POLITICAL NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2532, 22 July 1893, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

Sir Robert Stout has spoken in the financial debate, and judging by what the newspaper correspondents say, he astonished the House by his grasp of the position of the colony, and the grandeur of his conception of the fupptions of the State, and the duties of the Government. Captain Russell, who followed Sir Robert, said ip W as a speech which “ caused the heart of .every jp.au who had heard it to vibrato as he drew the picture of this colony’s groat future, and of tfie race to which he belongs.” This is very good, but Captain Russell (Ud not sympathise 'With the grand high-souled sentiments to which Sir Robert gave expression. It was not of gorgeous palaces, a proud and powerful aristocracy, broad acres and immense wealth, that §jr Robert spoke, but of a free and independent people, highly educated, guided by high moral principles, and completely free from the miseries which are the result of vice and poverty. Sir Robert does not believe in the accumulation of wealth in a few hands ; he believes in a more equal distribution of it; and it is this which makes him so much disliked in wealthy circles. The Christchurch Press tells us the speech was visionary. Of course it was. So were the speeches of every reformer who ever lived, but the men who have led thp world have beep the faddist

and visionaries. Anything which interferes with the present social condition is visionary in the eyes of the wealthy classes. With one thing we feel more than pleased; w© feel, in fact, flattered by it. Almost every idea put forth in the columns of this paper have been endorsed by Sir Robert Stout. He is opposed to the reduction of taxation ; he does not believe in taking the tax off improvements, believing that it is better to construct public works out of taxation than out of loan ; he believes in the policy of self-reliance. He defended past Liberal Administration, almost exactly as we have done, and in every particular took the same lines as we have been advocating. We feel pleased that the ideas and sentiments which we have been so ardently advocating are quite in harmony with the views of the ablest and most progressive statesman in the southern hemisphere. Messrs E. 6. Wright and A. E. G. Rhodes must have felt small as they listened to Sir Robert Stout. They said recently that the Grey-Government left a deficit of £BOO,OOO, and the Stout-Yogel Government a deficit of £500,000. Sir Robert Stout showed that the deficit of the Grey-Government was only £BI,OOO, and that of the Stout- 1 Vogel Administration £92,000. This is exactly as we stated the case in these columns at the time.

“ All is not gold that glitters ” in the North Island. The Canterbury settlers in the Taranaki district are well satisfied, only that the roads to their land are impassable in wet weather. Messrs Sandford and Tanner, M.H.R.’s for Christchurch have paid a visit to them aud looked into their condition, and they report that to get goods into the settlement from the nearest railway station costs £lO per ton. The distance is 22 miles, half of which can be reached by dray, six miles by pack-horses, and the remainder by Maori canoes, or by 4, swags.” It would have been better to have made roads for these than reduce taxation. The Government up to the present time have acquired 5,335,457 acres of Native land, at a cost of £1,325,638. There are 1,444,306 acres, the purchase of which is yet uncompleted, and 865,968 are being bought along the route of the North Island trunk line. The Premiar promised to supply Parliamentary papers to the Auckland and Dunedin Parliamentary Unions, and Mr G. Hutchison claimed a similar privilege for Patea. This was granted, and Mr Rhodes asked the same privilege for Geraldine, but the Premier said the line should be drawn somewhere. Now the beauty of this is that there is not, and there never has been, a Parliamentary Union in Geraldine. There was a Debating Society there last year, but it is not there this year. Still it appears that no Debating Society ought to be refused, as Parliamentary literature ought to be distributed as widely as it would be read. The Hon. W. Montgomery has been sworn in as a Minister without portfolio 4 which means without pay. He will assist Sir P. Buckley in the Legislative Council. Mr Montgomery is one of the oldest politicians in Canterbury, and certainly one of the most Liberal. He is a thorough democrat, and is the originator of the policy to burst up large estates. From 1880 to 1883 he was leader of the Opposition, aud it was then that he enunciated his bursting up policy. He was a member of the Stout-Yogel Ministry for a few days, and retired from politics in 1887. He is one of the twelve councillors appointed by the late Mr Ballance. He will carry sterling honesty, long experience, and a kindly disposition into the Cabinet to the assistance of the present Government.

The twelve councillors, recently appointed to the Legislative Council, are called the “ Twelve Apost ies.” They are only appointed for 7 years, but the other councillors are for life, and are called “ Lifers.” There is trouble now for the “ Lifers” have gold railway passes which they can hang on their watch chains, but the “ Twelve Apostles ” have only “ leather medals.” The Railway Commissioners refused to supply gold passes to them, and so there is trouble in store for the Commissioners.