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MR. FOX ON THE PRESENT GOVERMENT.

On Monday evening Mr. Fox delivered a powerful and telling speech on the no confidence motion, brought forward by Major Atkinson. During its delivery there was a full House, and Mr. Fox was listened to with rapt attention. The following is a verbatim report of the speech : Mr. FOX : Though suffering from considerable indisposition, which I hope the House will excuse if my voice is not very audible, I do not like an iniportaut debate of this kind to close without having said a few words. 1 cannot vote for the amendment of the hon. member for Port Chalmers, because I think it is either too much or it is not enough. It would imply that we have not had a Ministerial Statement Hon. Members : Hear, hear. Mr. FOX : Then, sir, what is this I hold in my hand, filling several columns of Hansard, which was delivered about ten days ago by the hoa. member for the Thames. I thought that was a Ministeral Statement. It is headed "Ministerial Statement" in Hansard, or something to that effect Mr. REYNOLDS : Financial Statement, and not Ministerial Statement. Mr. FOX : The hoa. member does not say Financial Statement in his resolution. If I am not mistaken, he says something very different to that. The amendment is, " That, a 3 the Government have not yet declared their policy." Well, if this is not a statement of Government policy I am utterly at a loss to know what it is

Mr. REYNOLDS ; I would have no objec- j tion, if the hon. member wishes, to have the words amended. Mr. FOX : I cannot amend the lion, member's amendment. It is not in my power, and, if it were, I would not take the trouble ; but I gay that that is one reason why I object to vote for the hon. member's amendment—that it is not consistent with fact. We have got s. Ministerial Statement before us. I hold it in my hands. I have read it. I heard it delivered. If the hon. member for Port Chalmers is not satisfied with that, and wants something more, then let us have it also. Do not let us be confined merely to the Financial Statement in addition to the general Ministerial Statement, but let U 3 have all the other departmental statements of the various hon. members who ait on those benches. When the hon. member for Dunedin City has finished his Financial Statement, which is to enlighten the House as to defalcations and embezzlements of the past Government, then let us have his Public Works Statement, for which I suppose he will want another week, ten days, or a fortnight for preparation, and in order that he may discover the shortcomings, defalcations, and almost embezzlements of the late Minister for Public Works. Then I know my constituents will be delighted to hear the utterances of the Minister fo Native Affairs. They would like very much to know by what meaus he is going to couoteract that system of repudiation which he has been inaugurating in a certain province of New Zealand for some years past, and the leading d-legates of which have been, within the last few months, on a visit to the dUtr-ct which I represent for the purpose of inciting our natives there also to engage in the work of repudiation, on the ground that the lands on which we are now livinsr, and which were purchased, at the time when the hon. member for the Thames was Governor of the colony, at the price of lOd. and Is. an acre, are now worth £lO an acre, f pm sure that my constituents would be delighted to hear the hon. gentleman declare in this House the plan by which he me ins to counteract the mischievous, dangerous, ruinous, and fatal influences which that Repudiation party have been attempting to exercise within the last few months, by their leading chiefs and others, in the district which I have the honor to represent. I shall be glad to hear it myself, if I am to remain in the district and to hold my property there on this dangerous tenure which the Repudiation party is gradually spreading over the colony. I have no doubt the Native Minister, with his great readiness at expedients, his great abi ity, and with th-it large knowledge of the natives which we have heard paraded by his chief, would be quite prepared to announce a policy which would relieve us from the dangerous positian in which we stand. J t would be satisfactory for us to know what it is. Then there is the Hon. the Minister for Lands. _ I should like very much to hear his Ministerial Statement, to know how far he is going to carry out that policy which has occupied so large a space in the utterances of the hon. member for the Thames—the policy of bursting up the great estates of the Middle Island, of crushing the squattocrats, the throwing open the territory to all who like to occupy it—and those other philanthropic ideas which have been so often ventilated by the hon. member for the Thames on the floor of this House. It would be satisfactory to all New Zealand to know how far (the Hon, the Minister for Lands—one of the '' unlearned" members for Dunedin City—is Erepared to go in that direction ; or whether e is going to adopt some conservative policy which will still keep the poor laboring man and the small farmer under the heel of those aristocratic squattocrats who infest the Middle Island. There are other Ministers, also, who have portfolios. We might get some light as to the superior advantages of laying cablegraphs instead of telegraphs. I should like to have heard the enlightenedidea3of the Minister who has charge of the Telegraph Department as to what are the superior advantages of one of those peculiar institutions, or machines, or whatever I ma y them, over the other. If the hon. member for Port Chalmers had carried out his idffi* to the full, and had moved that we should not go to business, and that we should not venture to impugn the policy of the Government until we had it all Jn detail from the Ministers of the various departments, I do not know that I would not have voted with him, supposing that my life lasted long enough for the development of all these policies. But, as it if, I cannot follow him. I think I have in my hand a, sufficient development of the policy of the hon. member at the head of the Government to enable me to form an opinion, as my hon. friend the member for Totara found it possible iox him to do—to form a general opinion as to whether the character of the ton. gentleman's policy 13 such as I can_ approve of or not, I feel myself quite in a position to make up my mind on that without any further inspection of various statements—the Financial Statement, the Native Statement, the Public Works Statement, or any other statement which may be delivered. I was never more amused in my life than when I heard the hon. member for the Thames the other night likening himself to a poor innocent little lamb. He got up in this. House and told us he was like a poor innocent little lamb. If I had to find a similitude for the hon. member, of all the animals that run, that walk, that fly, that crawl, about the last I should have thought of selecting would have been a poor, little, innocent, guileless lamb. I might have thought him a bold lion, or a ferocious animal that was coming down, with his paw on the Ministerial benches, to do some dreadful thing. But to think of likening him to a little, guilef&tus, junocent, harmless lamb ! In the great galleries jn Europe, where the pictures of the ancient master* are to be seen, you. come across, jevery now and agaiij, » class of pictures which fire very interesting, portraits of artists themselves painted by themselves. "You will see Rubens painted by himself, and $ celebrated portrait of Raffaello. They are very interesting to look at. These gentlemen, no doubt, painted them with a mirror in front of them. They certainly illustrate the Scriptural text of >■' Man looketh in a glass and straightway forgettetb. What manner of man he was ;" because you always #nd, when yon look at contemporary portray of the same subjects painted by other artists, that toy have not the slightest resemblance to those painted by the originals themselves. That is just the hon. gontleuian's position. He described himself as a little guilleess lamb, and I am sure that no person, either of the present day or of that posterity for which he has such a great regard, .would ever think of applying that similitude to the hon. member, I remember once when I was in Auckland, when I had the honor to be one of the hon. member's advisers—he was Governor, and I was Prime Minister and Native Minister—it was a time of very great trouble, »larm, and anxiety, both to the Ministry and

the natives north of Auckland. It was the time whan the hon. member for the Thames, bsing then Governor, had just managed—l will not say allowed—to allow*the Kawau prisoners t'> escape from his little island, and take refugn o-i a certain hill called Omaha, where they were in a position to threaten the lives of the settlers and the peace of the whole couutry. The tribes, as well as the Europeans, were in a great state of excitement, and a very influential chief, and the finest chief I know in New Zealand—old Tinirau, a noble fellow, who has always been one of our best allies—at this moment of great excitement and alarm he came into Auckland, for the purpose of seeing the Governor and ascertaining, if possible, what the policy and intentions of the Government were in reference to this great crisis which was literally pending. He was in Auckland three or four days, and had interviews with his Excellency the Governor. I knew the old chieftain, and had a great admiration for him, and on the day he was departing I asked him to come and dine with me, as I knew he was joing away that evening by the steamer. He came with au interpreter. I found that the old gentleman was sadly out of spirits—what they call jmuri, dark. After we had had something to eat, we entered into general conversation, and I ventured to ask what was the matter with him. He said, " The Governor has made a fool of me, and I am dark, very dark. I came in here loyally anxious to be friendly with the Europeans, and desiring to know what .the wishes of the Governor were, and he has made a fool of me. lam going away no wiser than I was." Then he said he had had an interview with General Cameron, and he said, "General Cameron, when we speak together, talks straight," and he ran his finger along the table, " and you talk me straight," he said, running his finger abng the table in the same way ; " but the Governor," he said, then he ran his finger in a tortuous and serpentine manner all round the table, and said, " that is the way the Governor talks to me." It was not a little, guileless lamb he had to deal with Sir G. GREY : I wish to rise to a personal explanation. The hon. member was my Native Minister, and I was acting by his advice.

Mr. FOX : Sir, the hoi. member knows very well that at that time the relations between himself and me were not of a satisfactory character, and, in reference to that particular transaction, that he never consulted me at all, and that I never offered him my advice. And if I had, what then ? This native was only describing his interviews with the Governor, and the impression they had left upon his mind. What does it matter whether I was the hon. member's adviser or not ? I am only describing the impression that his interviews with the hon. member had left on the native's mind, and I say the impression on his mind was bhat the hon. member was as unlike as possible to a guileless, harmless little lamb. What had my being the hon. gentleman's adviser to do with it ? I gave him no advice, and he did not ask for any. The impression the Governor had left on the native's mind was the point, and evevy member of this House sees the point. When he put his hand round the table in a serpentine and tortuous manner he did not mean to describe a little, harmless lamb. But, sir, although the hon. member may not resemble a lamb—and that heeeitainly noes not—he does, I think, in one particular very strongly resemble a flock of sheep. Hon. members who have had anything to do with pastoral affairs—the hon. gentleman the Colonial Treasurer, who is one of the squattocrats of the conn', ry, will appreciate the force o£ this remark—may sometimes have had the misfortune to travel behind a flock of sheep with wind in their faces, and they will remember what a wonderful facility sheep have for throwing du.stin the eyes of their followers. Of all the members of this House the hon. gentleman bears the closest resemblance to a flock of sheep. He Ivied to throw dust in the eyes of old Tinirau, but he did not do it. He does, however, succeed in throwing dust in the eyes of many hon. members of this House. The hon. member for Auckland City East, for instance, is one of his many deluded followers. I will give'a few instances of the way in which he has thrown dust iu the eyes of hon. members, and the House shall judge if he has not been doing it for the last week, particularly in his Ministerial Statement. I will criticise a few of the things he said, to expose his fallacies, and to show how little there is of innocence in the bleatings of this little lamb. I shall first touch upon what he said on Friday nigat last. In a manner which was only excelled by the theological and solemn style of the hon. member for Clutha, he told us there were, for the future, to be two great parties in this House, the Conservative Party and the Advance Party ; and then he went jn to claim for himself and his followers that they were the Advance Party. Now, that was throwing dust in -! the eyes of his unfortunate followers more completely than any flock of sheep could have done it. What is the meaning of it ? Whose is the Advance Party ? Why, sir, I claim to be a member of the Advance Party—the party who introduced the Immigration and Public Works policy in 1870, and abolished Provincialism two yeare ago. We heard a great deal from the hon. member for Clutha about the Reform Bill. He warned us to against being frightened by the advanced steps of the hon. member for the Thames, and drew analogies between his proceedings and the proceedings which led to the passing of the Reform Bill. What was the object of the Reform Bill ? It did away with rotten boroughs, and gave local self-government to the people. That is what we have been doing, or have been trying to do, for years past. We have done away with provincial institutions, which had become useless, and we have carried local self-government into the hearts of the provinces—into those outlying restricts where the operations of the Provincial Governments never reached. That is what the advance party did, and I throw back in the faces of those hon. gentlemen any claim to be considered members of the advance party. What, sir, did the Colonial Secretary of the hon. gentleman's own Government say iu another place. He claimed for them that they were the conservative party. We have it from ther own mouths that they are the conservative party, and we know they are. What is the meaning of the action of the hon. gentleman during the last three years. He has strenuously and persistently endeavored to prevent the abolition of provincial institutions, and at the bottom of his heart I have no doubt he entertains the desire to restore them by establishing a Provincial Government in each island with a weak Federal Government at Wellington. He may throw dust in the eyes of his deluded followers, but he cannot throw dust in mine ; and I hope other hon. members have too much common sense and perspicacity to allow themselves to be deceived. He wishes to-reestablish provincialism in thi3 country, but he cannot do it, and he shall not do it as long as there is an advance party in this House. And then we were told we had destroyed the Constitution. Here again, is an attempt to throw dustin our eyes. We have destroyed no Constiitut.ion. If the Constitution is destroyed, if we have no Constitution, we must be living in a state of anarchy. But how did the hon. gentleman get into the seat he now occupies ? By constitutional action. How, then, has the Constitution been destroyed ? Sir, it has not been destroyed any more than the British Constitution was destroyed by the passing of the Reform Bill and the removal of the Catholic disabilities. Hon. members mu t know very wejl that at the tjme of the agitation for the repeal of provincialism wo were in this position : We felt that, whatever good the provinces did in the early days of colonising the country, the time had come to give them the go-by because they were acting as a dead weight. And what did we band ourselves together to secure abolition for ? Mainly to give to the people in the outlying districts that local self-government which they could not get under the provincial system. And for doing this we are said to have destroyed the Constitution. Sir, what did the Constitution of this country originally consist of ? It consisted of the General Assembly, with a very wide franchise, and to that was added the power of electing the Government of this country pro tempore by the members of this House, Have we lost that power 9 Has there ever been way change I Why, sir,

that was the great feature of our constitutional system, and it has not been interfered with since ; but there was a subordinate branch, Provincialism, which was a very useful branch for a time, although my colleague the hou. member for Wanganui did not think so. He held the opinion that it would be advantageous to abolish Provincialism Ion" before I touched the subject myse'f. He was'one of the strongest and most consistent opponent* of the system; and what did we do at liisr ? When we found that the General Government had absorbed all the functions of the Provincial Government; when we appropriated to ourselves the great borrowing powers; when we initiated the Immigration and Public Works policy; when we took charge of the immigration arrangements; when there was little left to the Provincial Governments but the management of the harbors, the control of the police, appointment of scab inspectors, regulations for dog registration, and other similar functions, we said: "We want some more efficient system. We want a system that will carry into every village and remote district the powers of local self-government." That was not destroying the Constitution. It was an extension of constitutional powers, an increase of localized powers. But the hon. gentleman says, " You have destroyed the Constitution, and now you will have to build up another;" and theu he appeals to the gashing young men who are coming in to do this when we old fogies are pushed out of the way. I say again, sir, there has been no destruction. We have got rid of a machinery which impeded the Constitution, but we have destroyed nothing that will advance the interests of this colony. And, though there has been some reaction with reference to that part of the question, no hon. member can carry his recollection back without seeing that there was an intense feeling throughout the country that the provincial institutions were in the position I have described them, and that there wa-< a necessity for providing that local self-government which we provided. By political and party action, which became stronger afterwards, there was some reaction, which was very much attributable to the hon. member for the Thames—this Advance-party gentleman. But there was no destruction. It was a growing up, the placing of the buttresses, as it were, which made the Constitution stronger than before.

Mr. BARFF : What about 18G3 ? Mr. FOX : I do not know what the hon. gentleman means. I am speaking of 1877, 1876, 1d75, and 1874, aud I am giving a consistent and truthful account of what was done in those years. The hon. gentleman's interruption is not pertiueat upon any point touched upon by me. There is no reason in it. I now come to the next point in regard to which the hon. member for the Thames has attempted to throw dust in our eyes. He informed the House that he was going to enter upon a career of retrenchment. Now, what doe 3 this great cry of retrenchment mean ? The hon. gentleman told us what we all knew before, " that a great change was taking place, 'or had taken place,' in the colony."' He seemed to think a great field for retrenchment was to be found in that fact. But it has already been found, and this is one of the hon. gentleman's fallacies. The provincial system has been merged into the general system, and large retrenchments have been made.

Hon. Members : No, no. Mr. FOX : Where are the Superintendents' salaries ? Where are the salaries of the Provincial Executives ? Where are the expenses of the Provincial Legislatures'! I might go through twenty or thirty different departments which have been swept away, the expenditure of which has either been absolutely swept away, or diverted to some other necessary purpose of administration by the General Government. It is merely throwing dust in our eyes to say that any great retrenchment is now to be effected iu that direction. Then there is another class of retrenchment. The hon. gentleman says he is going to effect great savings on the railway management. Why, sir, we are just about to undertake the management of three hundred miles of additional railway, and how can there be retrenchment there ? You may make the cost per mile a little less, but I am confident, that there can be no retrenchment in these two directions such as to enable the public works to be carried on by means of it with that great vigor of which the hon. gentleman speaks. He may possibly save £20,000 or £30,000 a year, but I do not see how he can if he is going to complete so many miles of railway and build those huge bridges which will, of course, be required. These are the two great sources. Then he comes to two little sources, and I must have a word with him about theie. He gets up in a solemn and self-sacrificing way, and says, " We are going to begin by reducing our own salaries." What a source of retrenchment that will be I Possibly £IOOO a year altogether. There wa3 one great source of re- ' trenchment he might have included in his list, but strange to say, he did not say a word about it. That was the honorarium. He did not say a word about reducing that, because he has got sitting on the benches with him as Colonial Treasurer a gentleman who proposed last year, without consulting the people, to make the honorarium £3OO a year' instead of £l5O. He knew, therefore, it was not safe to say anything about retrenchment in that dir*>o;ion. That, however, is a very nice little item, and he might get £!0u0 or | £3OOO there if he liked. We sat here for many years for a pound a day, and I think a reduction might very well be proposed in this item, rie makes a public parade about cutting down the salaries of Ministers. It will come to only about £IOOO, bat he says it is not so much on account of that sum that he proposes tu_: reduction. He says, " It will set our hands free to deal with other people." Now, who is he going to deal with ? Where is he goin.r to make this retrenchment which is to enable him to carry on public works ? He is going to make it iu the salaries of a few hard-wrought officials. He says he is not going to go against hard-worked clerks. Well, that will only allow him to go against the heads of departments, the permanent secretaries, the heads of the Custom House, and the officers of this House. I do not suppose he will lay a profane hand on you, sir, and touch that small emolument bestowed by this House without any undue liberality. I do not suppose he will touch that faithful and lonij-tried officer the Clerk of this Assembly ; in fact, I do not know where he is going to maVe his retrenchment. Then there is the Financial Secreretary of the Treasury, who has been thirty years in the service. Then, there are the Public Trustees and a number of officers of that kind. No doubt you may make some reductions in their salaries ; but I wonder if you will increase the efficiency of the service. Will you make those officers more zealous during the long hours they spend by gaslight doing work for us ? That is the only source he has got. He is not going to cut down the small men, so he must deal with the few big ones. This may be popular ; it may be claptrap ; but it is dust—dust. What will it amount to ? There is another point on which the hon. member favored us with a small amount of dust. About the middle of his speech he took up a sheet of foolscap paper—a very appropriate sort of paper in Nome cases—and said, " Hero is what my colleagues have discovered. See the frightful liabilities undei which the colony is at the present moment staggering. We have to provide immediately for all this." He then read : Two millions of I money to be borrowed for public works ; one [ million for something else; and ran up a grand total of fix millions. He threw dust in the eyes of this House, and led us to believe that the Colonial Treasurer had found all this out ; that he had discovered all these things, and nobody knew of them before ; and therefore it had been a dreadful blow to the Government when they found it out. Will this House believe me—will those who hear me outside this House believe me—when I Bay that every word of that was in the Treasurer's Financial Statement, and has been lying on the table of this House for nearly three months, and, if necessary, could have been investigated before the Public Accounts Committee ? Mr. RHIES : Provincial liabilities. Mr. FOX : Well, there may have been a small amount of £300,000 for provincial liabilities ; but that was there too. Hon'.' Members : No. Mr.iFOX: Woll, I wi!l not discuss tb*t, vsA

lam speaking of the whole amount. lam not looking for the office of Attorney-General, and I am not under the necessity of finding out what small quibble* I can raise. I say that all that solemn exhibition which the hon. gentleman made with the sheet of foolscap ouly told us what we knew before, and was laid openly and candidly on the table of the House by the late Treasurer. Now I come to the prettiest little bit of dust I ever saw. I must really read it from Hansard. It is so neat, so virtuously indignant, aud so characteristic of the hon. member, that I cannot resist giving it in his very words. He complains that some people have suspicions about him. He says,— "Foriustauce, I understand that it is thought by some people that I am hostile to Wellington as the seat of Government. It may also be thought that, because there is no Wellington member sitting on these beuches with me, the interests of this place may be neglected or not properly cared for. To the first point, I answer that I cannot conceive how any such misunderstanding can possibly arise. I think I may say with confidence that if any man in New Zealand is entitled to represent Wellington it is myself. All must admit that during the years I have known this place I have done my utmost to promote its interests. I watched by Wellington in its cradle; I helped to nurture it in its earliest childhood; and it is not very likely that now, in its maturer growth, I should return to injure the place upon which in its infancy I bestowed such care. I think, therefore, perfect confidence may exist in the minds of ail that, even supposing—although it is by no means yet settled—that no member for Wellington sits upon these benches, there sits here one who must ever be a friend to the Wellington District." Now, I will just tell you how the dust flies there. Knock out the word " Wellington" and put in the word " Auckland," and the case will fit as nice as possible. Did he not staud by the cradle of Auckland ? Has he not always loved Auckland ? And is it likely he is going to injure Auckland ? I can imagine the people of Auckland saying to him, " A.re you, Sir George, going to keep at Wellington the seat of Government which was wrenched from us ?" He will then only have to repeat that little paragraph, with Auckland in it instead of Wellington, and the dust will be thrown into their eyes as effectually as it has been attempted to be thrown into ours. What the Wellington members did when Sir Julius Vogel was in power was to go to him and say, "We want to know if you are going tj keep the seat of Government at Wei ington." He said, " Yea, and I pledge myself to do so." There is nothing to prevent the hou. gentleman from doing that, except a desire to carry out his views about a Government for each Island, which would involve the seat of Government in this island being at Auckland, while at Wellington he would give us a squeamy, miserable little Federal Government, with one Ministerand two clerks. Then wehavealittle more dust affecting the position of Ministers. He told us-some hon. members remarked that all the Ministerial seats were not filled up, and that it was rather a curious thing. Then the hon. member got up and, in his usual solemn tones, said he was proud of it. He said it was owing to the honorable feelings of certain members of the other side who recently joined him, and who did not wish it to be said that they went over for the sake of office. He felt proud to be able to stand up as the leader of such gentlemen, and so on. This is all very fine ; but what if it is understood throughout the House and the lobbies that all those gentlemen have offers to go into the Government directly our backs are turned ? Why can he not tell us who t.hey are ? He has made up his mind who they are to be, and it is all nonsense to say that he has not. And it is miserable prudery on the part of those gentlemen to say, "We would rather wait. Spare our blushes : but when the Assembly has gone, and nobody can make any remarks, you can put us in." Sir G. GREY : May I make a personal explanation ? All that the hon. geitleman has just said is contrary to fact. Mr. FOX : I would like to know what part is contrary to fact. Is it contrary to fact that the hon. gentleman used the expressions I have attributed to him ?

Sir G. GREY : It is contrary to fact that any arrangement of the kind has been made for the recess, and I think that such calumnious statements ought not to be made. Mr. FOX: Well, I made the statement from what I hear in the lobbies, and from what I see in the newspapers which support the hon. gentlemau all through the colony—the hon. geutleman's own newspapers. However, I may have made a mistake ; I may have been misinformed. The hon. member tells us that a sense of honor has deterrod those hon. gentlemen from joining him. No doubt that is very right and proper. They do not wish to jump into those benches at once, although they may have to do so in the course of a month or so. But does not that apply to all the hon. gentlemen's supporters who went over ? But who is that hon. gentleman whom I see sitting on the Government benches who went overa vet y short time ago, and who ha 3 now charge of three departments of the Government ? If it is highly honorable for other gentlemen to abstain from making such a jump, what is the position of that hon. gentleman who now has the burden of three departments to bear ? Tne hon. gentleman in his speech threw a little move dust. He said he wouid not believe that hon. members who had pledged themselves to support him would be so base, so false, now to vote against, him. Here, sir, is the innocent lamb again. At the time he made those remarks there was sitting by his side an hon. member who, at another Ministerial meeting, got up and made a speech in which he pledged himself to stand by another Ministry ; but three days afterwards, when the Government laid a liberal Land Bill on the table of the House, he placed himself at the disposal of the hon. member for the Thames, and became the bell-wether of his flock. Mr. LARNACH : If the hon. member is alluding to me he is stating what is not a fact. Mr. FOX : I should like to know what part is not a fact. Did not the hon. gentleman make a statement at a meeting of the friends of the late Government to the effect that he was prepared to support them ? Mr. LAR.VACH: What the hon. gentleman has stated is not a fact.

Mr. FOX : I was at that meeting, and I heard the hon. member. Within ten days or a fortnight, as I have stated, he wa3 playing the part of the bell-wether to this flock. _ Notwithstanding his pledge at the Ministerial caucus, he shortly afterwards brought down two votes of want of confidence. And why ? A liberal land law was placed on the table, and he being a squattocrat—one of the greatest landholders in the South—it did not Buit him. After all this shifting and changing it is very difficult to understand what the hon. member's policy is. Although I have read his speech in Hansard, I confess I have not been able to make, out his policy. w e know that for years past the hon. geutleman has been denouncing the squattocrats and the large landowners in the colony, and though I have not heard the hon. gentleman's speeches I have read them, and I have observed with pain that he has been trying to create a class-feeling in New Zealand, a thing which has never existed before. We have had party feeling, but we have never yet had class feeling. We see the hon. member supported by a gentleman who is known to be one of the large landowners and squatocrats of the South —a gentleman who is believed to have gone over from his party simply because a liberal land law was tabled by the Government which he had previously been supporting. The Government of which he is a member now goes on with the Land Bill, and what are we to understand ? Are we to understand that since he has taken office he has modified his views, or aro we to believe that he has swallowed his objections altogether ? There is another point which I cannot understand. The hon. gentleman says he is going in for the unity of the colony. The hon. member last year tabled resolutions which proposed _ tho absolute restoration of provincial institutions, and that a small Federal Government should be established here. That was what was commonly called the Separation polioy. Now I see hon. members supporting that hon. gentleman who, I know, diffur entirely from him on that subject. For instance, my hon. colleague i and the hon, member for Rangitikei hold dif-

ferent view 3. The hon. member for the Thames speaks of the Government being grasped iu one powerful hand, as if he were going in' for the unity of the colony, and immediately adds, " If there it to be only one Government." Sir, all this puts me iu mind of the celebrated old fom cat in the County of Meath. That cat had killed all the rat 3 and mice iu the county, and had to take to bird-catching as a means of subsistence. One evening, when he was out on a prowl, he had the misfortune to catch a bat, aud he said, " What's this ? It's neither rat nor mouse, bird nor beast, nor fish nor frog ; what on earth is it ?" Just then the bat gave a wink with his little black eye, and fluttered his wing, and the old torn cat fled the County of Meath, and never was seen any more. Well, now I ask, what is the policy of the present Government ? We ask, " What is it ? " but we cannot tell what the policy of the hon. gentleman is. It is impossible, at anyrate, for me to make it out. In conclusion, I will say that I have carefully studied the proceedings of this House during the past two years, aud I have listened with attention to all that the hon. member has said in my hearing this session, and I have arrived at the conclusion that history reproduces itself. I have read in the history of former times of men who were desirous of climbing to autocratic power on the shoulders of the people ; but, sir, the present Premier not ouly does that, but he sets class against class ; he sets the laborer against the capitalist, and the farm servant against the landowner ; he does all he can to set one class against another. That is one part of his machinery; the other part of his machinery is to make promises—in fact, he is very bold in his promises. There is nothiug too great, or too good, or too desirable that he will not promise to give for support. Shakspere has given us an admirable illustration of one of this class, and I will read half a dozen lines to show what Shakspere's hero promised to his deluded followers. Shakspere's demagogue says,— " Be brave, then ; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be, in England, seven half leaves sold for a penny ; the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; all the realm shall be in common ; and in Cheapaide shall my palfrey go to grass. All men shall eat and drink on my score, aud I will apparel them all in one livery, that they-may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord. I will kill all the lawyers. Is it not a lamentable thing that the skin of an innocent lamb shall be made parchment." Now, let us consider the promises of the Government. Let us see what the hou. member promised the other night. He declared that, —

" The desire of the Opposition to return to power, if gratified, would be a great misfortune and loss to the colony, as the Ministry had contemplated doing great and unheard of things for its benefit. A new era was to have dawned for New Zealand. The people were to have obtained their full share of power ; the land was to have become their pioperty ; taxation was to have been readjusted so that property was to bear its fair share of the burden ; a new system of finance was to have been inaugurated, and, in fact, a sort of millennium was to have been brought about by Sir George Grey and his colleagues." Sir, I was travelling some years ago in another British colony some distance from here, and I was introduced to an old colonist there one morning, and in the course of conversation the name of a gentleman wh ■ had at one timo been Governor came up. I said to my newly-made friend. " What sort o£ impression did the Governor leave behind him 1" " Well," he said, " you can judge for yourself. We used to call him 'Promising; George.'"

Now, sir, that is the title to which the hon. member for tie Thames is justly entitled. He is the " Promising George" of New Zealand. I will finish, sir, by stating my own impressions as to what ougho to be the course of action the Government of this colony, whoever they may be, ought to pursue. I hope that the late Government will be in office again in the course of a few hours, and, as I am not an expectant office seeker, I may be allowed to give them a few words of advice. I say that the great battle of provincialism has been fought and won by the Government, and that the people of New Zealand are not going to return to it in any shape whatever. But, owing to the late period of the session at which the contention ceased last session, the machinery necessary to carry out local se!f-goveiument in remote districts was not perfected, and it seems to me that the first duty the Government will have to perform will be to consider, without delay and at the sacrifice of almost all other business, a perfect machinery of local selfgovernment. I venture to predict that as soon as that machinery is perfected we will hear no foolish cries about going back to the old system—no sighing after fleshpots of provincialism. Nothing would induce the people iu the district which I represent to return to the old system of government, and I say that, if the machinery is perfected, we shall have one of the best forms of government which has ever been given to aay deraocractic country on the face of the earth. I only blame the late Government for not having tried to perfect the system at the beginning of the session, and I believe that they would have been firmer than ever on those benches. The second point which I observe as of fundamental and vital importance -is that we should go on with our public works. The country has fully recognised the wisdom of the policy of 1870, and I must say that the late Government were doing their best to carry it out efficiently. lam not one of those who think that when, the works now in hand are completed nothing further should be done, and that we should stop there. I said iu 1870 that we should not stop there, and I may say" that it is the impression at Home that if we proceed judiciously with our publia works we shall always be able to get money to carry them on. When we have finished the works already in progress we should proceed with others, in order to develop the resources of the country. We should maintain the unity of the colony, exercise economy without damaging the efficiency of the public servive, and eucourage that legislation which may promote the moral, social, and intellectual welfare of the people. We should bring the means of obt-lining a firstclass eduoation within the reach of the poorest man in New Zealand, and the educational system Bhould be founded on such a broad and liberal basis that the son of the richest aristocrat in New Zealand would be glad to go to our schools and sit alongside the son of the poorest laborer. Especially should it be the duty of the Government to bring about a social improvement in the people, by discouraging the fearful drinking customs of the day, which I have been struggling against in the past. This House should no longer neglect its function of caring for the moral and social welfare of the people. We have to do this, and it is more our duty to do this than to pit one ilass against another—to benefit labor at the expense of capital. It is not our business to limit the freedom of capital in order that labor may obtain an undue advantage. What we have to do is to make the whole country prosperous. That is something better than simply declaring that every man in the community shall have so many acres. Why, how many thousands—and there will be hundreds of thousand, aye millions—are there in th s colony who do not want lt-nd, who do not want to own even half an acre ! We have-shoemakera,' tailors, mechanics of all sorts and kinds, and enginemen, and milliners and mantlemakers, and what do they want with a liberal land luv? What they want is to live in a prosperous country, where there shall be the fullest scope for all. Let us have no class legislation aud no setting one class against another, and persuading one set of men that another is robbing it. A baser policy was never heard of, and must result in inevitable ruin, though it may lead to the temporary elevation of a demagogue.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM18771103.2.24.2

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

Word count
Tapeke kupu
7,721

MR. FOX ON THE PRESENT GOVERMENT. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

MR. FOX ON THE PRESENT GOVERMENT. New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5185, 3 November 1877, Page 1 (Supplement)

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