you behove he will got a single vote th.' more fov it? I know three rotes he bas lost hy doing it. We have been personal friends tor 26 years, and lam sorry no W to have to accuse him of bribery. There is another thing I must mention, and that is that I have been taxed with making certain assertions about Mr Richmond, but I wisu to say, «_iat I never instigated any report about him. I am much obliged to V-'u for the way you bave listened to me, and shall be bappv to answer any questions. Mr Bell: If we are going to be taxed any more what is going to become of our children? Mr Stafford: Ask Sir George Grey, he knows all about posterity. "Mr Bell: Why should poor old farmers be taxed and yet things be allowed to come in free and monopolise what we grow? Mr Stafford: I am not in favor of protection on all kinds of things, but some, I think, ought to be protected, such as hop3, which afford employment to so many men, women, and children. r ? Er ' L: I s it fair n poor man with only a shillit) or should be taxed as much as a man like old Barney Rhodes, who had a million whp n he died? Mr Stafford : I am for taxing rich men and capitalists. There should be an incometax. Mr Ruffell : Are you prepared to carry on the immigration scheme when so many are crying out for employment in the large centres of population ? Mr Stafford : No. The Government have stopped it. Not that I think there wonld have been such an outcry, but that the times have been so bad. Mr Ruffell : You said that you would stop the immigration of men. Now here's me and others here have lots of fine upstanding daughters. Why should you stop men and not women ? Mr Stafford : You needn't be afraid about that. You'll find it far more difficult to keep your daughters than to get rid of them. Mr Haycock : Why have you come forward now, as yon never before took any interest in public affairs ? Mr Stafford : Because I think our late "member did not work as he should have done. A Voice : Well done. It's a good horse that will come forward and give a pull'out of a hole. Mr Harley : Are you 'in favor of a uniform system of licensing ? Mr Stafford : I think houses should be classified, and all licensed alike according to their classes. The Turf Hotel should not pay like a house in town (hear, hear, and laughter). Mr Harlet : Do you think Clubs should pay licenses ? Mr Staffobd : I have known Clubs in all parts of the world, and never heard of their being licensed, as they are considered private houses.

Mr Tovey : Why should I pay a license when Clubs don't? t_^_ Staf^ ord '• x will tell you what I <pink of a Club. Suppose three men in Richmond agree to live together, and buy five gallons of beer at a time. One drinks two glasses a day, another five, and another eight ; the one -who drinks less objects to | pay as much ns he who prinks more, and so they agree whehevex fh'ey drink a glass to pay threepence, or whatever it may be, into a common fund. That's like a Club. Mr Haley : What do you think of a Colonial Bank of Issue ? Mr Stafford : I think the Government has quite enough to do without going into banking. They don't half do what they I ought to as it is. ■ Mr Harley : Would you like to set a tak I on beer ? | Mr St. . i. VOW).: I don't drin}. beer myself, I l ™ 1 tcal,v don't think it would make much difference in the end. Mr Burton : Look here Mr Stafford, I am a beer drinker, as 1 daresav you can tell by the cut of my jib ; and I say don't tax beer, but stick it on to the tea and sugar. Mr Stafford : With regard to the alternation in the duty on tea and sugar, I may say I saved enough last year to pay mv land tax ; but it is only those who buy wholesale who are benefitted by it. I TM. 1 : What are y° ur ViieWs on the Local Option Bill ? •I 1 _ S T Arpobb : * woul d support it, provided that persons injured are compensated. Mr Carkeek : You said the Government were going to stop immigration. How is it three millions are set down for it ? Mr Stafford : I don't see anything about that m « Hansard." A Voice: There's no " Hansard " about it ; it's a fact. Mr Harley : Are you in favor of Chinese immigration. Mr Stafford : Certainly not. A vote of thanks to Mr Stafford was agreed to on the motion of Mr Malcolm, aud a similar vote to the Chairman cio. ed the proceedings.