Mr, Montgomery at Akaroa.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 106, 15 April 1884, Page 2

Mr, Montgomery at Akaroa.

[Per Press Association.] Wellington, April 12 Mr. Montgomery addressed his constituents at Akaroa. After briefly reviewing last Session he said Ministers had everything their own way and were entirely responsible for all done in Otago and Canterbury. They was a depression now everywhere, not one trade in ten doing more than pay, while all were discontented with the present, and hopeless as to the future. This he attributed first, to-the immense annual drain for interest on loans. Second, to excessive Government departmental expenditure. Third, to large areas of good land which owners would neither cultivate or sell. Fourth, rents drawn by absentee proprietors. At all hazards the Colony’s engagements must be met, but he most strongly protested against any further borrowing, The number of civil servants must be largely reduced, and large land owners must be made subject to a tax which would compel them to cultivate or sell. A heavy tax should also be imposed on all absentee proprietors. He insisted on the necessity for decentralisation, and as a step towards it, that in each Island the railways should be placed under the administration of non-political boards. The Middle Island would not submit to their railway rates being raised to make up the deficiency on the North Island lines. Pacific annexation he declared to be a dream and a delusion, which, if it were attempted to carry out, would prove a snare. Federation was a danger of stupendous magnitude. It would be derogatory to ourselves, and treasonable to our descendants to enter into any compact which would interfere with our further liberty as a nation. He criticised Major Atkinson’s speech at great length as a dreary waste of words, and condemned the Premier’s utterances regarding Civil Service, education, land tenure, native affairs and the general state of the colony. He said Atkinson’s mottow should be “ I borrow and buy.” Those four words embodied Atkinson’s whole policy. He was a hollow financial failure, and people were beginning to recognise the the fact. Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Canterbury and Otago would no longer submit to be denuded of their resources for the benefit of Taranaki, where last year the railway did not pay working expenses. The Treasurer’s own figures showed a deficiency on the estimates of £220,000, but instead of at once calling Parliament together to consider so serious a state of affairs, the Ministers put it off to June, so as to receive another couple of months’ tenure of office. But they must go. They had got the country into a mess. They would never retrench, and, whoever succeeded them, their days were numbered—and they knew it. The sooner they were turned out the better for the country.