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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5529, 16 December 1878, Page 2

Pamjament out of session has begun to be busy. From many quarters we hear of speeches to constituents. In our own immediate neighborhood we had last week Mr. Bunny and Mr.' 1 Beetham, and the verdict about their utterances is that they said little or nothing new about the past session, and promised equally little for the future. Mr. Maofarlane up in Auckland has agreed with almost all the previous speakers whose speeches have been recorded in our columns in being severely critical of the post session. Leaving on one side what he said about the Piako Swamp, and about Sir George Grey personally, it may be as well to record his opinions about the great measures of the past session, brought down by the Ministry of which it was the boast that they had introduced more measures of reform than any previous Ministry in New Zealand. Mr. Maofarlane first reminded his hearers of the £IOO,OOO of expenditure that Sir George Grey said, on the 17th of August, 1877, could be given to the colony by bis method of ‘ conducting business, and of the £IOOO a year fixed by the Premier, when out of office, as enough for any Minister. The member for Waitemata wanted to know why these reductions had never been even attempted by the Premier. What had become of the Native Lands Bill promised 1 He characterised the financial proposals of the Government as being “ truly miserable.” In speaking of the Land Tax Act he said: —“ Think of a man saying in Parliament, where he is sent to speak what he thinks, ‘ X disapprove of the measure, but I cannot vote against it.’ Ido not agree with such men or such conduct. We want men to go there and, if they disapprove, to say so, and to act in accordance with their judgment. (Loud cheers.)” And in relation to the Electoral Bill he gives the cost of passing and debating the measure, saying in regard to it : “ The Bill was carried by a small majority. I am ashamed to say I was one of the majority. But Sheehan begged me, as it would do him a great deal of good with his native affairs and with Rewi, to use my influence to get it passed. .... I can only say that the Upper House did what they had a right to do, and that they acted right in this matter. (Cheers.) .... But what did Sir G. Grey do ? When he found the Upper House would not pass the dual vote, he ignored the whole Bill, and threw it on the table as so much waste paper. So much for a Bill that cost the country at least £SOOO to have it discussed.” Of the Minister for Public Works he says: “ Mr. Macandrew is a plain, shrewd, sensible man. Ho takes good care to look after the money-bags for Otago.” And he concludes his address byremarking, "I do not know that I can say much more. I have been grievously disappointed with the result of the session. There never was, I believe, so barren a session since New Zealand had a Parliament.” Mr. Saunders’ speech at Kaikoura has already been noticed by us, but it is instructive to note what he also has to say about the more important measures. Referring to the financial proposals, he disapproves of them generally, and adds ;—“ I felt that it was an unwise and delusive proceeding to take twopence a pound off the working men’s tea and in the same breath to tell them that we must starve our education system, and could afford nothing out of the Consolidated Revenue for the erection of the £200,000 worth of school buildings demanded by the Education Boards. Tt was a wicked farce to make laws to compel parents to send their children to school, and then not to provide schools to which they could "ber sent.” Of the land tax he says it “was the first step towards putting the saddle on the right horse for the construction of railways, but its proposals were so incomplete and some of them so manifestly unjust, especially to the Cheviot District, that I felt obliged to vote and speak against its third reading.” As to the Electoral Bill, he went carefully into figures to prove how grossly Sir G. Grey exaggerated the number who would be enfranchised by its enactment, and concludes his review thus : “This appears to leave 6000 instead of 70,000 who might be enfranchised by Sir George Grey’s proposal. But even that number would probably not be added and he quotes the statistics of Victoria to prove that such is the case. Mr. Saunders gives as his reason for voting with the present Ministry in preference to any other party in the House, the difficulty he had in finding any other combination of members whose views ho could support. —From Motneka we are in receipt of a speech of Mr. Hursthouse’s. He, too, is not by any means satisfied with the action of the Government during the past session, and says of the Electoral Bill: “He was prepared to give the Maori equal rights, but to give him two votes and the Europeans but one appeared to him a paradox quite. (Applause.) So strongly was the Government wedded to this that rather than confer the greatest liberties on the people, they threw over the 70,000 of the bone and sinew of the land for the sake of giving the Maoris two votes.” His opinion of the Land Tax Bill is given in most decided language —“ lu his opinion it was unjust, and he voted against it.” He objected altogether to the assumption that all land throughout the colony had been benefited by the Public Works policy, and said “He would ask those gentlemen present had the value of property in that locality increased to any extent during the last seven years ? He only wished it had, but he was sure it had not,” Of the Beer and Income Tax Bills he reminded his hearers that “ notwithstanding the Government had boastfully declared they would stand or fall by one or all their measures, they at once gave way when defeat was imminent, and stuck like limpets to the Treasury benches. He did not mean to find fault with their sticking to office; most probably if the other side had been in they would have done the same, but the fault they made was in making a boastful declaration, and then not abiding by it.” Mr. Hursthouse concluded his speech by stating ■ that ho had no confidence in the present Government, and in an exhaustive summary, which we publish in another column, he gave his reasons in a condensed form for refusing them his support. Thus it appears that fromr Auckland, Wellington, Nelson, and Canterbury provincial districts the work of the session has been severely criticised. It is somewhat remarkable that each arid all of the speakers take up the same points, and still mare so to 1 find that they agree perfectly in their criticisms, They are all equally successful in securing votes of confidence, and the conviction grows daily stronger within us that Sir George Grey has an arduous task before him this week. If he succeeds in infusing fresh confidence into the breasts of his disappointed constituents, and in shifting the blame for the barrenness of the session off the shoulders of the Ministry, his triun ph will be as great as it is unexpected. '