ME WOOD'S MEETING.

Southland Times, Issue 1752, 10 June 1873, Page 3

ME WOOD'S MEETING.

Mr Wood addressed the electors of tbe Waihopai district in the Theatre Eoyal last evening. There was a good attendance, and Mr Thomas Brown was called to the chair.

Mr Wood apologised for calling tbe electors together so soon again. He had done 10 at tbe request of his friends. On the " constitutional question," which had been worn pretty threadbare, he would say a word or two before he concluded. Major Richardson and Sir F. Dillon Bell agreed with his .view of the matter. Tbey might have noticed that there was always a cry at every election. Some act of baseness was attributed to the would-be representative. If a man showed any persistency in a straightforward course, he was not a suitable representative for a great many. He was now called a traitor again, and yet, strange to say, he had been elected, to more honors than any other member of the constituency. He pleaded not guilty to breaking bis hustings' pledges. He had positively declined to give any pledges at all. The present prosperity of tbe Province he could not attribute to the fact that the Superintendent had chosen as bis advisers certain gentlemen in opposition to the will of the Council. The rise- in the price of wool was one cause; the very extensive boiling-down was another ; the large amount of borrowed money, for which as yet no interest bad been paid by the taxpayer, another. The Donald Eeid Executive had been driven against their will, on account of a heavy overdraft of £90,000, to sell in one block 50,000 acres of land. This extinguished the overdraft, which the present Government took credit for extinguishing, but tbe change was really due to the sale during the past year of 140,000 acres of the best land in Southland, which bad been recklessly disposed of to men wbo would put sheep on it, and employ perhaps one man to ten thousand acres, whereas if it had been sold to agricultural settlers there would more probably have been one hundred men to one thousand acres. Their representative, whoever he might be, would have to consider the propriety of having plans and specifications for local works exhibited at Invercargill ; to endeavor to secure a loan similar to the North Otago loan, to be spent in public works for the southern portion of Otago ; the fencing of the Bluff and Invercargill railway; and the alteration of the land law in the direction of assimilation with the Otago law. He (Mr Wood) bad been charged with censuring tbe Superintendent, and turning out tbe Government for the manner of their taking office. He denied both charges. He never in fact voted at all, except on the question of an adjournment ; but the Government themselves had supported the amendment censuring tbe Superintendent for theirappointinent, the most disgraceful proceeding he had ever heard of in tbe annals of any government. Mr Eeid held out the olive branch to the minority. He offered to take members from both sides, but wben it was known tbat the dissolution would be granted, as be (Mr Wood) had no doubt it was known to tbe minority, the telegraph being very quick, and to them very cheap, they refused to work with Mr Beid. Mr Barton and Mr Stout, two 1 of the foremost lawyers in Dunedin, had refused to have anything to do with the Tolmie Government on account of the constitutional aspect of tbe case. Mr Perkins, his opponent, bad said that the majority of the Council had ceased

to represent tbe views for whicb they were elected, and that tbe session, costing £100 per diem, bad been wasted by the obstructive action of a party actuated by personal spleen. Tbe £100 was in reality £50 — about as near tbe truth, however, as the rest of Mr Perkins's speech, and he (Mr Wood) would have expected from that gentlemen more Christian charity than was shown in the accusation as to personal spleen. Some men preached Christian charity ; others practised it. He (Mr Wood) would prefer to be of the latter class. The so-called obstructive majority had voted tbe money for tbe Orepuki and Otautau tramways ; tbe so-called progressionists had done nothing towards the work, but asserted that tbey bad lost the plans when tbey were wanted. Tbe obstructives bad brought in the deferred payment system ; the progressionists bad tried to thwart it. Mr Macandrew, in the Assembly, had tried to get 3s 6d an acre compensation for the runholders on ten million acres ; tbeir bumble servant, Mr Wood, bad knocked off one shilling per acre. Whether the electors remembered it or not, the runholders would never forget it, and would lose no opportunity of voting against him. The wholesale purchasing of Southland land should be stopped ; but Mr Macandrew had refused to reserve the land, whicb Mr Eeid would have done. Mr Perkins designated the upholding of constitutional privileges as " clap-trap." On Mr Perkins's view there was no necessity for a representative at all. If tbe Superintendent would only send down bis walking-stick in the hands of some trustworthy person like Mr Perkins or Mr Duncan M'Arthur, always ready to serve tbeir country when there was a small consideration attached, and bave it returned as a member, that inexpensive method would do quite as well as sending up a man prepared to do all tbat His Honor required. Their forefathers had bled and died for the cause of freedom, and handed it dowji to tbeir posterity. The electors were to prove on tbe day of the poll whether or not tbey bad now become the base degenerate race whicb Mr Perkins would bave them to be. He left tbe issue in their hands, and he was confident of tbe result.

Mr Borne asked if the Chief Justice of New Zealand (the Acting Governor) would dissolve the Council if it were an unconstitutional or illegal act ? Mr Wood thought that Sir George Arney was not the Chief Justice ; but perhaps as merely Acting Governor he did not like to resist the Ministry. He (Mr Wood) had never said the act was illegal. Mr Goodwillie then moved, and Mr Shields seconded — "That this meeting has every confidence in Mr Wood as a fit and proper person to represent Waihopai." Mr Waddell wished to know if Mr Wood was prepared to repeal the Act imposing a fine of £50 on the owners of cattle straying on the railway line ? Mr Wood would certainly do so. Mr Eutland enquired whether Mr Wood would vote for Mr Gillies as Superintendent ? Mr Wood replied that Mr Gillies had shown that his heart was in the right place as far back as nine years ago, by his proposals for public works. Mr Hall asked if tbe Superintendent, in his address, had not said that run 111 was to be put into small farms ? Mr Wood — " No, not a word about small farms." Mr Hall insisting, and Mr Lumsden having apparently refreshed Mr Wood's memory, Mr Wood admitted that there was a reference to small farms, but no provision that tbe land should not be sold in large blocks. Mr Hall replied that His Honor's address contained recommendations only, that it was the duty of tbe Council to make such provisions, as matters of detail, wben the recommendations were adopted. Tbe motion was then put and carried with only a few dissentients.