REDUCTION OF MEMBERS. Dunedin, September 20.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 301, 22 September 1888, Page 3

REDUCTION OF MEMBERS. Dunedin, September 20.

Dk. Fjtohett, member for Dunedin Centra^ has evidently backed out of the position he took up at the general election re the reduction of members, and which was the cardinal plank in ensuring his return. Speaking at the Protection Banquet, he said he had altered his mind upon one very important subject, and he took this, the earliest opportunity, of letting the public know of it. During the electoral campaign speaking in a theoretical way, and without practical knowledge, he had expressed an opinion favourable to a reduction in the number of members, and had pledged himself to vote for that. He had spoken and voted for the reduction, but now, if the matter came before the House again, he would vote against it. He did not like to break a pledge, but he would not keep a pledge with the conviction that it was not a good one. (Hear, hear.) Therefore he thought in saying co he might alienate his friends who thought otherwise. He must say he thought a reduction in the number of members in the present state of the colony would be an evil. The colonial Conservatives were the land proprietors — the rich men and they were the backbone of the present Government party. A colonial Conservative was a man who held large quantities of land, whether native or European land. It was the Russells, the Ormonds, the Buchanan?, the Bhodes, who had the bulk cf the land of the colony in their grip, and who constituted the Conservative party, and he was satisfied from his observations in the Hou&c that if the number of members was reduced to 50 they would find nobody but these large monied men in the Hou?o, and in a democracy that was a danger that could not be too cautiously ouaided against. No ordinary man would be able to contest a country constituency, and Parliament would be controlled by those large landed proprietors.