MR HUTCHESON, M.H.R., AT WELLINGTON.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2504, 30 March 1881, Page 2

MR HUTCHESON, M.H.R., AT WELLINGTON.

[By Telegraph.] Wellington, March 29. Mr Hutcheson addressed his constituents to night. There was a small attendance. He characterised last session as a barren one, although Government had flooded the House with Bills on all imaginable subjects, most of which were allowed to slide. Not one of the measures promised in the Governor’s speech were passed. All the country had got from last session was a strong dose of taxation. He condemned the beer tax as being an excise duty, and he strongly condemned the property tax. The increased Customs duties had failed to produce a corresponding increase in the revenue. The worst feature of last session was the depreciation of the credit of the colony by Ministers, which had led to a serious commercial crisis. He approved of retrenchment, but did not consider the scheme adopted was thorough or fair. In many respects the reductions were cruel. The present ministry no more represented the people of New Zealand than they represented the people of England, They had no sympathy with the working population. He instanced Dr Pollen’s pension as a sample of jobbery. Ministers having served their purpose, now dropped the cry of the danger of a financial collapse. There was never any fear of such a thing, although, no doubt, our debt was a serious item. He advocated the establishment of a Govern, ment bank of issue to render the savings of the people available for public use, and save the people from institutions which gave money freely when plentiful and in hard times came down on them with an iron hand. He condemned the Government scheme of redistribution of representation and single electorates as calculated to encourage plural voting. The only fair basis was population. He considered it absolutely hopeless to expect from the present Government any sincere effort to promote settlement on waste lauds. He strongly urged the necessity forthe settlement of ayeoman population and peasant proprietary. Our railways, he thought, should be maintained on commercial principles, and not on a cast iron rule over the whole colony. Government deserved credit for resisting Mr Bryce’s advice to attack Te Whiti. It would have been as fair and just to have proposed the arrest of the Mayor of Wellington. British honor and British law had been trailed in the dust by the present Government taking innocent men prisoners,and detaining them untried. No previous Government had ever so disgraced the colony or itself. He ridiculed Mr Bryce’s charges against the “ Lyttelton Times” correspondent and “Wanganui Herald.” He had great faith in the West Coast Commission, and only feared Te Whiti would not listen to any overtures till the prisoners were unconditionally released. The chief end of legislation and administration in the future should not be so much to do things for the people, as to give the people power to do things for themselves. Electoral and representative reforms were required, the incidence of Customs taxation required immediatel revision, the property tax should be abolished, and an income and land tax substituted. He characterised Major Atkinson’s taxation arguments as those of a tax gatherer and not of a statesman. He would tax large landed e states for political as well as for fiscal purposes. He would also sweep away every vestige of primogeniture. He objected in toto to the system of game laws apparently growing up, and urged the necessity of bankruptcy reform. He postponed his remarks on education, intending to hold another meeting. A vote of thanks and confidence was carried after a speech from Mr John Duthie defending Mr Bryce’s native policy, in the course of which he pointed out that the Governor’s letter to Te Whiti was written during Mr Bryce’s absence from Wellington, and he expressed his individual opinion that had it not been written, Mr Bryce would not have resigned.