THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1893. THE ELECTIONS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2570, 19 October 1893, Page 2

THE Temuka Leader. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1893. THE ELECTIONS.

The General Election is at hand, and supporters of the Government in every district ought to make up their minds at once, and declare their intentions openly and deliberately. Above all others, farmers ought to step out now, and help to keep the Government in power. There are many farmers in this district into whose pocket the Government has put considerable sums of money by relieving them of taxation. We know some who have saved sums varying from £1 to £2O a year by the change, and we ask these is it not a duty they owe to themselves and their children to support a Government who has thus lightened their burdens, and yet had a surplus of half a million 1 The point is this : The Conservatives have declared their intention of taking the Graduated Tax off large estates, but they do not say how they will make up the revenue thus relinquished. If the £70,000 we get from the Graduated Tax is taken off the large estates some other class must pay it. Will it be put on the Customs 2 No. The answer is simple : it wi'l be put on the land of small farmers. The present Government took this £70,000 off small farmers and put it on large laud-owners, and if the Conservatives get into power they will put it back on small farmers again. There is no other way of making it up. Now, therefore, is the time for the farmers to declare whether they want this tax put back on their shoulders, or left on the shoulders of largo estate owners, or do they want large estates broken up so that their sons and daughters shall have a chance of settling on the land. Farmers can afford to show their baud. They are quite in dependent; they are not like people who would be afraid to offend their customers lest their business might be injured. The farmers can afford to lead, and if they do we promise them that they will win. But if they mean to win they must show their hand, and let candidates know whom they will support. There are tc ? many candidates everywhere, and that is what we don’t want. We want a candidate to represent each side, and no more. Only one can get elected ; it is impossible that two Liberals or or two Conservatives can be elected for the same constituency, and therefore we want only one on each side. In order to make some of the candidates retire it is necessary to tell them straight at once that they have no chance of election. Tiiis is fair to the candidate and just to the LibeuiJ ß } and the electors who do not j • +-hia do wrong. It is wrong to deceive bv promises of support j it is, acaididaci, „ it results in votebosides, vicious, becam . a splitting. People may not like

man to his face that he will not be elected. This is a mistake. There is no man for whom a candidate has more respect than the honest, straightforward man who tells him without hesitation what he means; there is no man he despises so much as the sneak who attempts to deceive him. Let us have honest, open candor ; let us rank ourselves on either side and fight fairly. In Rangitata there are three candidates, much the same as regards temperance, but two of them are Liberals and one Conservative. Only one Liberal can be elected, and the electors must find out at once who has the best chance, and stand by him firmly. In Pareora . there are two Conservatives, for a Liberal Independent is another name for a Tory. No man in New Zealand admits that he is a Tory. They are all Liberals to the backbone, but when it comes to vote in Parliament Independents gravitate to the Conservative side. There is no man more dangerous than a clever Independent member. Take Mr Fish, of Dunedin, for example. He is a clever man, but he is a nuisance in Parliament, and yet when he goes before the elector he is so plausible that he makes them believe he is always right and everyone else wrong. Clever men who cannot be trusted are very dangerous, for, like Mr Fish, they are able to gull people by plausible misrepresentations of fact.

THE RAILWAYS.

It is not often that Toryism over-reaches itself, as its votaries are mostly shrewd calculating men. With regard to the Railway Commissioners, however, they have been hoisted on their own petard. It is a case of the biter bit. Under the present law the Railway Commissioners are independent of Parliament. The railways cost £15,000,000, and the annual expenditure on them is about three quarters of a million. The Government do not think it right that this vast property, which belongs to the people, should be beyond the people’s control, and for this reason they brought in a Bill providing that the Minister of Public Works should bo chairman of the Board of Commissioners, and be responsible to Parliament for the good management of the railways. The Board of Commissioners was to be continued, but the people were to be represented on it by the Minister of Public Works, Now reasonable men, will, we think, admit that this was right, but the Conservative party opposed it } and worked

tooth and nail against the proposal. They raised the cry that this would allow the railways to fall into the hands of Mr Seddon. The Bill passed the Lower House, but it was completely mutilated in the Legislative Council, and the Government dropped it altogether. But where the fun comes in is that those who objected to allow the railways to fall into the hands of Mr Seddon have completely placed themselves at his disposal. No people have ever made greater fools of themselves than the Tories of the Council, for the result of their action is the opposite to what they intended it to be. In February the term of office of the Railway Commissioners expires, and after that Mr Seddon can do anything he likes with them. He can dismiss the whole of them, he can reappoint them, or manage the railways as he likes. There will be no Commissioners after next February, and thus the effect of tin action of the Council will be the very opposite of what was intended. What the Government wanted was that the people should be represented on the Board of Commissions by the Minister of Public Works, and only for the Council being most unreasonable this would have been agreed to. The result of their obstructive unreasonableness is that we shall not have any Commissioners at all. This is how the Council is marring and destroying every effort put forth by the present Government.