ELECTORAL.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2577, 4 November 1893, Page 2

ELECTORAL.

MR I. R. C. C. GRAHAM AT GERALDINE.

Mr I. R. C. 0. Graham gave his opening address at the Oddfellows’ Hall, Geraldine, on Thursday evening, to an audience of between 70 and SO. Mr Graham explained that owing to the absence of Mr White, the chairman of the Town Board, who was in Temuka, he had not been able to obtain the services of a chairman. Mr Herdman, however, took the chair, and introducing the speaker to the audience, asked lor him a fair hearing. Mr Graham said :

Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. —Owing to the recent large accession, to our voting power, in consequence of the adoption of the female franchise, it behoves us to go over our political landmarks, and ascertain correctly, if we can, the different aims of the Conservative and Liberal parties in our Colonial Parliament; especially as the Conservatives, both inside and outside of the House, have been applying the coarsest of invictives to Liberals, and have besides been imputing all manner of sinister motives to them. In a general way, these two parties Conservatives and Liberals represent two fundamental principles which lie at the root of all progress in politics. These principles are somewhat differently defined by two distinguished men. For instance, the late Professor Darwin defined the law of the progress of society to be a constant struggle for existence, and the survival of the htttest, whereas Professor Huxley, on the other hand, affirms that the struggle for existence etc., is the rule of progress for the brute creation only, and that the real law of progress for mankind is the practice of selfsacriiioe. Now in my opinion the Conservatives favor Darwin’s theory, whereas the Liberals adopt Huxley’s. For instance, the Conservatives have believed in the free and unlimited acquisition of land, whereas the Libera's say No, and that there must be restriction in the area which any one man is allowed to take up, in order that all may have a share. Let us, however, take a more general view of

THE LAND QUESTION and go back 43 years. When the early settlers arrived here the authorities let out the land in grazing leases, following the practice of xiic Australian Colonies, and allowed the lessees certain pre-emptive rights for the fetter working of their runs. In addition . • these, however, they invented certain t( ?. -nre-emptive rights, such as the otner —-nonly known as gridironpractice com_ - watej river mg, buying up all mu .. w * frontages, thereby securing for thenism'WS the country behind. In the early, seventies after the finish of the Prapoe-Prussian war, wool and grain rose rapidly in price ; and at the same time Sir Julius \ogel started his Public Works and Immigration Policy. Under these combined influences money became plentiful in the colony, and the runholders bought up very large quantities of land, hence the origin ot the great estates. There were, however, a few honest and prudent men in Parliament, real Liberal, who wished to reserve the lands lying adjacent to the railways being constructed, but their voices were entirely overpowered by the greedy majority, who were either land-owners themselves, lawyers, OP in some way connected with the laud. All these men saw it was a case of now or never to acquire the flesp of the land, and accordingly did so. Sir George Grey saw all this evil and injustice, but unfortunately, when he came Into power, the finances became disordered by the falling off of the sale of land, and sir Harry Atkinson again took the reins of office. His Government, commonly called the Continuous Ministry, was in existence until about four years ago, when the industrial strike began in England, and gradually extended to colony. The strikes, perhaps, were industrially unsuccessful, but politically they were of some benefit, because they opened the eyes of the workers, and clearly showed them that jf they wanted any amelioration of their condition; it must coma How the Liberals,

and not from the Conservatives; consequently the present Liberal Ministry was formed by a large majority of members returned in that interest. As soon as they got into office they immediately sought to remedy the great evil ©f land monopoly ; and, with this end in view, they repeated the old property tax, and instituted the progressive land tax, which really is the cause of all the bitterness, and rude language indulged in from time to time by many of the leading men in the Conservative party, I his tax cannot, however, be termed excessive, because it scarcely amounts to one-eighth part of the general taxation of ,the colony, which amounts to £2,339,511, of which the Land Tax only forms a portion to the extent of £297.181. But, really in point of fact, this tax is only what at Home is now called a Betterment Tax, because the large estates have derived so much benefit from the fifteen millions of money expended in railways and immigration. What would be their value if the railways were taken up and removed, and the immigrants and their families shipped themselves off to South America or elsewhere, the same as certain Australian colonists have recently done 1 Why it is questionable whether the land would be worth more than its original price of £2 per acre. The principle of Betterment Taxation is now quite understood and acknowledged at Home, although at first it was looked upon as Socialistic, and has been assented to by both Houses of Parliament, in respect of certain extensive improvements, carried out by the London County Council, notwithstanding the strong opposition of certain titled and wealthy ground landlords. From this betterment point of view this tax just about pays two per cent, interest on the capital cost of the railways, leaving the remaining 2J per cent, of interest to be drawn out of the public in the shape of freightage of goods and passenger traffic. RAILWAY MANAGEMENT. In point of fact the Railway Commissioners endeavor to screw as much profit out of the general public as possible, but if the foregoing views of taxation is accepted, it will be seen that it is full time for the goods and passenger rates to be reduced. Hence it follows, as a matter of course,that the Government should have a voice in the management of the railways, in the interest of country settlors especially. Besides which there are many anomalies in the rates, all in favor of the rich man ; for instance,the conveyance of coals to the Hinds station from Timaru cost only 7s fid per ton by the truck, whereas the cost of conveying from one to four tons costs 13s Gd per ton. INCOME TAX. The professional men complain with some reason that the Income Tax is a charge on their brains and industry. Also the small shareholders in Joint Stock Companies,such as Frozen Meat and Dairy Factories, Flour Mills, &c.. complain that although their incomes do not reach £IOOO per annum, they are taxed as if they did; in such cases as the foregoing I should favor reducing the Income Tax from one shilling to ninepenco in the £ sterling. IMPROVEMENT IN LEGISLATION. The first step towards improvement, I consider should be the election of the Upper House for six years only. The time of holding the election might be made the same as for the election of members for the Lower House, only the districts should be made double the size. An Upper House so elected should have the power of veto for one session only, and in cases when the two Houses should not be able to agree a second time, then an appeal to the electors should be made by means of the Referendum to settle the point in dispute. Another improvement would be if the loquacity of members were curtailed by means of the closure ” system, as much time is wasted '

in recrimination and useless stonewalling. If this were accomplished, the session might be shortened, the honorarium diminished, and also the cost of printing and Hansard. The Conservatives are raising a great cry just now against Party Government, but they are satisfied with it at Home, where it has been in practice hundreds of years, and no serious objection has been raised against it. I have known intimately several members of the British Parliament: and, although occasionally defeated, they never complained of Party Government. One especially I remember ; —he passed one of the most successful Temperance Acts of the century, being an Act for closing up the public-houses on Sundays, known as the Forbes-Mackenzie Act—this man was very silent, both in Parliament and privately, exemplifying the fact that loquacity is not always a sign of usefulness. BIBLE HEADING IN SCHOOLS.

This subject has lately caused consider* able discussion in all the principal centres of the colony ; at least, amongst the ministers, clergy, and certain of the laity who propose to adopt the Irish National School Book, containing scriptural extracts, and thus I understand, they would sink the Bible into an ordinary pass subject. Now, although in sympathy with them to a certain extent only, still I think they are wrong in their mode of procedure, and would recommend instead, that it should bo an entirely optional matter, and that school committees should be authorised, if they think fit and deem the schoolmaster in sympathy with the book, to empower him to have a few verses read daily, and to give a few words of kindly explanation and application of the religious truth to be conveyed. If the school committees in any electorate availed themselves of this privilege, to the extent of one-third of the total number of schools, then I consider the Catholics would be entitled to a small grant towards their school in the principal centre of population of that electorate. I do not, however, think that any Protestant sect would be entitled to a grant, because they could be well served by Bible-reading, as previously explained. The giving of these grants would not be all loss to the State however, because it would be saved the cost of enlarging existing schools, which is sure to become necessary sooner or later. Many object to Bible-reading on the plea that parents should teach their own children, but it should be remembered that the struggle for a livelihood often compels the poor man to be days and weeks absent from his home in country districts, and he is consequently unable to do his duty in this respect. The mother, also, is generally over burdened with the toil of looking after her family and the little home-farm, and has little time for, even if she possesses the gift of, imparting religious instruction.

THE GOVEUNMBNT LICENSING BILL. In common with many others, when first I perused this Bill I deemed it a satisfactory one, but when one comes to work it, and by working it I mean to try and remove from the roll the names of those who are theye by reason of their holding property in any electorate, then its faults and injustice become evident. Perhaps it is not generally known that the rolls are full of dummies, such as absentees, dead men, and others who hive parted with their property, and it is only by the clearest legal proof in most instances that the registrar can be induced to remove them off. Hence it follows that those clauses of the Bill making it necessary for one half of the electors on the roll to vote before a poll becomes valid is most unjust iu principle. The same applies to the stipulation that a three-fifths majority is necessary before abolishing fieppse?, m a bpfe majority those resident in the jfiec£pr{ije shpujd deemed sufficient. Jfy own' impression iq that the Bill was meant to guarantee a further three years’ extension of license, ip. liep of compensation, hence it was fenced pboift with these peculiar clauses, w Inch, however, canpot nqw be fepeajgd, J believe, for another three years, compensation is paid, which would pg exoeelingly injudicious. Mr Graham thgri went on to say that hg himself was quite neutral. He was neither a Prohibition Ist nor a nominee. His expenses were not paid by the publicans, as he believed those of one of the candidates were. He did not think that

compensation should be given. There had been considerable talk on the other side of establishing clubs for young men in the centres of population for passing their spare time m. Technical education should be given in these, and he thought that something might be obtained from reserves to carry this out. This would help to put down larrikinism. MISCELLANEOUS. The Conservatives were misrepresenting the Liberals. They said that they (the Conservatives) were being very hardly put upon. If a man brought capital into the country he was taxed, and as soon as he could he took his capital and himself away. He thought it was really putting a tax on men. Capital was not increased by railways and bringing in population. Laud was increased in value. He thought capital was taxed enough. There was a debt of £10,000,000 incurred on account of the Maori wars. He thought the Maoris should accept a fair price for their lands, as they had been increased in value by the expenditure of public money. There were now four candidates in the field for this district, three Liberals and one Conservative. He thought it a pity they were not equalised by having two Conservatives and two Liberals. Ashburton was more Liberal than this part of the district, as shown by the fact that last election Mr Wright had a very small majority, while Mr Rhodes had a very large majorty. He had started early to canvass, and Mr Maslin would not give a decide i answer as to whether ue was going to stand or not. Mr Sawle had said he could get 400 votes in this part of the district, and he (Mr Graham) was quite willing not to stand against him. Re thought Mr "Sawle had withdrawn on account of Mr Maslin’s candidature, although he (Mr Sawle), was the first in the field. When he (Mr Graham) heard that Mr Sawle had witadrawn on account of being rather badly treated, he himself, at once came forward. He thought it right to place this little history before them. QUESTIONS. In reply to questions Mr Graham said: — It would be better to borrow now, say, to acquire native lands than afterwards to go to war to obtain them He did nos think the present Government would readily borrow. Mr Maslin did not give him a direct answer, Mr Sawle said to Mr Maslin ‘ • Let us both address the electors, and then let someone go round, and we shall see whom the electors want.” Mr Logan, who asked this question, said that Mr Maslin had a letter from Mr Sawle stating that owing to ill health he would be unable to be a candidate, and would therefore resign. On being asked if he would retire, like Mr Sawle, if he had not the confidence of the electors, Mr Graham replied that he could not give an answer to that question without consulting his Ashburton supporters. He was not exactly on the same lines as Mr Maslin, as that gentleman was a prohibitionist and he (Mr Graham) was a direct vetoist. , Mr Caleb Sherratt asked if Mr Graham was in the habit of changing his views to suit his audience 1 Mr Graham said he had changed his views on the Licensing Bill after perusing it more carefully. Has Mr Graham undergone any change—and what —in views since the speech he gave in Ashburton on October 3rd last, when he said the Government Bill was a fair compromise, and that any change should come in a gradual way ? Mr Graham said he thought the Bill should run for three years, and tuat this was meant in view of compensation. In consequence of the difficulty of getting the dummies off the roll he had changed his views a little on the licensing question. Mr Graham said he was only in favor cf Bible reading in schools provided a small grant was made. He would be in favor of repealing the present Licensing Act. He was not in favor of direct compensation. If elected he would be in favor of electoral districts being bounded by natural boundaries, although there was always a difficulty in this matter on account of the question of population. Is he in favor of the Government buying: up large estates without the consent of Parliament ?—The Cheviot estate purchase was a question of taxation. He was not able to answer whether he would follow Sir R. Stout or Mr Seddon as leader of the Liberal party. Mr Seddon had given evidence of great ability, and he was the nominated successor of Mr Bailance. He thought he had suggested ways and means by which the honorarium could be reduced. VOTE OF THANKS. Mr John Farrell proposed a vote of thanks for Mr Graham’s eloquent address. Mr Herlihy seconded the proposal, which was carried with applause, and the meeting then terminated.

MR MASLIN’S MEETINGS.

Mr W. S. Maslin, one of the candidates for the Rangitata electorate, addressed the electors in the Peel Forest schoolroom on Wednesday night, and despite the wet, miserable night, a good number were present, including several ladies. Mr R. Thew occupied the chair, and the speaker gave an address on much the same lines as the one he delivered in Geraldine. Mr Muslin having expressed a wish that no vote of confidence should be proposed, a very hearty vote of thanks was accorded him, and after a similar compliment to the chairman the meeting terminated. He addressed the electors on Thursday evening in the Arundel schoolroom, and had a most enthusiastic meeting. The schoolroom was crowded, including a large number of ladies. The chair was occupied by Mr J, Woodley, and at the close of the meeting the speaker was accorded a vote of thanks and confidence. A vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the meeting.

THE PREMIER AT NEW PLYMOUTH.

The Premier addressed the electors at New Plymouth on Wednesday night. There was a large attendance especially of 1 idies, who occupied the gallery. The Premier spoke chiefly of the actions of the Government last session, and the legislation passed by them. He claimed that the Liberal Government deserved full credit for the female franchise, and for all other reforms which had been effected. lie blamed the Legislative Council for killing several of their policy Bills. In defending the action of the Government in paying £BOO to the new Legislative Councillors for back pay before the session opened, he said it would have amounted to repudiation to have paid the Councillors for six years and six months, when they \yerg ap? pointed for seven years, fie asserted that the population hfid Increased 000 since £ne Liberal Government took office, and the exodus had been stopped by their policy. Since coming into office tbe Government had by the conversion of loans reduced the annual payment of interest of £(i7,000. He asked the electors to etfl" •’ by a Government that had voting, had provided fair representation, ha established successful co-operative works, and placed the people on the land in a manner that 110 other Government had dpng. He Government proposgd tfl farther IpfpfpijS j£ aghin're|)vpp r ed 'tp power. ‘ They proppspd' tp borrow mpney in England on the’seeunty of the land of the colony and lend it to farmers on first class security at 5 per cent. The effect of that would be to please farmers and others from the grasp pf the large financial cprapaiupg wl\ft made tjje'm pay T and $ pe| obpt, Spch a policy wupld greatly relieve polpny in the payent pf interest, which at present amounted j pvey £3,000,000 on both public and private indebtedness, He proposed to IstifbUah .District Councils that would take charge pf hii road making in the colony, pn4 also administer charitable aid. thus abolishing Charitable Aid Boards. He revived a vote of tUanks, and a motion of

confidence in the administration of the Government was passed. The Premier met with a very enthusiastic reception on arrival Flags were hung above the street and bunting was flying everywhere. After the meeting he visited Butteiworth’s museum of Maori curios. Mr Seddon left next morning for Hawera, where he attendedtheagriculbural show.