PRE-SESSIONAL ADDRESS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2547, 20 May 1881, Page 2

PRE-SESSIONAL ADDRESS.

MR TURNBULL AT TIMARU. Last night Mr R. Turnbull, M.H.R., addressed the electors of Tiinaru in Mr Jonas’ room, which was crowded with a large and orderly audience. There could not have been less than 400 present. His Worship the Mayor occupied the chair, and in opening the proceedings remarked that Mr Turnbull had invited them to be present for the purpose of bearing his opinion on the political questions that may arise in Parliament during the forthcoming session. He hoped his speech would be different to all other ones that bad been uttered by other members of Parliament, for he would like to heir about what would be likely to take place during the next session. There was one thing he would draw their attention to, and that was that their member had obtained a grant of 32,000 acres, which was alienated from the Crown for educational purposes, and over which Mr Turnbull bad been made trustee, and he would be enabled to inform them what had been done with it. In regard to selling it at £2 per acre it was an absurdity', as it could be bought and kept for sheep runs. It was time that the land should be re valued. This mutter should be laid before the House. It was also high time that educational matters and the management of Boards of Educalion should be looked into, because there was a species of petty tyrants in the place. Mr Turnbull could enlighten them on all these matters.

Mr Turnbull (who, on rising, was received with applause) said—Mr Chairman and gentlemen,—l ask your indulgence this evening as I am suffering from a severe cold, but will do my best to be both heard and understood. The Mayor has chalked out a line for me to follow, but I came here prepared to inform ymi as to what had been done during the last session. However, I I think that bis idea would be best. I came prepared to speak about the principal events of last session, those that have occurred since then, and those likely to take place during next session. I will, however, refer to one event in regard to the work of last session, and give an account in reference to the public estate. The public estate is yours. In many of the speeches of the members of the House and Ministerial journals charges had been laid against the Opposition that they had wasted the time of the Assembly, but the discussion upon one motion had saved the country no less than a quarter of a million of money. If that motion had not been brought forward the Ministry had not dared to have broughtdown their reduction scheme. It was an Herculean task to reduce the estimates when onco brought down to the House. It was

effected through the Opposition. One gentleman, the member for Cheviot, had taken all the credit to himself in regard to the reduction of salaries. He could not do so, but it was effected through a combination of the whole House. Mr Ormond’s speech was the best that bad been uttered of all the members, as it pointed out what was the best to be done for the benefit of the country. There was one little charge against the Opposition besides that of waste of time, and that was that the late Government has spent an enormous amount of money. I was astonished at Major Atkinson saying so. Why he assented to it! It was useless and childish to say that the Government had spent the money. It could only be done through the consent of the majority of the members of the House. In regard to the management of the public estate, when once yon begin mixing up the public estate with private properties you let all power go out of your hands, but so long as you have a land tax you have a lover in your hand. Large landed proprietors have ten times the influence in regard to the management of the publie estate as you have, but you have tne key in your hand. The present Representation Bill gives four members to each county to your two, and that will show up the immense power large landed proprietors possess in exercising their voting power. If you look upon the matter in the proper light no man should have more than one vote, and so long as you have the public estate in your power there should be no more. Mr Hislop drew a clause up in the Electoral Act, that all elections should take place on the one day. Any man possessing largo property could vote ten times to your one. We all have equal right to vote, and the greatest man should only have one vote like you. There were only two ways of avoiding the present unequal state of things in this respect, viz., either by obtaining a modified form of provincial government, or else through manhood suffrage. In regard to the land tenure, we cannot be pledged by that existing in England and you cannot take America as your guide. We must have a law to ourselves, or else otherwise it would lead to endless disputes. We say regulate the price of land and also in regard to perpetuity of land tenure. You cannot part with the public estate. In dealing \\ ith land, if a man comes with money and says “ I’ll rent it or occupy it in perpetuity, I’ll improve it and leave it to my children,” we should say “ It must be used for the benefit of the public generally, and must not be locked up,” If he will not do this then you should take possession of it at once. If he will not improve the land for the public then we shall say that we will make it of no use to him and tax it. This would put the alarm on the large landowners. When you buy a piece of land you ask for it in perpetußy, but you must use it beneficially to the country. You are not buying land, but pay' the cost of the survey. You pay £2 per acre for that and the cost of roads. Recent returns published show that the laud receipts for the past year amount to £299,000 and the expenditure thereon £266,000. There is no purchase of land, but it is held in per petuity. If you rent land it is only paying a tax. I am very anxious to call your attention to this. The country at the present time is in a bad state, and its giant strength is being shut out from it. You cannot work on the land because the large landed proprietors say they want the land for themselves, and will make simply a sheep-walk of it. The only remedy for this is to send the tax gatherer to them. You must decentralise government and have the land taxed. The land about here can support hundreds of thousands of persons. Laud produces wealth, but you cannot produce it because the large landowners say you shall not. You should tell them that labor is giving idle and that men arc daily going away from the country, therefore they must utilise it. If they say no they will not do so, then they must be taxed in order to support those people, and you must tell them to give a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. Prior to the next general election you must put your shoulders to the wheel and have your names registered on the electoral roll. Land, if properly cultivated, will give a fair return. Instead of being as it is now, a vast sheep-walk, it should be studded here aud there with hundreds of homes and people, and would mean the employing of the smith, the carpenter, and every other trade. The community, under the present system, suffer very grievously, and I wonder that they do not try to alter it. The success of the country will be through a land tax. The sheep farmer in renting land from the Crown has no right thereto in perpetuity, but pays a tax based on the assumption as to how many sheep it can bear, and we should tax the land on what it can bear in wheat, &c. You have to a certain degree control over the perpetuity of tenure. That is the real state of the case. I may have missed some of the points in regard thereto, but hare given you the outline for you to think the matter over for jourself. Instead of the country being shut up as it is now it should be the finest for people to settle upon. You now find them leaving it. They go away because a few landed proprietors have locked it yp. You gave it up to them on the assumption that they would use it, and if they failed in doing so the power of taxation shall be put on. It is no use talking of a moderate tax. The men who occupy the runs are at the best but underpaid managers. The land of this country and the use of it lie in the power of the great money corporations, which crush the people to death. They say that the country would be ruined if it were cut up. In regard to the runs which arc a great part of the public estate, the ” Canterbury Times ” states that the amount received for the year for rents amounted to £51,030, which was about 4ijd for the land per acre. Of course the runholdors say that their land is all back hill tops, and produces nothing, but they don’t say anything about the rich nart of the land, which will produce £4 to £5 per acre. In the present ‘Act relating to pasturage rents there is a clause (119) which he believed had been inserted whilst in Committee for the regulation of runs, that they should be put up to auction in blocks that will not carry less than 5000 sheep. Thus they give power to large corporations where the land should be divided into several small runs with hundreds of people on them instead of one shepherd and one dog. The runs are not the slightest use to you at the present time, for clause 310 states that if the sheep owners paid the rent they could have a tenure for another ten years. A greater injustice never was perpetrated. Great

and powerful influence was brought to bear in tbe House whereby your power over the land is taken from you for another ten years. The Act also provides that the land could be disposed of. Mr Ormond advocates tbe selling of the land, and I agree with him because then we can tax it. You have been defrauded fiom the use of it for ten years. There is, however, this remedy. These large companies have got you by the “ wool ” and we must tax their wool in return. They have done us a grievous wrong and we must tax them for it. Their wool should be taxed Id per lb, but I would not tax the small sheep farmer. I want to impress on your minds that you should keep the public estate intact, otherwise you will lose all political power and influence over your estate, but they must let property be taxed according to its wants. I took an active part in the Abolition of the Provinces, because they were borrowing money, and the land fund was given to the Provinces, and the heads of the Provinces were holding a deal of influence in Parliament. I know of no better form of Government than that which existed here prior to the Abolition of Provinces. It is alone by the return to some form of local government that we can get out of our present difficulties. We pay enormous sums of money for our present mode of government which could be carried out in another form at a much cheaper rate. You simply pay la for what you could do j’ourselves for Cd,and it is a question as to whether it would not be better to revert to some modi fled form of provincialism. There was another great reason why it should be so, and that is, on one occasion there were 85 bills set down on the order paper, which would have taken a Provincial Council but a very little time to go through, and with little expense, but in this instance it took a long time, and entailed enormous expense. They related to subjects regarding property. Some bills, whilst being applicable to Auckland, were nnsnited for the wants of Canterbury and Otago, and vice versa. A most valuable bill, the Licensing Bill, containing 266 clauses,was brought up last session, and fought for night after night, and the Good Templars had effected several alterations, when up came a petition from the Otago people in regard to bottle licenses, of which the Canterbury people knew nothing about. The consequence was that it was withdrawn, and it will imperil the seats of several members at the next election, Directly you admit property into a question to rote your power is gone. Large landowners are not content with one rote, but must have ten or twenty if they can, and crush your power. You listened to the voice of the charmer, and you are bound hand and foot, and there you are. But in 1882 you will have your remedy if you place your names on the electoral roll as soon as possible. In regard to the education question you all know my views. I believe, with Mr Curtis, on payment by results. People must be educated to a certain point. I urged in the House that if a person makes a declaration that ho is unable to pay for his children’s education then the State should pay for it, but those that could pay should do so. It is a very difficult question to deal with. I opposed the granting of heavy amounts for educational purposes with varied success. As soon as tbe Estimates are laid on the table the House becomes demoralised. It will break down with its own weight as the country cannot stand the allocation of such largo sums of money, and an alteration must take place some time or other. I am not sure when. If you watch the current of events you will find that some members want more than others, and the Northern members say to the Southern, ** You have had a splendid innings, now let us have ours.” Education should be effected under a different system to that at present. The child should be educated as far as possible, and ample funds can beob tained for this purpose if you take your reserves and use them for educational purposes. If this is properly done then a groat saving can be effected in so large a rote. If parties say they will educate their children themselves, by all means let them do so, but they must educate them up to a proper standard, and the State should give them a fair proportion of the grant. If they choose to separate from us in our system of Nation education,they should have a fair share iu educating their children. I would again repeat to you that in 1882 a general election will take place, and it will be through your own neglect if you fail to have full power over your estate. You must register your claims to vote or your country will become a wilderness. We have now a second generation amongst us that will be soon wanting to go to work. Are we to drive them out of tbe country ? I don’t want to tell you that you are downridden serfs, or that the large landowners are vampires, hut if you neglect your own interests it is your own fault. Let mo beg of you seriously to think over it, or you will do harm to yourselves and to posterity. I don’t think we can demand that a person shall not own more than 1000 acres, hut the time will come when a prohibitory tax will be put on those owning more than 1000 acres. It must be for the benefit of the many and not of the few. I will briefly refer to one or two matters before I conclude. In regard to the future. I remember when during Mr Ballance's speech on the land tax, he cited an American authority named Cooley. A funny member got up and asked, “ Who’s Cooley.” Major Atkinson, who stands head and shoulders above bis colleagues, the giant of the Ministry, of great knowledge and skilful in debate, gave as his opinion in regard to the property tax, that “ a man and all he has belongs to the State, and they hare a right over his body and property.” He says “ you must pay a tax on you wealth I say no, but your land—“ You must pay for its possession whatever use or not you make of it or whether vpu get 10 or 20 per cent, from it.”" He says we must resume immigration at the earliest opportunity. I say no, but open the country up first and then you can reintroduce immigrants, but a man must be guilty of wickedness who talks of doing so otherwise. I know what it is to do a day’s work, having been in the colony 30 years, and know men at the present who have walked about the country from morning to night without getting work. Some time ago there was a revolution in England, during a time of great destitution, in regard to the imposition of a poll tax, whereby a crown nearly toppled over from a sovereign’s head. I read the other day of a case in Christchurch where a female was in such an utter slate of destitutioh that she had no clothes on to open the door. This was

a disgraceful state of things when there was such boundless wealth at your door. I told yon when I last addressed you that the Government had two millions of money which they could use for the purpose of employing people on profitable works and keep men in the colony. You cannot blame men for leaving it; you will soon hear that Government has lots of money, although you have been told that it had been expended. I liken Major Atkinson to a conjurer, who, with a few passes of his hand, tells you that the money has all disappeared, yet with a few more strokes will make it re appear again. In fact it has never gone out of his hands. If he had brought it forward lust year men would not have gone out of the colony seeking for work. He is doing like the ancient doctors,who bled yon till you got very low and then gave you medicine to get better. I think he has got the country into too low a condition, and it will be all the longer before it can properly recover itself. He considered the two most important events since last session were Major Atkinson’s speech at New Plymouth and the resignation of the Native Minister. If any man was badly ill used by Government it was Mr Bryce, the Native Minister. He had a spotless character before joining the Ministry, he was led into bringing out lots of villany that had been committed, and he brought forward several bills before the House, but the Government left him in the lurch, and ho withdrew all the bills. It was a pity that Mr Bryce did not leave the Ministry after this, it was a disgrace in his not doing so. Mr Ormond said that these disclosures should never have been made, or the Government should have prosecuted their own agents. Mr Bryce could not leave his friend in an emergency, and was induced to continue intheMinistry. From the coarse he afterwards pursued, the whole current of his mind, in regard to justice to the Native race was changed. I am afraid that very little will be done during next session of Parliament. It will pass the estimates and then the Government will go to the country on the strength of the one-and a-half million. Major Atkinson asked for political rest for the country. Beyond the charitable aid and Licencing Bills nothing more will be done. There will be no alteration in the Education Act, and they will not dealjwith the land tax,or qualification of Electors Bill. You must go in for residential suffage and a property qualifiction must be struck out. I have only given you an outline to-night Everyone of the points in reference to the Land Act would take a night to consider. I thank you for your kindness iu listening to me so attentively. (Loud applause).

An elector asked Mr Turnbull to give his views on the Chinese invasion. Mr Tuinbull said that in regard to the introduction of Chinese, they were not colonists to be desired, but I hold that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof* I would not accede to them the rights you possess. You must refuse them the rights of naturalization and put a poll tax on them. Another elector asked Mr Turnbull to give his views in regard to the reading of Bible in schools. Mr Turnbull —My sympathies are in favor of this, but you need not be alarmed, no alteration in that respect will take place during next session. In reply to a question put, in reference to the method to be adopted in registering claims to vote, Mr Turnbull said that according to the regulations one can put in his name at any time, and as soon as 100 names were obtained, a supplemenlry roll would be printed. The residental clause allowed every man who had been in the colony twelve months, to become an elector. He urged his hearers not to delay registration longer than they coaid help, because a dissolution of Farliamen might take place directly after the session. The [Resident Magistrate’s Courts were the appointed places where parties could register their claims to votes.

lie the Game Laws.—They are a disgrace to the country, and he (Mr Turnbull) held a strong opinion against them. He was surprised te read a report of a case recently, when a man was fined £o which went to Government and 2s 6d to Mr Studholme because he shot a hare. It was not the Magistrate’s fault that the fine was so large. They cannot imprison a man under the Game Laws, but under the Resident Magistrates Act. He applied for a copy of the depositions in the case, so that be can lay the matter before the House. It is a disgrace for the public estate to be used in that n ay. It was a question of English law as to whether the road belonged to Mr Studholme. We have to give large landowners access to their land by means of roads, but he would say to them “If we give you that road, you must keep it in repair.” You would see that they would have nothing to do with that road.

In regard to Board of Education elections, Mr Turnbull said it was like other questions requiring an alteration. Like other things done in the country they were easily manipulated. In reply to a question on the balance of the loan, and whether if spent it would keep men here. Mr Turnbull said it certainly would. It was disgraceful when men deprived of their rights to the land, should have to go to Government for subsistence. He would do-all in his power that works should be carried on, so that men could get work. In reply to a question in regard to the new railway station grant, Mr Turnbull said that as soon as the financial year ends, any vote of money not expended lapses. It did not follow that if allocated it must be spent. The vote was given in a lump sum for the line from Amberly to Waitaki. They were entirely in the Power of the Slinister for Public Works. They must chance getting the money spent. In reference to the ten per cent reduction, Mr Turnbull thought it was a right thing to do. He voted for the members, honorarium being reduced ten per cent, but not for a large amount, because otherwise they would exclude the best men from the working classes from going up to Parliament. Mr Bruce in moving a vote of thanks and confidence in Mr Turnbull, remarked that there was one thing to be regretted, and that was that the three members fur the South Canterbury district were no't in accord with each other, and he thought it would be more conducive to the welfare of South Canterbury if they would work together. They were two against one. It would be much better to shake them in a bag, and bring them afterwards out, all having the same ideas, (Laughter.) After next election he hoped they would get men all holding the same opinions. The motion was seconded by Mr J. Simpson, and curried unanimously. Mr Turnoull having briefly returned’ thanks, the meeting terminated,