Mr. SHERWOOD and Major Atkinson.

Patea Mail, 16 June 1881, Page 2

Mr. SHERWOOD and Major Atkinson.

Mr G. F. Sherwood, formerly candidate for Egraont electoral district, invited electors of Patea to meet in the Town Hall on Monday evening, to hear his review of Major Atkinson representation of the district. The hall was well filled, and included some settlers and prominent townsmen.

Mr W. Aitcbison was voted to the ch air.

Mr Sherwood said he was prepared three weeks ago to accept Major Atkinson’s recent challenge, and to show how the Major had failed in bis duty as a representative. The meeting could not be held at that time, because the Town Hall was in process of removal. In passing a vote of confidence to a member, there may be something underlying it which requires explaining, in order that both sides may be heard ; and for this purpose he would now investigate and lay before them the whole tenor of the conduct of the member for Egmont. The Major having invited his constituents to inquire into his conduct, he, as a constituent, would be entirely wanting in his duty if he had not come forward in response to that invitation. He said : You have been told repeatedly that you have had more than your share of everything. The only thing in which you have had more than your share has been in neglect. (Hear, hear.) Let me tell you farther, that in criticising the action of the member for Egmont, I am fully sensible of the serious responsibility I have taken on rayself, and I am fully aware that whatever action he took from 1872 to the present moment, in anything that affected his constituents, it affected the welfare of the colony in an eminent degree. There is no district that has been looked upon with so many curious eyes as the district of Egmont Here we have had the seat of the terrible native difficulty, and the seat of an enormous expenditure of money on unproductive works. I intend to assert that it is the apparent object of all Ministries not to destroy this native difficulty, because in so doing they would destroy one of their main-stays. You will under-

stand why it is that whenever we have required anything for this district, we have had to go to the Government, and therefore we have obtained an unenviable notoriety ; and I regret to say that our representative has not taken the action he ought to have taken to put us in a proper position before the country. VILLIAGE POLITICIANS. The impression is that we are a narrowminded, short-sighted, grasping lot ; that we cannot see one inch outside our own circle ; that we are a parcel of village politicians. I see a certain gentleman smile, as if to say that is a very true bill. I shall undeceive him. I shall show him that though we may be rustics and village politicians, we have had to take our share in the field against the enemy. The general position of the district was this. The natives had been driven out, and the settlers had returned on a promise of the Government tfcat not another Maori fire should be lit again in the district. Mr Sherwood then referred to the election of ’72 to show that Major Atkinson was returned in opposition to the Vogel candidate, Mr Moorhouse, npon a district programme. Mr Sherwood was in fact deputed to ascertain the Major’s views, and they were thpi he would support the Stafford Ministry in resisting the return of the natives to this Coast; that the land should be cut up into reasonably sized faims and, to use the Major’s words, the young men of the colony should be settled upon them ; and that roads and a railway should be made through the-district. These things were to be done or advocated to be done immediately. Eat before the Major reached Wellington a vote of no confidence was carried against Sir Edward Stafford’s Government. Then Mr Vogel came in, and Major Atkinson joined the Vogel party, or rather, as the Major explained it, Mr Vogel came over and joined him. In returning thanks for his election in October ’72, Major Atkinson said he was then devoting his individual attention to the 4 peaceful settlement of this Coast and the I promotion of a railway from Wanganui to Auckland. BROKEN PROMISE' Then Sir Donald M’Lean,* under the Vogel Government of which Major Atkinson was a supporter, began to invite the natives who had been driven out to return to this Coast. The settlers were alarmed, and a meeting was held at Hawera. Major Atkinson was present, and when a resolution was proposed protesting against the

return of the natives, the Major did all he | could to get the word “ protest ” struck out or softened down. The meeting was suspended, and a committee was appointed to consider what form the resolution should take. The Major was not a member of that committee, but he asked leave to attend its deliberation, and he so interfered that the chairman of the committee (Mr Sherwood) called attention to the matter, and the interference ceased. The committee sent the resolution back as it was, and the meeting adopted it as a protest against the action of the Government. So slight was the so-called difficulty at that time, that when settlers heard of the re-appearance of natives near Hawera, they deputed a sergeant and two of the weakest they could find, and these men turned the Maoris off the land. They did not take firearms or side arras. They had each a stick, and this powerful force of three men with each a stick was sufficient to overawe the natives at that time without firing a shot or striking a blow, because they had been thoroughly cowed. The Government took alarm, not at the Maoris, but at the settlers who were determined to defend their lands ; and it was Major Atkinson who came into the district to prevent the settlers from resisting the return of the natives. How could that be reconciled with his promised solution of the ■ native difficulty and the peaceful settlement of the Coast ? There was the foundation laid of the greatest blight on this district. After describing other details of this episode, Mr Sherwood said : The greatest extravagance of Governments has lain in the direction of unproductive expenditure in that hideous bar to progress known as the Native Department and the native difficulty ; that institution which has been fostered and encouraged by successive Governments as their bugbear. Major Atkinson had every advantage to his hand. . He had money voted for making roads through the district.

THE KAILWAY RESERVE. The House had recognised that the proper way to settle the native difficulty was by the construction of public works, by roads and a railway ; and they had gone to the extent of laying off a railway reserve half a mile wide from one end of the district to the other. Everything was ready. The member for Egmont had only to move his motion before the House and put the question before the Southern members; but he did not do so. The railway reserve had been leased for a short period, and the theory was that by the time the railway was made the money would be available by selling the reserve as the work proceeded, so that we should not need to gb outside the district for money to make the railway through this district. I am going to ask the honorable gentleman’s particular friends to whom he sends “ Hansard ” —he never sends it to his enemies—l will ask his friends if he has told the true story of the Patea district w’here it ought to be told, in Parliament. Major Atkinson has only to shake his head in the House and suggest a native war. That is enough to frighten Southern memb era. They swallow the shake of the , head. (Laughter.) COST OF NATIVE TROUBLES. The native difficulty at that time had cost five millions. It has now cost eleven millions. The Major has held power, with a short pause, down to the present lime, and he comes here and talks of the enormous debt of the colony, as if it had not grown up under his own hand ! When he talks so largely about economising, he should look to the annual vote for defence purposes, and he will find that instead of decreasing, it has grown from £260,000 in 1872 to £360,000 for last year.

A HOLLOW PEACE. Have you got peace for the defence vote ? Could you have conceived that when he was returned at that time, he would have consented to the return of these natives in open defiance of the law ; that he would have consented to the appointment of a Commission, and winked at the giving away to Maoris in open rebellion of 262,830 acres of the cream of the land—given back to natives who have not one shadow of title to it. The value amounts to £633,535 ; and this is the Major’s economy ! it was entirely unnecessary ; or if was necessary, there was a margin sufficient to have covered this property tax for two or three years. And who are these Maoris ? THE governor’s LETTER; Here we have a fanatic who is giving asylum to murderers and fanatics. Would you believe the honorable gentleman would join in recommending the Governor to write a letter to that man calling him his friend, asking him to keep the land in trust for himself, inviting him, to Welling-

ton—that is, where he would have the

hospitality of Government House, and where inferentially he would be the equal of the Governor ? No action could have been taken by anyone in power calculated to lower the prestige of Europeans in this country more than sending that letter; and I was surprised to read recently that Mr Bryce admitted his joint responsibility for that letter. CROWN GRANTS. Mr Sherwood referred to the Crown-grant-ing of reserves to natives for blocks leased to Europeans, and argued that the effect of this new title would be that, these holdings would remain locked up in the hands of a few Europeans,there being44,ooo acres now leased to three or four persons. public works. The railway reserve in this district was sold, and the proceeds went where ? The honorable gentleman will tell you. He says you have had more than your share of everything. If it was the intention of the colony, when they entered on public works, to spend the money within the centres of population, the whole of the public works would have been concentrated at the four great centres of population. We understood that it was for the purpose of developing the resources of the country. The speaker quoted a telegram from Major Atkinson setting forth the amount to be expended here, and saying it was in excess of the possible right of the district in proportion to population. But what are possible rights ? Is population to be taken and nothing else ? ANOTHER PROMISE. In 1871 the House almost unanimously voted the money for the completion of '(he railway from Wanganui to Waitara, e vote being £620,000 ; the work to he* completed in two years so as to settle the native difficulty. Yet Major Atkinson has denied having told the settlers that the railway would be through in three years, and he has supported that denial by saying his great knowlege of public affairs at that time would have prevented him from making such a promise. So great was his knowledge that he denies having stated the railway would be through in three years, although the House intended that it should) be through in two years. LAPSED VOTES. After the House had voted him that money to spend in three years, we see that from the year 1871 up to ’75 only £55,000 had been expended. Contrast this with Mr Ormond’s district on the East Coast. When he was in power in ’75 and ’76, £157,000 was voted for the Napier line, and Mr Ormond took care to expend the whole amount. (Mr Williams ; Three cheers for Ormond.) A fresh vote was taken for this district, but where was it expended? In 1876 £50,000 was voted, but only a little over £IO,OOO was expended, and £35,000 lapsed. I have not been able to trace the lapsed votes year by year, but coming to 1880 we have £250,000 voted, and about £25,000 has been expended, and the balance will lapse directly. OTAGO CENTRAL LINE. And there are certain gentlemen down south who have a brilliant project which they call the Otago Central Railway ; but Major Atkinson has told us that his policy has been to complete a main trunk lineThe main trunk line in the South Island is completed. Mr Fergus : No ; no. Mr Sherwood : It is completed beyond the original intention. Mr Fergus : No. Mr Sherwood : I hear a Southern politician say “ no.” That trunk line looks like a gigantic centipede from one end to the other. ■ I am told those branch lines have been constructed by Provincial Governments. Where did they get the funds from ? They got them from the land. What became of our land ? We did not so much as get roads for our land. The money voted for our roads was allowed to lapse. And it is within your recollection that when the County Council took over this mam road, there were two expensive portions which have been since finished at the expense of direct taxation within the district. This was done while the gentlemen down South have got their centipede line and their palace cars, while we were slaving along to hold a frontier for them. Now they want to take away this bit of money that is going to lapse from our railway to make the Otago Central Railway. DIVERTING NORTHERN MONEY. * You will find directly that the Government will show they have saved some £900,000 out of the vote for purchasing native land in the North Island ; and the South Island papers are already beginning

to clamor for the expenditure of that j money down South. I ask you to look carefully that if this money is not to be spent for its original purpose, it should go to complete public works in the North Island. LAND SHARKING. The member for Egmont knows perfectly well there was a large tract known as the Ngaire Swamp. He has been told that a very slight expenditure in drainage would make that a splendid block of land suitable for dozens of homesteads. What has become of that ? It was purchased from the natives, and an advance was paid on it. But the proclamation over it was withdrawn, and a capitalist immediately took it up because it was too good a chance to be lost. It is occupied now by one settler. He is a very good settler, but he is not half a dozen women and fifty or sixty children that ought to be there. (Laughter.) LAND SALES. Returning to public works, you know there have been extensive sales of land in this district, something like £250,000 being taken out of the district from that source. It was generally understood, in view of the large sums being borrowed by the colony, that the bulk if not the whole of this money should- be expended in making roads. During all this period there was a continual drain of money going from this district, and at the same time money coming from land sales in other districts was being expended in those districts, because they were not confiscated territory. We were receiving no benefit from our land fund because this was a confiscated district, 'personal criticism. I will now come to Major Atkinson’s recent meeting in this hall. Speaking generally of his speech, it was disappointing. It was extremely dreary. This is the only policy it foreshadowed ; We have taxed you as much as we can, but we intend to introduce some few measures that will enable you to tax yourselves. Beyond that he proposed nothing but political rest. HARBORS AND RATING. Now as to the harbor question W. Williams : What about the ten thousand pounds ? Let us hear that. (Laughter.) Mr Sherwood : I have no doubt some friends of the honorable gentleman would like to hear the story of the ten thousand pounds. I am sorry to disappoint his friends to-night. lam not going to tell you the whole story, but I will tell you a good deal of it. (Voice : What about the Sugar Loaves?) Major Atkinson stated here that I was a member of the Provincial Council when the apt was passed to put a harbor tax on this district. The fact is, I was a member and I was not. Major Atkinson was one who bad framed a bill

to tax every bit of this district for the Taranaki harbor. Mr F. O‘S. M'Carthy : Did you not vote for it ? Mr Sherwood : There is not a single thing I have done from the first to the last that lam ashamed of. Mr M'Carthy asks if I did not vote for that tax. If he puts a question to me in a fair spirit I will give him a straight answer when I have finished. TARANAKI HARBOR RATE. Major Atkinson went to Wellington, after assisting to frame that bill for taxing this district. I received a telegram from the Speaker of the Council that the only business for the next meeting was the election of a Harbor Eoard for New Plymouth. I had reason to doubt that, and I induced the other Patea members to go up to that meeting. And sure enough the great question that came on was the question of taxing the Patea district. Mr Peacock, as senior member, moved the omission of that tax from this district, and we succeeded in getting it removed from the bill ; but it was only by threatening to agitate that we got it removed. I said to the Council, give us this concession and I will votefo^the bill, Mr M‘Carthy, you have got your answer. (Applause.) One of the main guarantees for the construction of the Taranaki harbor was the establishment of a central gaol there ; and it lay with Major Atkinson to say whether tenders should be accepted for building the gaol. He decided not to accept tenders, but to give the House another opportunity of considering the question. The House did consider it, and the gaol was lost ; and there went the principal guarantee for the construction of that harbor. Sir John Coode, in sending his recent plans, still considers that the main part of the labor was to be prison labor. One-fourth value of the land that has been given back to the Maoris was the property of the Taranaki harbor ; and there

went guarantee number 2. lam told the

rating clause on the Waimate land is now the main security. I think Major Atkinson might thoroughly satisfy himself now that the money received is being expended in a proper manner. He was asked whether he did not recommend the Government to authorise the amended plans of Sir John Goode, whereby £85,000 was added to the expenditure. He said “no.” That amonnt was inferentially authorised in a period of the worst depression in the colony. PATEA HARBOR. As to our own little harbor,-Major Atkinson took leave to say he had been very kind tp me. I had no persona l grievance with him, beyond that I felt a few of his statements lecently made were very uncalled for indeed as regards myself. There was therefore no necessity for him to talk about his kindness to me, because I never asked or received a favor from him. The only favor consisted in assistance to carry on harbor works. I have had no greater opponent to fight than the member for Egmont in endeavoring to get anything through the House in the shape of harbor works. It was my duty to go to him in Wellington, and he has been good enough on every occasion t° tell me, after saying I should get the bill ready, that he would thtow the responsibility on me. RATING PATEA DISTRICT. He told you I asked him on one occasion to put a rating clause on the whole of this district for the Patea harbor. That is inconsistent with the facts. It is true I did see him on the subject of a harbor endowment bill, and he told me in his usual way —his kind way, if you will—to get the bill prepared. He then said, “I see you have not got a rating clause and he said he could not take the bill into the House without a rating clause, but that I must take the responsibility. I said I could not take the responsibility, but I would ascertain the feeling of the district. Mr Bridge, Chairman of the Council, was in Wellington, and we waited on Major Atkinson together. When he had made it an absolute condition that ho would not take the bill in without a rating clause, I did all in my power to induce the people here to consent to a rating clause. Mr Bridge has informed me since that Major Atkinson did put to us very strongly the necessity of inserting a rating clause. Does that appear as if I was a prime mover in the matter ? Mr Sherwood read two telegrams sent to the clerk of the County Council to the effect that Major Atkinson considers it necessary to insert a clause fo r rating land in the district ; otherwise anticipates strong opposition in the Council. You will now see that it was Major Atkinson who insisted on it, and wanted to force the responsibility on

REFUSING £5,000. His next statement is that he had offered me £5,000 for the harbor and I had refused it. I will put it to your common sense : do you think I would have refused it ? (Voice : (No fear.) This makes it appear that for some peculiar reason I would sacrifice any interest. There is no misrepresentation so vicious as that con taining a germ of truth. This statement contains some truth. There' was a bill before the House with 6,000 acres of an endowment for this harbor. You all know it is possible to assist in getting a bill through the House .without being a member of it. I had reason to believe that bill would pass, and that we should have that 5,000 acres. The Taranaki members were not satisfied, and wanted to have a conference. They asked me to withdraw the endowment clause, and they in turn would give £3,000 towards the Patea harbor. I refused to do that, and I will tell you why. It was a case of “ No catchee no havee.” Mr Kelly, Mr Carrington, and Major Atkinson were together, and Mr Kelly said “I object to this endowment.” I said “ That means it must come out.” He said that did not follow. I knew it did follow, because he was chairman of the Waste Lands Committee, which could report against the clause. I said “ What do you propose to give instead ?” Mr Kelly said “ We propose to give you £3,000. How do you propose to give it ? He said “We propose to give £ISOO from the Taranaki harbor and £ISOO from the Patea County Council ; and we propose to put it in the bill.” Mr Carrington said “You had better take it.” The member for Egmont said “ I think you had better take it, but you must take the responsibility.” The responsibility meant that I should have withdrawn the endowment clause ; and the bill would have gone into the House to be laughed at by every member within its walls. It would not have been the member for Egmont, but

the Chairman of the Harbor Board, who had brought such a bill forward. It was an absurd thing to attempt to take revenue from the County Council and tiro Taranaki Harbor Board. I said Major Atkinson, will you be kind enough to take the bill in as it stands. I cannot trust myself to discuss itat present.” He said, “Well, you must accept the responsibility.” I said “Very well.” I you electors now, that was a deliberate trap. (Applause.) THE MYSTERY OF £IO,OOO. Now we come to the £IO,OOO, I have reason to believe this is going to form the the subject of an official inquiry. That being so, you will concede to me the right of retaining certain information which I shall be glad to give in the proper time and place. (Applause.) I went to We'r lington, and as usual went to ask the member for Egmont to assist me in procuring some assistance for the harbor. I tell you now that from the first time I mentioned this to him until half-an-hour before I left Wellington, the sum of £IO,OOO was never mentioned between us. Yet he said in this hall he had given great assistance in getting the £IO,OOO. I asked if he would assist in getting a loan for the harbor, and he said he would, but that he could not go to Government. I said “ I must endeavor to get it from somewhere,” and I asked him to do the same. A few days after that I succeeded in raising the money, and I met the honorable gentleman and asked him what he had done* It was then that that wonderful scene took place. It was then, after the money was raised—l may say they are all at sea about it : Mr Hall, Sir George Grey, and the honorable Major Atkinson are all at sea about it. Assuming that ail this corruption had taken place, I say the investment of that money has been one of the best investments the Government ever made on this Coast. lam pleased to

learn that the honorable gentleman has himself admitted that the money has been well expended on this work. The Major informed you that be had told me to go to Sir George Grey. He did so. He said I felt angry, and I did so. NOT A GRBYITE. You have had opportunities from time to time of knowing what I have been at, and what ray sentiments are and were; and you know I was not the Grey candidate, that I had no sympathy with Sir George Grey or his party, nor with Major Atkinson or his party. I have held that the colony wants a radical reform, and I will be none of them until I see a different class of men among them. He wanted to fix upon me that I was a Greyite. The Grey candidate was in the district at the time canvassing, and his address was published, so that I was really fighting against the Grey Government when they advanced £IO,OOO to the Patea harbor. Major Atkinson knew what my sentiments were. He knew I had not suffered from the emoluments of office for many years. Yet he put it to me deliberately that I should go and attempt a gross act of corruption. My answer was that I would go back to the district without a penny rather than do that. If Sir George Grey had said ‘‘l will give you this money if you will support me,” I would not have done so. But I had prepared myself even for that. I was told I should have to see the Treasurer, and he happened to be Sir George Grey. I had told one of the Ministers that I was afraid of going to Sir George Grey for fear he should talk politics. I had two interviews with him, and from first to last not one word or hint of politics escaped his lips, nor from any of his friends directly or indirectly from first to last of the transaction. Why, therefore, am I to be insulted all over the colony, and be held up to ridicule as one who had sold himself—one who is at the beginning of a political career, no matter what some of you may think to the contrary. (Hear, hear.) If there was corruption, the disgrace rests with Major Atkinson. What he said here on the £IO,OOO has been described in the local paper as a rough joke. I call it a scandalous joke, and it will certainly rest as a disgrace on the honorable gentleman who made the proposal to me as long as he lives, in the minds of all right-thinking men. Mr Sherwood, after other remarks, concluded amid applause.

Mr T. Fergus, railway contractor from Dunedin, ascended the platform and said : I am not an elector here, but I claim to be at present one of the public of Patea district, and I wish to reply to some of the assertions made by Mr Sherwood. I do not wish to defend Major Atkinson. Any differences between him and Mr Sherwood are of no affair of mine. Possibly I am as, much opposed to Major Atkinson in some political matters as Mr Sherwood can be, and I recognise it as a fact that Major Atkinson is quite capable of answering for himself, which no doubt he will do at the proper time and in a proper manner. (Hear, hear,) I do not know whether the personal charges against Major Atkinson

are true or nut, am! I don’t care. (Voices We know they are true.)

Mr Sherwood : We don’t expect Mr Fergus cares. Wo know where he comes from.

Mr Fergus : I believe in many of the principles expressed by Mr Sherwood, but he has seen fit to allude to me separately, and it is in reply to those very “ kind and gentlemanly ” allusions that. I wish to speak. I am willing to give this district every credit ; to say that it is the “ cream of the colony,” if you will ; to say that it would Le to the benefit of the colony that it should be opened up by roads and railways ; and I am not so narrow-minded as to suppose we in tbe South would benefit by keeping your land locked up ; because I hold that every acre of land you settle with the “ sons of the soil ” is a direct and substantial benefit to the colony at large. But ho has told us that if you look at a map of the South Island it is like a centipede, covered with railways, and that a map of the North Island shows railways only here and there. I have made a rough estimate to-day, and it shows that in the Counties of Taranaki and Patea there are about 15,000 people. There are about 1,200 miles of railway in the colony, and about 70 miles in these two Cohnties, so that you get a thirty-third of the population of the colony with one-sixteenth of the total railway mileage. (Voice : That is all in Taranaki.) It is within tny experience that if you begin making a railway at two centres of population and work to join in the middle, you construct the line cheaper than by beginning in the middle and working towards the two ends. I don’t say you have received over your share of railways, because I hold that by the construction of this line yon will at once and for ever settle this damnable native difficulty. (Great applause.) But reckoning either on the basis of population or revenue which has been derived from your district, I say most distinctly that you have not been ill-treated in the matter of public works. The native difficulty has been the bugbear of the colony, and it is little wonder that those Southern politicians to whom he has alluded should look aghast when a native war is mentioned, seeing tbe vast sums it has cost us in the past. Had the 28 borrowed millions been all spent on public works, the colon}’-, instead of being pressed down with the property tax, would have been deriving money enough from those works to pay our entire indebtedness. But I take exception to Mr Sherwood’s statement that we have had our trunk lines made down South. There is a coast line completed from Christchurch to Dunedin ; but that line was made out of place, as it practically opened up no new country. It is, however, the best paying line in New Zealand. (Voice : Question.) I say the Amberley-BlufE line is the best paying line in the colony ; and it is quite natural that when the money scramble took place for a share of the loans the members for populous districts took care to have their share of the spoil. In fact, I believe that policy demoralised the politicians of this colony more than anything else that has happened. (Hear, hear.) As to the Central Otago Railway, the old diggers were the backbone of Otago, as they were of Auckland, In fact, had it not been for the outbreak of the gold fever, when we got such hordes of new “ iniquities,” New Zealand would not have occupied such a proud place as this colony does now in the Australasian group. We have had these miners working for 20 years in the wilds of Otago, and they have not had a single mile of railway or road constructed, but have had to find their way as best they could over mountain ranges and up almost impassable ravines through which mountain torrents rushed. It can be shown that there are hundreds of thousands of acres of splendid land belonging to the Crown which will be opened up by. that railway, and which by their increased value will far more than compensate for the making of this rail--way, and will enable the South to give a sum for completing your railway from Waitara to Auckland. (Gaeat laughter.) One more point. Are you aware that more public money has been expended in Patea County during the past year than in any other County in the colony 1 As to so much being voted for the railway and only so much expended, that is a customary thing. (Mr Sherwood : Yes, with us.) He cannot put his finger on a single vote that has been all expended. Although money was appropriated to two contracts in the South two sessions ago, yet the Government would not go on with the work after tenders were sent in. I am not a constituent of Major Atkinson nor of Sir George Grey, but I say that when you talk of the necessity for public works in your own district, don’t throw mud at us in the South I wish as much as any of you to see your country prosper, and your railway go in. You have a splendid climate —in fact it Suits me admirably (laughter); and you can grow sheep and wool better than we can; but we only ask that we shall get

our fair share, and no more. (Laughter.) Only our own fair share, I say. The Central Otago Railway can speak for itself even in the teeth of such criticisms as I have heard to-night, (daughter and applause.) Mr Sheewood: My friend has the courage of his convictions. I was only alluding to the Otago Central Railway when I objected to their taking money that was originally appropriated to the opening up of this Island, and spending it there. I did not detract from the value of that line in any way. Ido object, and I hope our member will object, to that money being taken from the North to the South. If they can make their line so easily, and have a margin to give to us, I say make the line, (Laughter.) The Chairman invited questions, as Mr Sherwood was prepared to answer. None being put, Mr W. W illi AMS proposed a vote of thanks to Mr Sherwood for his lucid address, and trusted the time was not far distant when they would have the pleasure of returning him as their member. (Hear, hear.) The motion was seconded and carried, about four hands being held up in dissent. A vote to the Chairman closed the proceedings.