The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1885. THE PREMIER BEFORE HIS CONSTITUENTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2129, 26 October 1885, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1885. THE PREMIER BEFORE HIS CONSTITUENTS.

- The Premier addressed his constituents at Dunedin East on Friday eyening, and received a vote of thanks. His speech, on the whole, seems to have been a far better one than that of the Colonial Treasurer, delivered a few evenings previously nt Cbtistcliurcb. The difference is probably accounted for by the fact that while the one had called his constituents together, the other spoke after a banquet to which he had been invited. But when we say that the speech was a better one, we do not by any means desire our readers to infer thaf it was more to our taste. Mr Stout appears to have spoken more logically, and with a carefully Arranged programme, while Sir Julius Yom mixed his subjects, The brief resumo of the session which the former gave was, of course, thoroughly one-sided, We find, for instance, that he taxes the House with being ungenerous in refusing to allow the East Bnd West Coast railway proposals to be referred to a committee, If Mr Stout wishes to argue the question of generosity, he should be compelled to' take into consideration the manner in which he shelved Major Atkinson's want of confidence resolutions, He merely exercised certain 'means that were at his command to foil an opponent. and that is exactly what the House did in refusing the committee referred to, There was about as much, or as little, generosity in the one as there was in the other, Mr Stout evidently forgot himself when he referred to the Public Works expenditure of various Ministries, He quoted figures to show that his Government had expended money at a smaller rate than either those of Major Atkinson or Sir George Grey, and then took credit to himself for saving money to the country. Unfortunately for the argument, he afterwards referred to' Captain Russell's motion, by which the Public Works expenditure for the current year was reduced by half a million, and regretted that this should have been done. That is to say, he took credit for the' small expenditure during his past administration, but regreted that the House insisted that he should pursue the same course this year. When ho speaks on the subject next year, he will be in a position to say that a still greater saving has been effected, though he. will probably omit to mention that it - was the House to which credit was due. We are surprised that Mr- Stout should have said that " unfortunately ■ while large reductions had been made in the railway vote, the roads and bridges vote)

had been passed almost intact." The country can do without a good many of tlio railway extensions that Lave been proposed, for a good many years, but it cannot do without a single ouo of the roads. The settlement of Crown lands is being retarded simply because the various districts are not open, and thousands of acres that have been disposed of also remain unsettled because the purchasers cannot get to their sections. Referring to the state of the country, he "admitted 1 that there wa3 a depression, and would state how it had arisen, but if the people thought that the depression was now as lad as it was in 1869, they were mistaken. During the last nine years, onr wool production had increased by SO per cent, In round numbers, in 1875 we exported 54,000,000 pounds of wool, as against 81,000,000 pounds in 1884. Yet the money obtained in 1884 was less than the amount obtained for the much smaller quantity in 1875. That was. to say, tlio wool fetched 50 per cent, less lust year than it did in 1875, while wool and wheat and frozen meat had gone down, With n falling off in the price of all our staple products, it was not surprising that the depression had deepened. But the depression here was not as bad as in other countries. Those who remembered the hard times in 1869 ought nob to be depressed because there were hard times now, Depression moved in cycles, and what they had to consider was how the depression was to be got rid of," The statement seems to be a common-sense one; but not So the remedy which he proposes. He says that the creation of village settlements would provide against future depression, We should like to have an explanation of the process, We do not see that this form of settlement will enable the farmer to produce wool or meat or cereals more cheaply, any more than it will rule the market price. The only cure for the depression is a rise in the produce markets, and this, it is to be feared, must to take place all at that we have seen anything on (he having reserved the subject for another occasion.