TWO CHILDREN BURNT TO DEATH.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 5, Issue 1333, 21 March 1883, Page 2

TWO CHILDREN BURNT TO DEATH.

Dokedin, March 20. A sad case of burning, by which two children met their death, occuned at Uape Saundeis' lighthouse on Monday A boy, aged two yeais, a son of Mi Nelson, the chief lighthouse kecpei, and a gnl, aged two yeais and eight months, daughter of Mr Henovan", assistant, were playmg in a cowshed m the afternoon, and it appears they must have had matches, for" by some means they set it on fne Mr Nelson, seeing the flames, ran to the building, and with gi eat difficulty got the childien out fiom amidst the burning building, the flesh peeling from the little cieatures as he grasped them 'lhe poor girl only breathed, a moment or two after Mr Nelson,got. her out, but i the hoy lingeied on fill _8 o'cjock i Q the evening, appearing tq have little pam; but the doctor, .who was sent for, could do nothing to save him, and he died at that hour. Mr Nelson lost his wife only two inontb/ago,and ghe'left him with ten childien, the youngest of whom is now only ten weeks:old.'/(Great sympathy is felt for both the parents.,

THE HON'sMAJOB ATKINSON * , INCHIUSTOHURTH. I r tt^ —a -■ ( j (press Asooimm.) i ' ( Christohurch, March 19. v Major Atkinson addiessed a meeting at the Oddfellows* Hall tonight The Mayor of Clnistolnuch occupied the cliau, and about 500 peisons weie piesent. Major Atkinson was warmly leceived, and thanked tho public for ; tho coidial mamiei m which they had lespondedto the invitation to meet In in This he took as evidence of the activity of politicil thought in the distuct, One of the difficulties which 'publicmen had to contend with was the difficulty m knowing what public opinion was Fiom this it followed that most of the public men of New Zealand weie only known locally Fiom the way in which the colony had been settled fiom seveial centies, it had this advantage—that vauous typos of men weio giowmg up m different places The difficulties caused by a countiy being dominated by one laigo centie weie absent On the othci hand, in vauous governments, men had Icon chosen, not because of then aptitude, but because they came fiom ceitain districts, so he had detei mined to let the electois have an oppoitnmt) of judging of himself so fai as fhey could by healing lum dehvei public addicsses It was neces saiy for him to saj he was a stiong paity man—paities weic nccessaiy foi' successful govcifimont Ho could understand Hip necessity of men some times sinking their differences and combining for the general, good of the colony, but lie was not going to dealwithpartyquestionsnow. He would ask them to consider whaHie would submit to them, on its merits.-. He would make some remarks on the Constitution, taxation) the land question, and.'pauperism. That night he would deal with the first three, leaving theiburthfor the next night, Before proceeding, it was necessary to take a glance at the colony as it was. ]t had a most beautiful climate, and was a country able to support many people, an energetic, capable population possessing the virtues of their fathers, and also many of their vices. .Their net public debt amounted to £27,500,000; the indebtedness of local bodies was over £3,ooo,ooo—total ,£31,000,000. It was also indebted to foreign capitalists on mortgage over estates to the extent of £15,000,000 more.. The public assets—Crown lauds, railways, and telegraphs amounted' to over £21,000,000. No doubt .they could .wipe out their public debt by parting with these assets, though he, for his part, hoped they would not be. so foolish. The total assets, public and private, of the colony were £157,000,000, so that after paying off the public debt it had £100,000,000 to the good. 'J ho colony had great advantage's in the way of national communication, and one of the finest fleets of steamers that any colony ever had, With regard to the question of the Constitution—that it 'was' thoroughly democratic no one,would deny. It, however, possessed certain faults. First, .as to the size of electorates. It was a disputed point whether small or large constituences were best. He thought that large constituencies were preferable in old communities; but it had been found that in a newly settled country if large constituencies were established all the political power was in the hands of one centre. That evil, however, would disappear as the colony became more settled. In small electorates the local spirit was apt to be too prevalent.' '• Men were returned, nofcfrom'their ability, but because they would get roads and. bridges for their districts. So it would be wise to consider if iu'the future, large constituencies would not be desirable. The present system of elections might be improved upon. Ho thought that better men would be returned by adopting the Hare system, With regard to tho Legislative Council, it had been accused of thwarting the will of tbo people, and also of a want of capacity, He.ventured to say that it had been of great use to the colony, (No, no, and. hear, hear.) Never once had it stood between legislation- and the will of the people; it had acted as a salutary check upon hasty legislation, But a time was coming when its constitution must be altered. (Hear, hear.) Now, had the electors thought out the question how it was to be altered? (Yes.) He was delighted to hear it, and hoped those who had some practical scheme would quickly enlighten the colony. (A voice: Bring your own first,) That was what he was going to do. There was great danger in having two elective. Houses unless tlieir functions were clearly defined; even in that case the best men would gravitate to one House or the other, ■' and the difficulty then was to get enough capable men to fill both Houses. They miist, However,, apply 'the, elective principle to both-Houses soon j there wers' two courses, either to make two constituencies of the two Islands, and elect an Hjiper House by voters oh tho present electoral rolls, or the 1 Hare system could be advantageously Applied; to the election of the Upper House orthe House of Representatives might elect the Upper House. He: preferred the;former." With regard to the functions of Government, he believed that these, in a democratic country,.had no natural limits, and it appeared to him that the only limits : was what could be most profitably done for the welfare of the people; so when it. was said'such and such things wore outside the. functions of a .Government. he'did not heed,\unless -it conkT be proved that they/could bo done by private individuals.'. The very idea of a; democratic Goyerment was;.-.thai;-it yas tho' embodiment of theipedple. Therefore he hoped, whonovcr a, scheme was proposed, they would not; poohpooh it because it was said to be,outside the functions of the Government. No doubt, it was undesirable'thatacentral government should absorb all' the power of the people, and 'therefore,. toofmuch centralism was objectionable. Taxation was usually considered !a dry question till the tax collector came to the door, so while political matters were quiefy he wished them to consider if taxation was unjust—tif it bore unfairly on any class."' The JfduYcanons'bf'taxaion were equality, certainty, conveni-

ence and economy. They should try , their taxation by those standards. It was impossible to provide any one tax which would meet all their require- , ments. A variety of taxes was needed so that all clases should pay their, fair sharo. A class tax was not one paid by any particular class but one which was imposed on one class without other , classes being called on to' pay a corres- : ponding tax. The land tax was a class tax. (No, no. Hear, hear), because it touched only those who possessed land, and unless they had a tax pressing in an equal degree on holders of other kinds of property it was a class tax. (Hear, hear.) , Our taxation was ] of two classes, taxation proper, namely'' the Customs and stamps duties, which yielded £1,950,000, and taxation for sei vices rendered, 'railways, ic, which raised £1,350,000. One-half of the Customs duties was on spirits, wines, and tobacco. This was an important fact, and had a great bearing on pauperism. If they added the duty on colonial • beer, they would find that .£792,000 was paid annually on drink awl smoke in the Colony. This fell short in 1879, and a great effort had to be made to incieasc it, so the Customs were in- * creased. It was objected by some that it was foolish to increase the Customs, and that the lower they were the more they would realise. Now these critics forgot that we were a proplo who, were determined to havo what we like to cat and drink, and chanco what it cost. In nn old country it was different, for there any ralucion of duty brought things within tho reach of people who could not enjoy them before. He was satisfied that the imposition of the extra 20 per cent, on spirits und tobacco had led im" ' smuggling, as hud been referred to mj a Chriskhurch newspaper. In there had been a fall in the amount of ' spirits consumed of two pints per head of the adult male population. A further fall took.place in 1880, but in 1881 it rose again to 17| pints per head. The fact that the "revenue had not fallen off showed that there had been systematic illicit distillation or smuggling. There had been a great improvement in tho habits of the people in this respect. (A voice" Hard Times.") He would have been pleased had he been able to promise a reduction in the Customs duties, but he could not. He considered that, on the whole, . ' taxation was very fairly levied in New Zealand. To -find out whether this ■. was so, he had divided the population > into three classes— property class tax, ' ; intermediate class, and industrial class,' '■' Omitting spirits and tobacco, the duty on which was a sort of voluntary ; tax, the industrial class, consisting of : 324,000 people, paid £280,000, or 17s 3d per head; the intermediate, 96,000, : ■ paid £256,000, or £2 13s 3d each; ' and the property class, 68,000, paid ; £310,000, or £4 10s IOJd each.. He thought there could be no fairer tax than the property tax, for it wastaken ' ' from property after deducting liabilities. An income tax dealt with so much; of a man's property as lie chose to make productive. If a man with large capital chose to invest it so as to return only £BOO, the income tax would be paid on thatsum, while a poorer man in trade, who had to get a return of 20 per cent, from his money so as to get a total income of £2OOO in order to meet the expences of his business, had to pay tax on that sum, which was manifestly unfair. The property tax touches both men fairly, as it made each contribute on their capital- The property'tax also included the land, which now paid as much as under the land tax, and as laud increased in value so the tax on it increased, land taY caused a permanent depreciation m value of property, as a man who purchased land would naturally deduct the . capitalised value of the annual'tax from that which ho paid for it, so the. present holder was the only porsoa who was reached by the tax. If land! was being held in large estates to the' detriment of the country, the State: should ot once determine what amount of land a man might hold with advantage to the. public, and although owners must be fairly compensated, the State must take tho land. (Hear x hear.) Taxation must greatly depend upon what people deteimiiied to liaye spent so that with the people rested the amount of taxation. It" was difficult to be economical in this colony as people would not give up their public conveniences: yet they expected to escape taxation] If the public desired any-reduction} of expenditure, they must exercise a much greater .degree of self-denial, Ho need not say much about' the loam and public works, as tho proposals of the Government, extending over three years, had already began. Land tenure seemed to him of greater importance than taxation. The people of the whole worldwould very shortly consider this question in order to romedy its'present ;. defects. Two interesting works had ' been written on the subject by Wallace and George, George proposed that the State should take possession of the k: _ j land without compensation to owners,. but he (Major Atkinson) himself did \ not think that any people in the world would do this, as the foundation of- • society was bared on respect for; the ' rights of individuals. ■'; Wallace was farmore practical, as he saw. no. good • could come from the violation of the rights of individuals, and he proposed to properly compensate owners. There » wore those who would maintain the English title as it is, but they, he was glad to say, were very few. Some, again advocated free trade in land; the , predominance of authorities was on their side, but many of those gentlemen • had supported the Irish Land Act/i which said that free trade could not work in Ireland, Judging by meetings being held in England and Scotland, lie thought tftere would be a Very strong demand for some restriction in those countries. • We had free trade in land practically hero, except that there was still the power of tying land up by will, ■ , which, no doubt, would'beMen aiwaynext session, (Applause.)' They would then be able to try tho experiment as to how free trade in land would suit this colony. The question of the nationalisation of the land was very difficult in tho Old Country tchvnal here. Thirty-four "million acre 3', ,out- of t 64,000,000 ihttew Zealandwefe iwnecU'l by tho people; and, again, the pos- .

>sessiou of land here did not give the BOciftl distinction it did in England. Land tenure;should, lie.thought, be discussed in public meeting and by. the PreS3j and tho Land Act of lost session sliouldbe given a fair trial. If; they were \vise they would put.aside for a longtime the question of nationalising all the land in the colony. They might .find freehold tenure the best, but they should wait, mid see tho result of leasing land with a perpetual tenure, and . then they . would be able to see which tenuvo was the best. As to the application of tho rent received from' Government land, some thought it should go to relievo general taxation, others argued that if we. got enough rent from land to abolish taxation altogether, tho rest would be applied to relief, not of the wltolo community, but to that of the various taxpayers in proportion as they contributed to tho revenue. His object in bringing this feature before them was to show the favorable position tho colony occupied in regard to dealing with the great problems of the present day, Tho greatest of these was the distribution of wealth, What was the object of civilisation if not to secure the greatest happiness to tho greatest number? What good was civilisation if it brought ease and plenty to a few, and want to the manyl No pauper class existed in the colony at present, and they should be very thankful for it, (A, voice: "Any amount; hundreds are starving in Uhristchurch." Another voice: "It is not true; we have had a soup kitchen here.") There was no pauper class, but there were niatorials for making one, and with' a little neglect they would soon have one. If they would grapple with pauperism tpy would strangle it, mid if they did eir duty as citizens, and made tho >st of opportunities, it would not be said of them as of a nation of old, "He gave them their hearts desire, but sent leanness into their soul," (Loud applause.) The meeting, which was very orderly, then terminated.