THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1893. POLITICAL NOTES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2546, 24 August 1893, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, AUGUST 24, 1893. POLITICAL NOTES.

We learn from a reliable source that Sir Robert Stout will be defeated on his amendment to the Government Licensing Bill. Sir Robert Stout proposes to move as an amendment to the riili that a bare majority shall be sufficient to refuse licenses, and it is supposed he wid be defeated on this by a majority of eight votes. If so, a new principle will be affirmed, that is, government by a minority. This is not Liberalism; it takes us back to the time when the few governed the many. However, we donot object so much to that as to the provision of making it compulsory for half the electors on the roll to vote. In a general election only about threefourths of the electors vote, and the slightest effort put forth on the part, of the liquor traffic would keep more than half of them from voting. This provision, however, may do good. The temperance party will doubtless endeavor to purge the rolls, so as to rid it of dummies. Every roll in existence at the present time has a very large percentage of dummies on it, and these would count in calculating the number who voted. Dead men, those who have gone to the North Island, or Home to England, those in gaol, and so on, would count in the calculation, and it is neither reasonable, fair, nor just, that any question should be decided by non-existent voters. This' is the worst feature of the Bill. Since writing the above we find that Sir Robert Stout has been defeated on several points.

The Bill has, after all, failed to give the extremes of either party satisfaction. The liquor party say it has been designed in the interests of the temperance party; the temperance party say it has been purposely framed to play into the hands of the liquor party. In our opinion neither party is right. The Bill, if it becomes law, will exercise a restraining influence on publichouses, but it will not shut them up. It will make publicans careful not to arouse public feeling against them, lest the electors might turn up at the poll and shut them up; but where no such feeling exists it will be impossible to get one-half the number on the roll to vote, at any rate in rural constituencies.

Mr W. W. Collins, after having lectured long and laboriously in the interests of the liquor traffic in Christchurch, has now gone to Dunedin, and is lecturing there. He has been replied to by a Mr Adams, who says that he is in the pay of those interested in the liquor traffic. Mr Adams says that the liquor party are raising £IO,OOO to spend in electioneering at the forthcoming elections, and that Mr Collins is in their pay. The lecture which Mr Collins delivered in Dunedin, Mr Adams says, cost £ls in; rent of hall, gas, advertising, and printing ; he charged nothing for admission ; he made no collection, and how could Mr Collins do this if he had not been backed up 'I Mr Collins is a Freethought lecturer, aud makes his living by lecturing. Was it likely he would lecture for ~ • Mr Collins is also a total » f? 11 ™ sot . patient hearing, but - Mr Ad “ nß T* f quently interrupted With excia^ Qa lons 0

“ You lie/ 5 aud so forth,

In the Governors speech we were promised a bill dealing with banks and banking ; this led to a considerable amount of speculation. Some thought a State Bank was to be established ; others said that our banking legislation would be made to harmonise with recent Acts passed in the Australian colonies, butfrom the beginning we, as will be remembered, said that nothing of importance would be done. We were right. This great banking bill which was referred to with such a flourish of trumpets has been introduced,, and simply consists in this : that when a given number of shareholders of any bank or company of any kind applies to the Government to have their accounts audited by the Audit Office it shall be done. Now, was it not ridiculous to announce this paltry, miserable, needless, useless, absurd piece of legislation in the Governors speech ? It is not the customers of the banks who are authorised to demand an audit, but the shareholders, and it is not likely that they will cry “stinking fish 55 to injure their own property. The Act will be a dead letter. It is absolutely useless to expect a State Bank, although a cornpent authority—Sir Robert Stout—said once the profit to the Government would be £1,000,000 a year. We shall never get a State Bank until we suffer from bank failures, and the people demand it.

The Hon John McKenzie has intro* dued the Stock Bill, and has got well abused for his pains. Mr E. G. Wright characterised it as a Bill to worry sheep farmers aud promote sheep-stealing. One of the great objects the Bill had in view was to prevent sheep-stealing, but possibly there are two ways of looking at how sheep can be stolen. We do not profess to b© an authority on sheepstealing, but it appears to us that branding them must be a preveptitive. Mr Buchanan said it was impracticable to brand long-wool sheep, but Mr Scobio Mackenzie said it was always done in the South. Mr McKenzie in reply said that evidently the critics of the Bill did not know what they were talking about, as the penalties to which they I objected were already in force in existing legislation. Sir John Hall countenanced the Bill, and Mr Rhodes said if the Minister could devise means to prevent sheep-stealing he would do well. Ultimately the Bill was referred to the Stock Committee. What strikes us as strange in this matter is the extraordinary divergence of opinion amongst practical farmers on the subject. This is not a question of policy; everyone is at liberty to vote as he pleases, just exactly as if no party existed, and surely under such circumstances the practical farmers in the House ought to bo able to devise a workable, suitable measure that would meet the require-

ments of the colony. Still it would appear that no two men look upon the subject from the same point of view.

School reserves, especially those for higher education, have for years been looked upon with longing eyes by certain sections of the people. Their position is this : In times gone by the wealthy classes in Parliament set aside large reserves of the best laud for high schools, colleges, and universities, in which wealthy children are educated, but they left the common schools practically dependent on the whims and fancies of Parliament, For years we have held the opinion that the money derived from these endowments ought to be applied to the purpose for which they have been reserved, but not as at present. Poor children, no matter how clever cannot hope to go to high school or college and consequently derive no benefit from these endowmeuts. Wehold that this is wrong. The revenue from these reserves should be divided into scholarships, and given to rich and poor according to merit, so as to give an equal chance to both classes to get higher education. Another thing in connection with these reserves is that they are standing in the way of settlement. The governors of the high schools and colleges let them in large areas and they cannot be persuaded to cut them into small sections. The Honorable John McKenzie has now a bill before Parliament dealing with these reserves. He proposes to place the management of them under ,the Land Board. The Bill provides that no one shall hold more than 040 acres of first class land or 2000 acres of second class land, and that the laud may bo sold and proceeds invested in other lands for the benefit of higher education. Put shortly the object is to get theselands settled in small holdings, but the proceeds are to be handed over to the institutions to which they belong. Last year a bill was possed to enable the Minister to exchange other laud for land suitable for close settlement. The result was that a very large settlement was established in Waimate, and the object of the present Bill is to continue this good work. If this Bill passes this district will benefit immensely by it, for we have very large areas suitable for close setciement.

The Accounts Committee have now reported on the laud scrip cases in which the Hon. J. B. Whyte, M.L.0., and Mr A. E. G. Rhodes, M.H.R., were implicated. The committee have' now thrown the burden of the blame on the Hon. G. F. Richardson, late Minister of Lands. Mr Richardson, it appears, before leaving office, instructed the officers of the department to accept the scrip, no doubt at the request of Mr J. B. Whyte. Mr Rhodes then went to the officers and asked whether scrip was negotiable, and the officers said it was. Mr Rhodes then handed in scrip aud the officers accepted it. It is worthy of note that the officers refused to accept the scrip until ordered to do so by the Minister of Lands. The report says that “ the colony is bound by the actions and errors of its Ministers/ 5 and though the law was broken and the whole of the transactions irregular, there is no remedy. When this question closes finally,and we have the full debate and report before us, we may have more to say on it. Meantime this fact ought to be made known : Mr Richardson was Minister of Lauds when the Act was passed in 1888, under which only £SOO worth of scrip could be exercised. Messrs Whyte and Rhodes were members of Parliament, and supported Mr Richardson. The whole three, therefore, onght to have full knowledge of the law, but in addition to this the Court of Appeal had settled the matter, in the case of Patterson v. Humphries, which was exactly a similar case. Thus . these three worthies had the law they themselves had helped to make interpreted for them by the highest authority in the land, and yet, in defiance of that law, aud in contempt of the decision of the Court of Appeal, they wrongfully exercised the scrip. There is another point. Mr White had to stand Ins trial for the scrip, but it is only now that it has been discovered that Mr Richardson was implicated. Why is it that the fact that the late Minister of Lands ordered officers to accept the scrip has been kept back ? Is it not plain that it was desired to hide it 1 But we shall

x it pass for the present, with only the lfal ' • that the more we learn about the remind • ! k affair the W© It

.Under the heading “The i Woman in the Upper House/ 5 L.hQ w ‘ lingtou special corresponpent of «... Otago Daily Times, wired on Tuesday : —“ jL'his irrepressible lady had a bad half-hour at the hands of the Hon. Mr Bowen upon the resumption of the debate on the Electoral Bill in the Upper ; House this afternoon. Mr Bowen is an experienced legislator, who has done the State some service, and is besides a cultured and scholarly gentleman; therefore it is not well for the petitioning woman of “21 years and upward 55 that Mr Bowen is opposed to her political enfranchisement. It is, he said in the course of his speech, an enormous leap in the dark. He had heard certain gentlemen who supported this policy complain of the experimental legislation of this colony in recent times, yet they would go further and commit themselves to the greatest experiment of all. Had they read the protest of the women of England in 1889 as published in the Nineteenth Century ? For quiet argument, logical statement, aud dignity of tone, that protest could not be surpassed. If once women gave up their present role of suggesting, advising, aud peacemaking that they may stimulate political passions, they would have committed themselves to a departure in their lives they would for ever regret. The average of mental power in both sexes are about on a par. If all distinction were obliterated, how would society suffer. The education of children is said to be the noblest role that woman can be called upon to fill. Will she give up the nursery, and her children, perhaps, to the care of men ? “ Many of us do not like to say all we think on this subject, but we believe it will be the wreck of our social system. 55 He had heard of the woman who scoffed at chivalry, and wanted “rights/ 5 not “condescension. 55 “Are we/’ho continued, “toget rid of our notions of chivalry, and men and women to descend into the struggle on equal terms 1 ” He could not understand the desire of a true woman for a notoriety that would be a vulgar notoriety. He thought it will be a good specimen of legislative wisdom that will be presented under a new dispensation. On a great constitutional question such as this there should be a mandate from the country through a Government that would stand or fall by it as a policy. It was true it had been seat to that House three times ; but by whom ? By the same House of Representatives. Was this a mandate from the people ? This bill came to them branded with illegitimacy, while the real father followed breathless in the rear with the legitimate offspring in his arms. If a measure such as this is to bo passed by this Chamber under such circumstances,

the sooner this House disappears the better.” With this final volley the hon. gentleman resumed his seat amid loud approval that seemed to startle the staid decorum of the Chamber and to imply that the political woman lacked champions there.

The convict Chemis, who in 1889 was sentenced to death for murder, the sentence being afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life, has found a warm champion in Mr C. H. Mills, who on Tuesday broke through his rule not to speak on a motion for the adjournment of the House for the first time in his life to make an impassioned “ appeal for justice.” The convict’s wife and child were in the galleries and hanging upon every word said, and it was touching to see how every kind word was followed with eagerness, and how the jeering laugh of some unconvinced member jarred upon their supersentitiveness. Mr Fisher and Mr Hogg joined with Mr Mills, but Sir R. Stout said that no one reading the evidence could come to the conclusion that the jury in the case was wrong. The dinner bell brought sudden death to the discussion without a decision either one way or the other. The mind perforce recalled the line, «Wretches have hanged that jurymen may dine.”

“ This is more than I bargained for,” said Mr Hutchison, sen. Ha had asked when the Libel Bill was likely to come on, upon which Mr Geo. Fisher said he should take occasion when the Bill did come on to expose the “ meanest, vilest, and most cowardly libeller in the city of Wellington/’ naming a well-known journalist, whom he proceeded to bitterly attack. The Premier asked the Speaker if such language was allowable in regard to a respectable citizen aud journalist, and the Hon. Mr Reeves pointed to a case where Sir Maurice O’Rorke checked an Auckland member some years ago for language which paled into insignificance before what they had heard from Mr Fisher, Mr Speaker said he could only express the opinion that the same rules ought to apply in respect to gentlemen outside as inside the House, but he could not enforce that opinion. Sir Robert Stout said it was uuEnglish, unmanly, and unfair to put an attack on a man in Hansard when he could not reply. He did not think the forms of the House should allow such a thing. If so, the sooner they prohibited it the better.