MR McMINN AT HAMILTON.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1119, 26 August 1879, Page 2

MR McMINN AT HAMILTON.

The Court House wras filled on Saturday ' evening, to hear Ms McMiu^'s political address to the Electors of Waipa. Jfr ; L. . O'NeiJl having been moved to the i Chair, introduced Mr McMinn, who said : ! It was incumbent on hjim, at $*e outset, to explain the reasons which he had *or j not voting ?Fith the Government last! *esaioa, en the Wa>it of Confidence! Motion. He must explain, in the first! place, that the Government which met the House, the session just passed, was* not by f.ny means the same as when he was returned fef Waipa, having lost two of its bost members *- the Attorney General and the .Colonial Treasurer. He believed ifc was the us,ual .custom, when such important changes took place during the recess, fo.r the head of the Government to make some explanation, on the re -assembling of Parliament, of the reasons of tliese changes, but, in the present case, nothing of the sort was done, and the ojtly 'phi V ; ">a he House

had, was that afforded by the newspaper | reports of the dispute between Sir George Grey and Mr Bullance. He was aware it did not do in all' cases to depend upon such reports, and. that it would not be fair to Judge public men by them; but the Government had, in. a measure, justified the adoption of newspaper reports as State documents* by having made use of them as offioial^documonts concerning the proceedings afc, ;the native meeting at Hiknrangi and again at Kopua ; though last session strong condemnatory remarks were made in the Houso, concerning the former. In the face of this, the same reports of the Kopua meeting were furnished, being simply a collation of newspaper paragraphs, though there was a ' Hansard ' reporter present the whole time, taking shorthand notes of the proceedings. Under the circumstances, he thought the Opposition could not be blamed for accepting the newspaper version of the expulsion of Mr" Ballance, as they bad really no other account to go by. It must be admitted that the course adopted was not one calculated to increase confidence in the head of the Government. Referring to the, Bills mentioned in the Governor's speech, he quite agreed with the general measures, nor did he believe there was any section of the House opposed to them ; but the thing was, Bills of the very same nature were brought down last session, and,- in one case (that of the Electoral Bill) even passed; and because the Legislative Council would not agree to the Maori dual vote, the Bill, which had cost so much time of the House, was thrown out. The Triennial [parliaments Bill was in much the Bame position, as there can be no doubt that if the Government had made it a Government measure 1 when Dr. Wallis brought it in, it would have been easily carried. The Chinese Bill was of course a new feature, but not of a party nature. As for the re-distribu-tion of seats, that was what Southern members were clamouring for all, last session ; and would be brought in, whatever Government was in power. Of course, if the motion of Want of Confidence had not been brought down, he would have gone on as he had done before — assisted the Government,to pass their measures, and attended to the business of his district, and that was a good deal ; but when the question was fairly put, had they confidence that the Government would carry ont these measures, judging by the experience. of last session, he couki not honestly say he had. Still, as they knew, he did not join the Opposition/and, as he 'knew theie were a number of his constituents who wished him to support the Governmeni, he decided not to vote either way, especially as it was well known it wouldmake no difference, the Opposition being certain of a large majority. Referring to the?*billß now before the country, there wad not a great difference between them and those of last session. He thought the Electoral Bill was rather an improvement, as it gave only two, qualifications, though it retained the Maori dual vote in a modified form ; but he must confess he had not studied them much, as it was very welly known they would not be bronght forward this session, and there was plenty of other business which required attending to. ' The Representation Bill brought in last session but one, by Mr Whitaker, was a still more liberal measure. Too liberal, indeed, in his opinion, being manhood suffrage, pure and simple, and he was not prepared to go that length yet. He mentioned it, however, to show that there were quite as liberal minded men on one side of the House as on the other. The terms Conservative and Liberal, as applied to politioal parties in New Zealand, were mere fictions, as there were no such distinct lines, at least as denoted by their action. The resumption of the preemptive right of the Government, in the purchase of all native lands, was a thing he would not support. The principle was, originally, a good one,, but its repeal, about fourteen years ago, had rendered it impossible that it could be advantageously or safely reverted to. The natives had become used to the altered system, and to change back again would be provocative of war, as the Maori was quite acute enough to see the disadvantage of having only one market for his hand. As to the alleged evil of the large speculators, he maintained that the Maoris got more justice and better terms by dealing with a number of purchasers than with the Government alone. The Maoris well knew that an open market meant good prices. There was another important question which had shaken his confidence in the Premier. Sit George Grey had proposed to do away altogether with the Legislative Council, but, at the same time had, for political purposes, very inconsistently appointed some nine or ten new members. He, the speaker, saw very strong reasons why the Legislative Oouncil should be maintained. It had a very beneficial part to play in the Legislature, and, but for it, the Colony would now have had to endure the dual Maori vote. It was supposed to be above all party feelings, and to prevent rash legis* lation, and on the occasion referred to, it had conferred a great benefit on the community. A proposal had been made to provide means for selling native lands by auction, but he did not qnite see how this could be given efleGt to, The Government should do all in its power to get the natives to individualise .'their titles, and to prevent the sale of land to individuals in large blocks, but to make the natives sell by auction was an undue interference with their rights of property. They were quite able to sell their laud themselves. He believed that the best system for the sale of the land was the old Provincial Government system of cutting it up into blocks of from one hundred to four hundred acres, according to the nature of the country, and putting the sections up for sale after the roads had been surveyed. The nearer they could approach such a plan as this for the disposal of native lands the better. He did not believe in speculators folding too large blocks. The Government should ingijjt tfyat good roads should be laid off through all large blocks previous to alienation, and that they be sub-divided into lots suitable for settlement, and that the titles to them should be made valid. The Government itself ought certainly to be able to go into the market the same as the general public, and purchase blocks fqr- resale, especially in the direction where nxain line? of railway would be. At present they had 4,000,000 acres, purchased or under negotiations, and a large sum was yet required to complete these purchases. Some of £he land indeed was very poor, butheclid'not object to. jtljejr buying it for it was a-great' thing iff do away with native title, and saved many complications of various kinds. In ' any case, the Goyernment should acquire large blocks where th,® main lines of rail and road must necessarily go! ne^r.f question was the Loan' BilL The House, as they were aware, had been asked to go out of the usjjial course to admit of this Bill being brought ip. on the Wednesday when the Governor opened Parliament, and passed by ti.9 Frifay. He' thought it was monstrous for the Government to ask the tf.Qms to rush a Bill through, involving a inability of ££,000,000 in so short a time, and befere they knew the financial position ,pf the colony or what was going to be .done with the money when raised. The Houss could not consent to that, and the ttypposition refused to be hurried in the matter. He was u.gJ of tlio Opposition, ibut he thought the Opposition was quite right in so acting. To have rushed the Bill through in such a matter would have ! ,tqnded to weaken th,e borrowing power of ■t-Jtie colony in the. Homo, market.' He,

believed in tho borrowing system— -that they must go on, at any rate until Wellington and Auckland were connected by railway. The conduct of affairs on the West Coast had much shaken his oonfidence in the Government. He alluded to the advertisement within and without the coloi.y of the sale of the Waimate Plains which had not actually been surveyed, and whioh Te Whiti had said should not be surveyed. To have attempted this sale without being able to carry it out shewed a weakness and was calculated to injure the colony. He was personally acquainted with the West Coast and its people, and^ when he read Sir > George < Grey's* telegram to< the settlers, he boiled over with indignation. He knew them to be good and true men, and under the circumstances, when they held their lives in their hands, the Maoris entering 1 into possession of their farms, ploughing 1 - up their paddocks, such a telegram was outrageous. (Loud cheers.) It seemed to him that the Government were trying to shove the responsibility on to the sdoulders of the settlers. It was a pretty state of things, when the Government ( delegated its power to the settlers, telling them, in fact, to take the law into their own hands, when they telegraphed (as it was rumoured they had done) to tell the settlers to turn off the Maoris from Courtenay's farm, as had been done elsewhere. Their action on the West Coast showed that in the Native Deportment, at any rate, they were unfit to govern the colony. They had 150 native prisoners, but did not know what to do with them, and the Native Prisoners 3iil and Peace Preservation BUI, brought in during the last two hours oi the session, was another piece of hurried legislature. One of these bills actually proposed to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. It was a fact that the steamers North and South, to take away the members, had been ordered to leave Wellington before these bills were brought down, or even printed. It had been said that the Opposition had forced these bills on, and probably Major Atkinson, who felt strongly in the matter, had done so. 'Mr Swanson, whose speech reported in 'Hansard' was not yet before the public here, stated on this occasion that had he been aware Government could have brought down suoh measures, he would have voted against them, and opposed the bills in every stage. There had been a lax system all along on the West Coast, and he admitted that the present Government and received the disaffected feeling of the natives as a legacy from previous Governments ; but for those previous Governments could be said what could not be said of the present one, that they did not provoke this feeling into one of active hostility. Claims and reserves had never been been justly and definitely settled,, and the present Government, in the face of this, attempted the survey and sale of the Waimate Plains. He could hardly give the Maoris too much credit for their forbearance, even though their ploughing the settlers land was an illegal act. The Bay of Islands Electoral Roll was another matter. They all knew how it had been stuffed with 373 names which had no right to be there. In spite of. the report to this effect, by Mr Bryce, the Commissioner appointed to investigate the matter, the Government never acted on the report, though persistently urged by Members to have the JRoll purged, but have allowed the present elections to go on, knowing that 373 names, on the Bay of Islands Roll, are fictitious. The Electoral Bill, he need hardly enlarge upon, as it had lapsed. It differed little from that of last year, but contained, though in a less open form the objectionable dual vote. The Triennial Parliaments Bill was the same as that of Dr Wallis, of the previous session, which, had the Government chosen, might then have become law. He (Mr MoMinn) voted for both of these bills then, and would do eo again. The Chinese question was a large one, that is, had many sides. The Chinese Committee, in Melbourne, had made out quite as good a case in favor of ' Chinese immigration, as the opposite side had made out against it. The aooial condition of China was not, however, one desirable to be grafted on the New Zealand Costitution, and he thought some check, either by imposition of a poll tax, or compelling a proportionate immigration of female Chinese, should be adopted. They must not be allowed tf> qome in large numbers, qr, if they had the same political privileges, they would swamp the white population altogether. Referring to Public Works, he said that an impression had got abroad, fostered by the Auckland Press and election candidates, that the Nortii had beeu unfairly treated in the apportionment of public works and the expenditure of th.e loans. They might 1 give him credit for being anxious that the Auckland Provincial District should ?et its fair share, but he maintained that Mr Macandrew had worked fairly and impartially in their interests, (Dissent.) Just the same was said in the South, that the North was getting an unfair advantage. £8,800,000 had been voted altogether for railways, of which £2,817,593 had been spent in the North Island, for railways, and £4,819,705 in the Middle Island, or just 432,000,000 more. Up to the 30th June last, the liabilities for railway construction in the. North, were £538,000, and ' for the South, £540,000. This was rather in favor of the North. It was also fair to compute, that every million so spent, , costs the colony, say, about 5 per cent, per annum for interest and charges. If they looked . at the amount of interest paid bj e|thep ' Island, i& rgjjnfiofc'tQ' jhja V^tt 8 spent in them, there would be a charge to the I North Island of £167,000 per annum, to the South Island of £240,000. But, taking from these two items, the profits of working the railways, in either Island, respectively, it would be found that the North Island cqst the cqlony, fqr interest on railway' expenditure, £127,800 per annum, while the profits of Middle Island railways left only a liability on them of £68,200. The colonial revenue haying thus t© pay .£.6,8.000 more fpr- th,e !tfbrth than for tne South. The Customs revenue was, with stamps, one and a half millions, in round numbers, and the land revenue £870,000, of which latter sum, the | Middle Island contributed £810,000, and the North Island about £60,000. From these figures, it would be seen .th^ the North, 'Vas nqt ijiifciiriy, '^sod*. The population of the Auckland Provincial 1 District was one-fifth of that of the whole colony, the revenue it contributed, one-sixth of the customs, or, for Customs and stamps, £276,500. It will thus be seen, that while the North Island contributes £620,000 by taxation, and £4l,(|00 ttoi^ Laqd' Bund 1 , aft^r \he 20 per cent, payable Jo local bodies was deducted; in all, £668,000 to the general revenue. The Middle leland gave £891,000 from taxation, and 1648,000 from Land Fund, or £1539,000, allowing the same dL6.ductjgn, at the same time, the Consolidated Fund" had to supply, a deficit of interest' of £Q£,2pO."in' thi? Middle Island, and £127,800 in the North Island, or, about twice the' amount With regard to, tf 10 Thames-Waikato Railway, when he firsfc fcbaijd tfyaf;' j;hg Ijng was to be commenced at GrrahamstqwnJ hp urged upon the Government the necessity of turning the first sod at the Hamilton end, as well as to ensure this end being made as well, but the Premier informed him that it was not, considered judicious to do so while the first contract was in a position to be let, though a sod was cut a.t the Thames, on the. beaeh, without ewen a survey having t^jsen made. Tns principal fault he had to ijiul with the GbTer.ii; meat as. regfaitf? pjfbliQ words in. this dis*

triot, was their delay in undertaking the Hamilton railway bridge. Both. Mr, Whitaker and himself had urged it upon Mr Macandrow on several occasions, by telegram and personally, but the only answer they could get was, "that it would be undertaken in due time." Well, thttt due fime, he believed, had not arrived yet, and Mr Macandrew told him on one occasion they would not undertake it until they had got a vote for it, though there has already been a vote taken for the railway of which it is a part, and the money is being spent elsewhere. Another habit had annoyed him much, and that was of the Premier of making speeches, more to I the gallery than the members, about the injustite the poor man suffered from the oppression of the rich, aud flinging accusations against Southern members of robbing the people of New Zealand of the lands which belonged to them and their children, and doing this by th* aid of unjust laws made to benefit them and. their friends. He thought this language was very injudicious, to say the least, and calculated to have a bad effect in raising up class feelings in this country, which had never before existed. He thought it was the duty of every man who wished well to his country, rather to counteract such feelings, than to intensify them, by reinarks such as these. The Piako swamp . had been brought forward again, and the late Government accused of selling land for £5000 now worth £100,000, but nothing had been said of the £100,000 expended upon it. There was no wish in the House to ignore the right of the working class, or to burke liberal land measures ■ He, himself, would not go to the House to represent any one class as against another — no man was fit for a legislator who did so. He was in favor of secular education. There were now 200 schools in this Provincial District, and no system could be more efficient. No children : had a better chance of good education than the children of New Zealand. He was opposed to any change or tinkering of the,Act. The safest plan was to leave the measure as it was, even though not perfect, as make one change, and there was no telling what others might be brought about. As far as his action in the House was concerned they ! must admit he had done all he could for the different districts of Waipa. Any representation he had received he had treated with every attention whether it came from this end of the district or from that, and if returned he would do so again. He had now some little experience in the House, had served his apprenticeI ship indeed, and could hope to take a more active part in general legislation. The Chairman then asked if any elector had any question to put. Mr H. McPherßon : Were you not in favor of secular education before, and yet I you voted for Curtis' Bill. Mr McMinn : I was in favor of secular education, but I was asked if I would support a measure for giving assistance in towns — against my own conscience somewhat, 1 agreed to do so an it seemed to be a general wish, and I acted also in deference to the wish of many of my censtituents. Mr Kennedy Hill: Do you think it advisable to construct the Thames Valley Railway from Grahamstown to the Th'ames in the present financial condition of the colony ? Mr MoMinn: I think it would be advisable to puf»h the railway through ultimately, but not to have commenced it at the Grahamstown end. I asked the Premier to turn the first sod at Hamilton, but he represented it would be necessary to wait until the first contract was let. Mr'McDonald : Do you consider the sum of £200 sufficient honorarium for members last session. Mr McMinn : Yes. Quite sufficient. Mr, McPherson : Was it not the duty of both members to have protested against the illegal commencement of the ThatnesWaikato Railway at the wrong ind P Mr McMinn: I went at once to Mr Macandrew, the Minister for Public Works, and protested, but he treated the matter lightly. I don't think he was very clear in his knowledge of the geography of the country. To a Querist: The £30,000 was clearly voted for the Hamilton end. Captain Steele : Do you not consider it a fraud, just to put it mildly, that the money was so divested by the Government. Mr McMinn? That is rather a legal question. lat once spoke strongly on the matter to Mr ,Manandrew. To Mr McDonald : I was at the Thames at the turning of the sod there. I went theee to ask Sir George Grey to turn it at Hamilton at the same time. I did not protest against the expennditure at thai time. v In answer to some other questions, Mr McMmn said b,e was not in favour of separation, and would work as far as he conscientiously could in unison with, the Auckland members. On the motion of Mr K. Hill, seconded by Mr Gwynrie, a vate of thanks was unanimously tendered to Mr McMinn. 1 A vote of thanks to the Chairman brought the meeting ta a close. Mr McMinn stated there was a matter he wished to refor ta, but had forgotten. He had been told by numbers of people that the general opinion was, that he was gqing in for a billet, and that was the reason for not voting with the Opposition. I He would first explain how that matter stood. During last session, a bill wus passed prohibiting members of the House from holding any paid office in the pivil service for a periqd v$ twfelm months after ceasing tQ he, a. under a penalty or £o0 a day, so that he was, in fact, the only man in Waik'ato who could mo?, literally, hold any office under the Government. He was not one of those who made that law, and when it was proposed to shorten the term to six months, he voted for retaining twelve, months. That was Jus fj.nswe.r.. ■••'•,