THE MINISTERIAL VISIT TO WAIKATO.

Waikato Times, Volume XI, Issue 905, 11 April 1878, Page 2

THE MINISTERIAL VISIT TO WAIKATO.

On Tuesday the Premier and Native Minister arrived by special train at Hamilton, about G p.m. They were met at tho station by the Mayor and five other members of the Corporation, with a carriage and four, and brought on to the township; The arch lately erected in honor of His Excellency the Governor had, been- redecorated for-rthe occasion^ •itndHbo'twd cafriiges Stopping at this, point, the Mayor read u the .following address : ,".' ... 1" ;' ; TO THE HpNORABLE SIR GEORGE GREY, K.C.8.D.C.L., PREMIER OF : NEW ZEALAND. Sir,— tVe, the Mayor, Councillors and Burgesses of the Borough of Hamilton, cordially welcome you to this district, and offer you" our warmest solicitude for an. improved state in your health. We appreciate the general confidence and esteem with which you are greeted. on your arrival in other parts of the Colony, and trust that this will be a source of encouragement to . you iu your future adtnimstrative efforts directed to the interests of the Colony. We congratulate you on the achievement of your great policy in relation to the generalization of the Land. Fund, in the face of great difficulties, which you successfully overcame. Though a small .community compared to some others, we- will hot hold second place in ddmiratibhof your services as an eminent statesman: Tour oAvri and the services of the other gentlemen associated with you hi the direction of Native affairs merit oui' bes 1 . approval, and we trust you will meet • ■ with the success and reward- due to your patriotic regard for the welfare both of the Native and. the European population. And, although at your own request, we ■ are precluded from giving you a more demonstrative reception, owing to the delicate state of your health, we hope you will receive these expressions with an v assurance of our esteem ; and we earnestly hope you may be long spared to see you own policy on matters affecting ..the Colony; as a whole carried out and matured to your own satisfaction and to the advancement, prosperity, and contentment of the. people. The Premier then replied in the following speech : — I thffnk you, Mr Mayor aud the Councillors and Burgesses of Hamilton, on behalf of myself and colleagues, for your very kind address. You allude to the Borough as a small one, but I shaU aid in making it a great one. I trust you will continue your efforts in tho advancement of this distr ct,and push forward in th§ ]&ath of prosperity* I oanj assure you that my only desire",' and ~ that ' of my coUeagues, is to do all we can to promote the happiness and welfare of the people. I again thank you, on behalf of myself and colleagues, for your address, and for the cordial reception which you have accorded to us. Some thirty persons had assembled when the carriage came in sight, aud three cheers having been called for were heartily given. Sir George Grey having intimated that it was his wish to address the people of Hamilton at seven o'clock that evening, the use of the Court House was secured; by the Mayor, and handbills were issued fiorn and sent round the district by the mounted ruuners of the Times, carrying the intelligence ' into the highways and byways of the settlement, and shor.ly after- seven o'clock, when the fyjayor took the chair, Sir George Grey and Mr Sheekan wore received, with, loud Queers, by a large audience which filled the body of the Court. The Mayor bt'ieffy introduced tlie Hon, the Premier, stating that Sir George would take the present opportunity of giving his political views on the colony iii gene* ral, and Hamilton and the Waikato district in particular. Sir George Grey then said, you are all . aware that in New Zealand, great difficulty is experienced by the inhabitants in knowing y/hat the Government intends to do. Wellington is a long distance off, and when the Assembly sits, no reports, except merely condensed telegraphifi - news are obtainable. Hansart does not reach yoa for more than a week subsequent t^> the debates. Laws hitherto have been made without the people having any knowledge of their provisions until they have actually become the iawg ] of the land. Laws have been thus passed, which had the people known at the time what was intended by them, they would l;sye risen as ope man, to protest against them am} prevent such obnoxious measures from becoming law. The course the government have recently initiated'and puvgu^'d is this : to let the people know what laws they intend to make, and their reasons for making them, and thus to enable the people to e&press an opinion on what the Government intends to do. The result has been that an extraordinary degree of enthusiasm has been looked throughout the country. People have attended more to politics, and have become more conusant with them. A precedent has thug be.on established for the future. Following -that ponj?se, hp had been invited by the Mayor to $# ! Hamilton, and came here to explain what the Government intended to ■ d& £]&ough .the'- coming session. ' lie would* -give Jthem a general ou*,- ..< liueof their >inleu.tio'h3, a«4 in eac'i ' pas'e Adduce suffrHeht reasons 'f^« '

: that course. And first, he was perfectly satisfied, as indeed were aU leading statesmen at home, that if you do not train the whole .. people in political knowledge, if you shut out tho power of voting from one class and give it to another class the latter will vote for their own interests, and not for the interests of the public at largo. They will, quite honestly perhaps, confound iheir own good with that of the community, lie had generally been met with the accusation • of i stating that which he could not support. The speaker (hen gave instances in point from contemporaneous English history, citing the case of the laud lords opposition ; : to free, trade, yet being ultimately obliged to confess that the abolition of the corn laws had not only been beneficial to the country at large, bnt specially so to themselves. He ; referred, also, to tho question of slavery abolition, which had been met in the same spirit by slave owners. In their own instance, continued the speaker, he believed firmly that class .legislation had inflicted a great evil on the Waikato ' district. The landd of the district had been unfairly disposed of. It was his duty to state in lbi3 place what he had openly' promulgated elsewhere. He was not going to '. shirke the question when addressing a Waikatp audience. There had been one administration of the land laws for men of influence and wealth, and .'mother for the poor niAii. It was very wrong that such a state of things should exist as to enable those in power to give their friends large tracts of land at 2s. Gd. per acre, much to tho injury of everybody. The Government had determined to change the franchise, to enlarge the number of electors, and prevent such things being done. To follow out the case in point he would show that the injury did not cease with the first sale. Suppose some favored gentlemen, allowed to purchase lands at half a crown per acre, were accused of wronging the people, ihey would say, Oh, but we intend to spend large sums in reclaiming this land, and shall thereby benefit the district aud the Colony. To this he would reply, you are not going to spend your own mouey, but money belonging to the public. Suppose I. give you a thousand acres for 2s. 6d. per acre, you must kuow you could raise 20s or 30s per acre upon it by mortgage. That money which you will . spend in improving the property is not yours bnt what you had taken from the public. That, • to his mind, was a most unjust proceeding. Supposing he had split that 1000 acres into five farms of 200 acres each, he would ' ave enabled five men to establish happy homes and raise up happy families, where one only would have been assisted in making a large fortune. If the Government had raised the money in the first intance, and spent it in the improvement of tho land nnd sold the land on deferred payments, the laborers would have got a number of happy home*?, and the Government would have got their money back. He would go further, and say it was impossible to give large blocks of land to individuals without creating a class pf society disadvantageous in the future, He, himself, had come out . to the colonies with an idea of finding there an equality of social condition. He did not mean com. .munism, for he thought the industrious should enjoy the fruits of his labour— but such a state of society one man could not have given him 100,000 acres at a merely nomiual price, and another be refused land at Jj.ll— where men could hold estates larger than duke.3 possessed in England. The Government that made, this made other laws that the people would never have allowed had they boGU politically educated. They, the Government, said a man had a Gertain value, a very lo\y one, and should have no vote, that a certain set of- men had more value and should have one vote, but that property deserved great considerj ation, and tho man rich in land I should have five votes conferred . upon him. In the case of a County, under some circumstances. ( one man Could have 45 votes. T'hsy could not give one man 45 votes and another man one- vote without creating in one a degree of pride and arrogance and degradation and humiliation in the other, To raise a population under ' such circumstances was degrading, and no man ! with any self respect would consent to do §o» If any man loved his wife and family he should J|ghfc to i the übmast to prevent this. There was another argument against such obnoxious laws. From class legislation a*Q3<3 $ state of taxation in which the poor were ii)acfe to pay more than the rich. When a large ravel nue was raised by taxation, and it was handed over to boroughs aud counties to be spent the rich man had -lif votes, ths poor man only one vote in deciding Vow 'it should , be spent. People at home co ..ilcl not belipve that snch a law existed in the colony, $.c thought, and his • : colleagues thought, that; aa .end should be at once put to this. From the same system a kind of taxation i was imposed repp" unjust and unfair, i Tiie people ought noli' to permit tl;at I the chief burden should fall up'oVt , tljeir wives and children. There s were no. families in New Zealan 1 1 but the wife oVl^tle cliiklren hud t to be deprived of sotnething/fopdj 1 slothing, or luxuries to enable the v taxes to be paid; and all this t while the man worth £20.000 f

a year hardly pays anything at all. Absentees in England don't even pay a single penny. What was done with the money thus raised from the suffeiing poor ? Why, railroads and public works were constructed out of it, which tended to give increased value to the property of tho capatalist who cou- : liibuted little or nothing to the common fund. The people who get ' the leust benefit were taxel the ( heaviest for the benefit of other * persons. Men ought to interest themselves in these matters. If they | were men ac all, they would do. so, and not allow their money to be so spent. In England, no cne dare to establish such a system of taxation. Owners of property in England had to pay a large income aud property tax for the protection of their property. Why should people draw enormous incomes from New Zealand, and go and live in England, and pay nothing towards the heavy burdens of the colony 1 ,_ What the Government proposed to do hereafter was, that every man in New Zealand (of age, and residing twelve months in an electoral district) should have his name put on the roll of that district, and vote for its representative — without any question as to his property qualification. What they meant was, manhood suffrage with a residential qualification. They would, thus, obtain the return of representatives who would nob adopt a system of class legislation. No man ought :o allow taxes to be levied on his family without, himself, having a vote in the election of a representative in (he legislature. He had on his side, not only a majority in New Zealand, but the most eminent statesmen at home— such as Gladstone — who regretted now that he had opposed manhood suffrage, but was determined to retrieve the errors of his political life. This class legislation led to taxation of the sort he alluded to. The present taxes were unjust. The remedy was to put on taxes of another kind — to make every man in New Zealand pay for the advantages he receives. If the people ot New Zealand had so developed tbe country as to raise its credit, and enable it to raise loans for public expenditure, they were quite justified in saying you who have gob valuable property should pay your fair share of the i Colony's burdens. You should pay for the great and increasing value given to your lands by money taken - from other mens pockets. We go further and say that it is objectionable that any should hold hme blocks of land, shutting ou!; others and are prepared to put such a tax on unimproved lands as will cause such monopolists either to use their lands or sell them. This is an absolute necessity, because possessing powers, of class legislation, they are ruining the country. As it is, every yearjthe land is valued and the value of small settlers improvements are added to the previons valuation and taxed, while the capitalist speculator is only rated the same each yeai*, because he makes no improvements at all, selfishly keeping out his fellow men from the use and enjoyment of the landed estate of the colony. We calculate that by putting a small acreage tax upon land according to quality we shall be conferring a great benefit on the community at large, This is the main change in taxation we propose, jf successful we shall be able to take off many taxes falling heavily on the general public. There will be no large family to be found but the parents will feel at the end of the year that their children have been better fed and clothed and enjoyed more luxuries for such a chauge io the incidence of taxation, by placing the burden"" on' the shoulders of those best able to bear' it. To enter on another subject : they had heard of his recommendation (o the Governor to diS'iUov tnQ L-ands Rill. All sorts of tilings, were threatened him on this account and all sorts of ehargos laid against him. The particulars of the cases were these. In the Province of Canterbury some eighteen years ago or more, individuals were allowed to get possession of lai-ge and valuable areasf of O^-own lands at merely nominal rents, lauds/ ' the ' pioperty of the public at large. The individuals who oblained thej-je lands belonged to a particular class, the well informed class. Nearly all were legislators or officers of the Provincial Councils cr, Governments or their relations and friencts. " ¥ ( or years they have made large sums of money out of these runs. What, was the. meaning of that "? These lands were the ' property 'of the people, and the money made out of them belonged to the people. The riiaholclers, as managers, he tUou'gb, t, shoklcj get a fair and liberal proportion of the prop, bu't ngt the whole. That belonged to the people. The licenses by which these runs were held, terminated iu 1878. The present parliament would expire before the licenses came tq a termination, and 'therefore it was souofht to get a renewal, while a parliament composed of .large' runholders was ye' in power. His argument was, the present Assemoly' w"as nob eleccd wit v i reference to the question of the rc-leasingof these runs. The Assembly no f . only ccntiunejj a large section of runholders. bub the Ligisative Council was nominated from ihe runholding class. It was absolutely ijnj'igb tq the people for those ' vith power in the present. l'uYlii^mGiH J ' o secure for themselves such a benefit i or the future. He wo.ild go further, ] i

and say, that the transaction was ■ not an honourable one. In spite, however, of all he did, they -passed a law, making tho licenses run 13 years from the' present time, and based the occupation rent on such a system that tho colony would not get fair value for the runs so leased. This meant that for 13 years the large profits belonging really to the people would go into the pockets of the runholders, and the rest of tha community be taxed to make up the deficiency in the revenue thus made. They knew that if he got a dissolution they would lose this monopoly when tho leases expired in 1780. He did his best to get a dissolution but it was refused. The constitution was composed of three estates, the Assembly, the Legislative Council and the Governor. If tho Assembly was composed of one class and made laws for that class's own benefit, tho Legislative Council could step in and veto the bill of the i Assembly. Bat possibly the Logis- • iative Council might be similarly interested, then the Governor could • veto the act of both so that if both Houses made bad laws, the Governor s in vetoing them would simply be i exercising a power given him for ■ the particular purpo e. Constitutionally the proper thing to do was i either to get a dissolution or to get the Governor to disallow tho law. s The dissolution was refused him. I He argued then to himself that a • great wrong was about to be^dene by i men seeking to enjoy for yet 13 , years longer the use of the property • belonging to the people that I hoy ■ had alieady too long enjoyed. That i the children of tho colonists were , for another 13 years to be left / deprived of many ; comforts that fortune might be pub into the pockets of these wealthy men. ■ He said to himself if he had the i , power he would snatch the prey out : of the very mouth of the spoiler — he would advise the Governor to disallo.v the Lands Bill. To have 7 . disallowed it would have saved those > children from privations aud loss for ; 13 years to come and have still lefc s the squatter as ho was with an > opportunity for the people to cons sider whether they would allow such s an injustice as the re- leasing of the runs to be done to their little i ones. Constitutionally the Governor ought to have taken the advice s of his Ministry. Thoughout the ' Empire it was tho practice where s one man was entrusted with such a i power to always exercise it so as to » allow a re-consideration of the ques- • tion. It was done in the case of the '. Speaker's casting vote in the Assemi bly. The Governor ought to have , so exercised this power that the question whether these children i should have been so taxed for 13 years to come might have been reconsidered. He was prepared to stand upon the action he then took, ; and stake his reputation upon it. He had rather be the man who : was prepared to take all risk in saving every child in New Zealand ( from the influence of this injustice, than be the man who said, I will '. tor the next thirteen years sacrifice , every child to such misery and injustice. Here was indeed an ins stance of class legislation by i a man living in the society of a particular clas taking his views from , from theirs. A man living iu the society of squatters and wealthy capitalists would naturally feel with them and say, Oh ! we must not serve poor IVfr $o and So thus, we must let bin} ha.ve his run another 10 years- lb was difficult for a person living iu this class of society to realise that in favoring them he was sacrificing the inter© its of the public at large. All this led to the conclusion that they must have a franchise of a more liberal kind, and of such a potential character that the Government may loaii on tl>e representatives of the people 'as representing ihe voice o" the people. They must have fair taxation and land laws, anl such a system of edacatioi} thqt \-yill reach every child in the Colon}', They must raise up an understanding and in. telligenb nation that will ba an example to the rest of the world, because they had advantages which other nations had not. They were free trom the taint of convictism. they wore free from the demoralisation inseparable ' fi;om a slave owning community ? they .were not descended from pirates who had formed a settlement. They were the pick of the first nation of the world, men of enterprise and spirit, j who had come forth fron} it voluntarily to risk everything in establishing their fitmiiies in comfort. They were but a young people, but still were able iu a country abounding in such vast natural' "resources tj raise a nation unlramelled with the miseries and disabilities of the old world. If they were true to themselves, to. fcheji; >y[vee and, to their children, if they wgeo determined to continue in fche endeavour, they could raise such a nation as the world never yet saw —each one doing the greatest duty a man can perform/ that of leaving their fellqw . nien •better ahd.' happier fchan'when j they entered 'the world.' They must j iiisistj 'ou their Governors (by ' Governors he Uieant then' Legis- '■ lative rulers — their Ministers), 'they ; must insist on these men addressing < them, aud telling them what they intended doing. Ho would only aid that' tor himself and his colleagues they would do. their utmost to assist this particular part of the country w'hic-h. Ijacl had to struggle against many aud great difficulties," and ■ ( would help to carry thorn forward I (

in that career of prosperity which the district of Waikoto had undoubtedly started upon. (Cheers.) . At : the conclusion of the Premier's ' address jtherd was a call for the Native Minister, and in response, The" Hon. Mr Sheehan said he intended I to disappoint them if they looked for a long speech. His Hon. friend had occupied the Magistrates bench while addressing them, while he (Mr Sheehan) Avas sitting in the jury box. It was the part of a juryman not to speak but to listen. He thought he should be only wasting their time in telling so well told a story twice over as that they had just listened to. He could not put it more forcibly or more clearly than it had been put. Besides it was his Hon. friend the Premier who was running the concern. He (Mr Sheehan) was only one of the firm, and was therefore justified in backing out of taking a prominent '.part in the evonings work. There was just, however, one subject on which, as coming within his own proper functions, it might be desirable that he should touch, and that was — the policy of the Government as far as it affected the Native Department. _That Department had been a thing of mystery. He could compare it to nothing so aptly as to that marine monster, the cuttle fish. . Many a bold swimmer has been seized in clear water, by this monster, and come to grief. Like the cuttle fish, too, this Department had a happy knack of emitting an inky secretion when it got into danger, and escaping under the cloud which it raised: There was nothir*^ liko letting daylight into such a coVo of mystery and darkness. He found there was no need to keep up this system of mystery between the Government and the Natives and the Government aud the people. He might be supposed, from his connection wtth Maori affairs in the past, to look at matters too much from a Maori point of view, but it was not not so. He was not an advocate merely of Maori interests. He had fought their battles, but had now merged the advocate in the judge. When Natives were in the wrong he should not hesitate to tell them so, but it must not be assumed that they were without just ' grievances. These they had, and two I especially, which worked to produce bad ( feeling. First, then, were the Native Land laws. These were mischievously framed, and utterly failed to accomplish the objects they were supposed to provide for. They simply led to the alienation of the Native estate, without benefitting the vendors, for the proceeds were dissipated in wastefulness. The Government had been endeavoring to create a landed estate for the North Island, a very desirable object, and had purohased Native land for that purpose to the extent of £600,000. As fellow men we ought to have endeavored to teach the natives to deal prudently with the produce of these sales , but he very much doubted if a shilling of this £600,000 ban beenleft. The Maories saw this state of things now, and felt it, and the consequence would be if it con* tinned that we would have a condition of things to be deplored. The next generation of Maories would.be landless, and their lands loal. They would resort to, discreditable, means of living. They could afford to. go into rebellion then, for they would have nothing to lose. They should encourage the Natives : not to spend the proceeds of their land sales, but to invest them in bonk shares and other good securities, causing them thus to give security for their maintenence of law aud order. The intention of the Government was to bring iu a Bill to enable thorn to put their cases easily through a laad Court, not to go through in large but in smaller blocks, so that any European may come into the market arid buy their land from them in suitable quantities. Hitherto the land market had been a close one. He himself did not own an acre of Native land, though he might have bought it by thousands of acres, and at his own price, to the exclusion of others, but he thought there ought to be an open market where the Native could get the -best price, and every one come to buy who chose Th&jie. was anqther grievance which might seem a small one, but which was very mis-. chievous. The Natives had become suspicious because Native officers, in their capacity of Government agents, had been dabbling all over the country for laud for themselves or relatives. How many were there not of these men who had become wealthy by their purchases of native land, while they should have held the balance between the vendor and purchaser, and never have gone into the market on their own account. The public servant should stand aside from anything of that kind. Under sup}\ a state of thing3, a Maori having a hlqclj of land tq sell, goes tq the Government officer, and says, "I am offered such and such a price," and ho is recommended to take it because, perhaps, the official la a secret partner in the purchase. Tho present Government had laid down a rule that any Native Office official dabbling-jn land should ba ordered to pack up hb? traps, and clear out. They were detertermined to encourage the natives to put their land through the Courts, and sell for a fair price, a ud to stop whole country sides falling into the hands of single individuals. He was glad to see that iheii who had acquired large estates were coino to this way of thinking with hirn^ (laughter). There were yet a few hqrse.3 left in tho stahlo, and he intended tq keep them for -general use, aqdj n& t (j allow one n\an to* ride them all, iVTr Sheehan concluded an admirable aildrass by cautioning lnodoratloa aud forbaarauoo in our dealings with tho Natives, nor to prcoipifcafce ill feeling by endeavouring to get Urge blocks of land surreptitiously. The chief difficulty occuring in the district, he pointed out, had arisen from individuals seeking to acquire parfciqular pieces of laud, and but for the stumbirag blocks of thesV attempfis to nuijchase there would bo now "uq difficulty' in opening up the country iig-J^fc dowu to Myk&H, Mr Potter then proposed, aud Mr Jones seconded, a resolution, — that the meeting having heard the address of the Hon. the Premier, thank him for his courtesy in addressing thorn, and express tHeir confidence in the present. Ministry, and its pdliey. The resolution havhigf be*eu carried, and a vote of thanks, at tHe' suggestion of Sir George Grey, 'accorded t(j the Mayqr. a3_C'haiyinan, tl}e mee'ti^g separated/." '- ' "