Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878] WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1892. MR HOGG SPEKS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XIII, Issue 4133, 8 June 1892, Page 2

Wairarapa Daily Times. [ESTABLISHED 1878]

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1892. MR HOGG SPEKS.

FIRST EDITION,

BBINO THE EXTBNDSD 11X18 OF IMS Wairarapa Dauy, with whioh it is IDENTICAL.

Mr A. W, Hoffg, M.H.R, is onlyjust in time witb bis political orat'on, if h« wishes iUo lake rank among tbe forecasts of the coming session; but one is a Meat a loss to understand how the honourable gentleiran oould declare that last Friday evening was positively bis fi'.st opportunity of meeting any pari of his constituency. The only explanation which occurs to us is that our member was waiting till everyone else had spoken, and making cu'elul memoranda as one speaker after another addressed his constituent in a "Liberal" strain, so that tl'ore might be no risk of bis «aying anything in Masterion which fmled to dove tail into received Liberal sentiment elsewhere. While weoom» mend Mr Hogg's party prudence in this respSot, we cannot congratulate him on the figure which he eventually out as an exponent of tbo political situation. He is credited w;t'n the possession of some originality, out be certainly withheld the wealth of bis ideas from his audience at the Theatre. Prom beginning to end Mr Hogg's address was a thricetold tale-a re-hash of ali the jumbled Btttistios and sentimental jargon to wliioh his' Ministerial friends have been treating the Colony evnir since the close of last session. Who lias not heard, ad nauseam, about tlit) iniqaicipa of the Atkinson Government, about the retrenchment which they,did not effect, about their nomination of new Legislative Councillors, anTso forth and so on 1

Yet those who listened to Mt Hogg did get one or two striking I'htases of that gentleman's own to meditate upon. He told us, for example, t|iat in -that awful time when " workipg mpft WF e leaving the country in droves," the census papers showed that wo were losing sop of the.wry best nuen in the iColony, Hpff in tl)3 world pould the oensue papers displosp anything of the kind? At all events, if an esoteric knowledge of this kind, denied to ordinary beings, was within Mr Hogg's reach, he is very rude and unkind to give us who remain the benefit of it so plainly. If the best people have gone, perbapß Mr Hogg would do wisely to go after them. By tbe way, is Mr Hogg quite certain; that the esoijus has been stopped?. We are awarei of course, tltft he gets ! this opinion from no less an authority than the Ministerial supervisor of the A'cw Zealand Tim, hut even that diiitinpished personage's reasoning neems'to us to be p trie premature and based on inadequate data. Wp bope, as ardently as Ministers t'lemeelves, that the tide has turned in favpur of New Zealand as a home for the working msp; but ono swallow | does not make a summer, and the! statistics for the itonth of May will! read better when they have been confirmed by these for the month of June,

Mr Hojg was full of fire, and fury about the weakness of the Inst Governor in making the Atkinisouian appointments to tbe Upper I House. We need scarcely take,

the trouble to ijoint out.tbat tbo episode—whether it bediscreditable or otherwise—is likely to bo repeated within a week or two if tho Libtrnl Government can get Lord Glasgow to accept their nominees. Everybody knows thiß quiie well, of course. Bot

it may not have st.uck everybody that the reasoning by wbioh Mr Hoss argued that si<oh aoiion on the p;'to { n Governor would lead to elective

governorships is ridioclously incon> elusive. The functions of a Governor are not necessarily altered by the chs oumstanoe that he owes his position to popular election as against nomina tion by the Crown, He is still possessed of supreme appellate jnvis* diction in caseß of the kind whicii we are discussing; he oan still create or refuse to oreate Legislative Councillors. Perhaps, however, Mr Hogg is of opinion that the eleolion of the Governor will be coincident with the extermination o! the Upper House, " social pesta," and all. We are in-, dined to hope he is right; the one " reform" will doubtless come when

the other does—and not beta, We were treated to the accustomed figures to prove that the substitution of Land and Income for Property Tux was going to relieve us all—that is to say, to relieve the poor of taxaiion, and to relieve thericb ot their money. Well, we Bhall see. We notice iliat Captain Russell, speaking in Hawke's Bay, has expressed his willingness to give the new taxation a trial, in order that tiie financial arrangements of the Colony may not be incessantly disturbed by tinkering with the incidence of taxation; but we feel sure that when toe trial has been made, the voice of every iuielligent colonist who has no axe ofhisowa to g'iud will be raised ngainst the wicked folly of a graduated Land Tax. la the ueautiue, welaifet be content to allow Mr Hojg, it hoc gms omne, to revel in propaetio statistics and proclaim ihemillenium of the work*

iigman, The ladies have, it seems, an en<

ihusiasuo champion in our member. Yet, to show iiow unreflective liis great intelligence can be, let us notice bis lamea; lest .lie Conservatives, re-

turnii?® to power, should prevent the passing of the Women's Franchise Bill. Does the member for Mas* ieiton lemembec Sir John Hall -the most eloquent advocate of wooienB 1 right to vote 1 Does

he consider Sic John to be a 'Liberal!' We trow not, The very embodiment of what Mr ilogg would call 'Conservatism,' the holder of broad acres which be hope? to keep, Sir John Hall, will walk into the looby any day \yith Mr Hogg on the question of Female Franchise, If then, Mr Hogg tepreseme this as a patty question, he is either singularly ilMnfoimed, or he is playiug with the supposed credulity I ol his cons;ituents.

Mr Hogg claimed, in his closing remarks, that this district had not fared badly since he had been its representative, We cordially ieoogmse our member's energy and desire to please; we wish him—of course,

disinterestedly-all possible luck with Ministers when anything is wanting for Masterton, And we only wish

that he oould be induced to limit his efforts to procuring benefits for his own district, instead of trying to work wonders for the Colony at large, whose requirements he does not in the least understand.