ADDRESS BY MR F. A. WHITAKER AT HAMILTON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1878, 19 July 1884, Page 2

ADDRESS BY MR F. A. WHITAKER AT HAMILTON.

Pursuant to an advertisement in these columns, Mr F. A. Whitaker met his late coustitusnts afc the Public Hall, Hamilton, on Wednesday evening, ior the purpose of addressing them on the subject of his past political connection with the district. The evening turned out very wet, but notwithstanding this there was a large attendance of electot s. On the motion of Mr Whitaker, his Worship the Mayor took the chair. The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, said it was not necessary that he should explain at any length the object which had called them together. Most of those present know Mr Whitaker as well as he (the chairman) did, and it would be sufficient to call on their late member to address them. Mr Whitakev on coming forward was recei\ ed with loud applause. He saidit wasnot his intention to enter into the merits of the party political questions now immediately engaging their attention, as he was not at the piescnt a candidate for the Waipa seat. He had thought it better to wait until the nomination had taken place, so that his motive in addressing them could not possibly be mistaken. Had he spoken before the nomination, it might have been said that he wished to test the feeling of the district with a view to returning to the House. Nothing could be further from his wish than thi«. He was one of those who when he went into a tiling went into it with all his heart. (Applause), and when he had decided not to do so he meant it. (Applause). It was now not possible that his object could be misunderstood. He had no hesitation, however, in addressing them before the day of election, because he did not intend to touch upon any of those questions which were befoie the country, except in so far as it was necessary to justify his actions in the past. He felt that having had the honour to repiesent one of the Lugest and most important districts in the colony it was his bounden duty to come before them, and give tome explanation of the action he had taken during the last session of Pailiament. He was not there to defend himself against the consequences of any act, but to show them that from the first time they did him the honour to icturn him to the House up to the present he had acted consistently, and had pursued one undeviating course during the whole period. The times had changed, and policies had changed, but the policy he went in to suppoit in 1879 he had faithfully kept to. (Applause). He had seen many things which had been written about his action in the Auckland journals from tune to time, but they might depend upon it that he was not quite so black as he had been painted, nor as a ceitain othei , gentleman had been painted ; he had not yet developed horns and a tail. (Laughter and applause.) He was pretty much the same man now as he was in the year 1870 and 1881 ; his regaul and affection for the district was quite unaltered, aiid though he was retiring from the contest they might depend upon it that the little interest he possessed as well as his most earnest effoits would continue to be exercised for the welfaie and advancement of the diiti ict. He was not going to quarrel o\ er politics : he had ne\ ci done so yet, and was not going to begin now. Though for the tune being he had occasion to differ fiom his friends on political questions, it would not interfere in the slightest with his regaul for them personally, and in time to cmie lie did not doubt that this sentiment would find an echo in their hearts as it now found one in his. (Applause.) Befoie going into the heavier pait of the busine&s he would like to say a word or two in reference to the action of a certain section of the press upon the matter. Some time ago the Premier made a speech at Havvera, in which ideas weie promulgated with which he could not agiee. He did not at the present time desn o to enter into the question of whether tho«e ideas weie just nr not, it was sufficient foi hib pi esent object to say that he disagreed with them. The points m the speech with which he rould not agree, had refeience to the amalgamation of city electorates, perpetual leasing, and the resumption of the pre-emptive right over the nati\ c lands. He objected to the fiist of these proposals because it seemed to him bo be putting too much power in the hands of the towns, and was contrary to the principles which he was returned to suppoit in 1870. No soonei did he read this speech than he deemed it his duty to at once say to his constituents that cei tain matters were going to be brought before the county by the (lo\ ci nment with which he could not agree. He accordingly called his constituents together at Kihikihiand told them plainly what he thought of the matter. That speech was fully leported in The Waikato Times, and doubtless they had all read it. It was then fully nndei stood that he (Mr Whitaker) was not in accord with the Government on these questions. He repeated that his views wero peifectly well known, and as showing how hard it is for a member to be consistent without bi'ing accused of inconsistency would relate an amusing little anecdote. Tn 1870 parties, as may be supposed, weie somewhat mixed ; all sorts of rumours weie flying about, and the newspapeis weie eagerly picking up and retailing the latest political "tips," and all soits of opinions were hazarded about the mannei in which he and others were going to vote When he declared his intention of voting for the amendment moved by Mr (now Sir John) Hall the Wellington Evening Chroniclo announced " that Mr Whitaker had at last declared his baseness." (Laughter.) Now it might seem strange, but the very people to vote with whom it was considered base in 1870 are now hailed as the saviours of the country. A well got-up and influential journal had said about three weeks ago about him, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing," referring to his vote against the Government. He did not expect to see this in a journal which, on the loth of April last, only a few days after his Kihikihi speech, could say :— " Mr. Whitaker does not conceal the fact that he finds himself in some things diverging aheady from the chief of his party, and did not hesitate to say that if they persisted in carrying out some views which they had recently announced, he would feel obliged to oppose them We presume "he referred to their novel ideas about the tenure of land, and their intention to reveit to the pre-emptive right of the Government ovei all native territory. It is quite easy to understand the difficulty which the hon. member for Waipa must feel in attempting to bring himself into unison on these points with the Ministry he has hitherto loyally supported : for his mind is constitutionally in favour of observing well known paths, and averse to what may fittingly be termed empirical politics. He is essentially a safe man, and does not believe in resorting to rash and daring experiments merely to please that portion of the community to whom the _ wildness of a measure is always its chief attraction." They would see by this that not only did he know what he was going to do, but also that this journal knew it equally well. (Applause). They would also be in a position to judge how far Press criticism was to be trusted as a guide to the public mind. Anybody would think, to judge ' from the tone of recent articles, that he ' had stabbed the Ministry in the back, whereas thesimple fact was that the Ministry knew he could not suppoit them, because he had gone to them and told them so. He told them plainly that he could not agree with them. (Applause.) He mentioned these things to show the value of Press criticism, and ne did not wish to be invidious. His remarks applied to most of the journals in the colony, including his friend the editor of The Waikato Times, who was smiling at him. (Laughter.) He had told them more than once before that they would never get party Government in New Zealand so long as they persisted in setting one man above the rest, and saying "we must have this, that, 'or the other man." They must have measures, not men, and when once they had arrived at a clear understanding as to what they really did want, then, and not until then, would they attain to true party government, (Appljiv.se.) , In this connection ba well recolected some remarks made by Mr Reader Wood "in one of that gentleman's clever' perorations. "He could not pre,tehd to give , the words as "Mr- Wood bad given them, who was, in addition'to being 1 an excellent -and, powerful "speaker, an^nimitable actor, but they were to this, effect :— Addressing thq speaker he said. "^ftded;t~o^ h is'-JJ ftjfy^

or war there was a war paity and the peace party. In 1870 there was the great •' loan party and the party of economy and retrenchment. Later on there was the provincial party. There are two parties now, sir, £he one consists of those who are on the Treasury benches and mean to stay there and tho other of thoso who wish to turn them out and get there themselves and I, sir, belong to neither. — (great laugter and applause). He could assure them that when they got great measures before them, they would have great parties, but when the question was simply " who shall go in?" They might depend upon it that there would not be great parties. He would draw their attention for a few moments to the Queen's speech of 1870. In the Governor's speech in 1879, written when the Grey Ministry were in office, was the following paragraph : — " A measure will be submitted to you providing that, in future, Native reserve lands shall be dealt with only by public auction or public tender : thereby abolishing the present, monopoly of dealing in such lands, securing the best price for the Native owners, and giving to every one an opportunity of competing for sales or leases. It is also under consideration how far this principle of public auction might be fairly and beneficially applied to buch Native lands as now lemain unsurveyed, or the titles to which have not yet been investigated by the Court. The disposal of such lands, with the consent of the Native owners, under the existing land laws of the colony, would greatly promote the increase of settlement, while at the same time it would secure to the Native owners the full value of their estates. Inquiries are now being made to ascertain the opinions of the Natives generally, and, if acceptable to them, a Bill tor this ptupose will be laid before you." This measure he opposed. He was not now going to say whether it was a good nieasme or a light thing to do ; he quoted from the speech merely to show how he had acted, and how the party which turned out the Grey Government had acted at that time. (Applause). When the Address-in-Reply to that speech was moved, an amendment was brought down by Mr Hall to the effect that the House had no confidence in the adviseis of his Excellency. He voted with that amendment because he had no confidence in the policy shadowed foith in the Speech. His vote was given against that policy. Now the samepolicywas brought forward, and he opposed it in a similar way by voting against the Adchess-in-Reply on a similar amendment. TheGovernor'fa Speech of 1884, says:_ — " The time has arrived when a veiy mateiial change in the mode of dealing with native lands is called for, in the interests alike of the Maori and European population. A bill will accordingly be laid before you to legulate the sale or other disposal of land belonging to aboriginal native*. E\pei ience has proved that the adandontnent of the exculsive right of purchase by the Crown has not produced the beneficial results which were anticipated by the promoters of that policy ; but that, on the other hand, direct dealing for Maori land by Europeans has been open to objections of a very grave character. The good of the colony, not less than the interest of the natives, requires a complete change ; and a bill will be submitted to you by which it will be pioposed to permit the disposal of native land only tinough the land boaids of the colony, or by diiect sale to the Crown." Now he was not going to &ay that this might not be a thoroughly efficient plan. On that point he would s<xy something later on. But when an amendment wat> bi ought down he voted for it, because it was against the policy which he had opposed in 1879. (Applause). He might have been wrong, and not being in the field, it did not matter much now whether he was or not, but they would at least admit that he had acted consistently, and that it was not his fault if he happened to be out of accoid with his side (applause). He did not put pose entering .it length into the merits of the proposal, but if they thought his opinion of any value, he would be happy to give it them. \tcantinie he would go on to show them that in the line of policy which he had adopted, and which he was sent to Parliament to support, he had not sweived from in the slightest degree. He would quote from a speech by Sir Johu Hall (then Mr Hall) on August 12th, 1381, to show them how the party had at fii fat stuck to that policy which he went in to suppoit, one of the chief planks of which was single electorates. He said, " the next question I have to consider l 1l 1 - thatth.itrnised by the amendment of the honouiable member for Totara. Whethei the colony shall be divided into single electoiates or not. I admit that a gieat deal may be said on both sides of tins question. On the one hand, it may be said that single electoiates incieabe plural voting to an undesirable extent. That 1 believe is the stock objection to them, and peihaps they willl do so to some extent ; but I believe that in piactice the plan will be found to have this effect to a much small extent than is supposed. Another objection is that the larger the number of electoral divisions the gi eater will be the expense of elections to the country. ]n favour of the single, thesmallei, electorates, ontheotherhand, there ib this, to be said : that it will sa\e candidates a gi eat deal of time and money, and theiefore widen the area of selection for the constituences. It will enable men to become candidates who could not aff oi dto contest an election in larger districts. On the whole, we considered it expedient to adopt single electorates. They would remember that these questions of representation and single electorates weie then engaging the attention of the country. He well recollected the discussions — outside as well as inside the House — upon this subject, and Mr Hall had to give way to his party, and the House then affirmed the principle of single eleetorate^. This, a^ he had said, toi one of the chief planks in the platform ofthe party, and it had been adhered to up to the present. That bill was the one, it would be remembered, the mem bars had .sat up night aftei night against the stonewalling of the Nelson membous. The principle being affirmed he thought it should be allowed to continue. At the end of the Representation Bill a clause was inserted pnniding that it should expire in 1887, and it was generally understood throughout the House that no attempt to alter its provisions would be made until that date. His object had always been to see jnstice done as between the town and the country. But rernembeiing what an undue preponderance of power the towns exercised in the old provincial days, he thought it advisable to keep the power in the country to counterbalance the floating population in the towns. It was the country people who gave stability to the State. (Applause.) Now, what would be the effect of the bill for the amalgamation of city electorates if carried into law ? It would create caucuses. Further, each elector in the towns would have the right to vote for three or four candidates, while the voter in the county could only vote for one. Caucuses having been formed in the cities the city membeis would next combine into a caucus in the House, and, in short, direct the legislation of the country. It was not right that there should be two systems in the country. If amalgamation was good for the town it was good for the country. If Auckland North and Auckland West ought to be formed, so also ought Franklin North and Franklin South, and so ought Waikato and Waipa. Mr Ballance wanted an exception made in the case of Whanganui, and oiher similar requests were made, but though great pressure was brought to bear, and notwithstanding the danger in which the bill then was, the Government party persisted in standing by the principle to the last, They might therefore judge of his astonishment when he heard that this principle was to be abandoned. He saw that the interests of the country districts were threatened. The proposed departure was of moie consequence than most people thought. It was opening a door for the destruction of the whole principle; and it was a mischievous and a wrong thing to do (applause), Referring next to the subject of perpetual leases, Mr Whitaker said if there was one thing that he disliked more than another in a new country like this, it was perpetual leasing. He had never heard but one argument in favour of it, and that was this, — that it enab}e4 a man to take up land without exhausting his oapital in the purchase of it, and thereby enabling him to carry out improvements. Hq quite agreed with this, ana would be perfectly willing that every acre of land should be put up in that way, provided only the Government would give ~a purchasing clause. But the system as proposed in the recent and proposed land bills, made np provision for this, the avowed object of the fnpneps be}qg to find sqme b,etter tenure than freehold. Unless steps w£re taken to prevent legislation^ of the sort;, they would wake,up some morning to find there was not an of t Govevnment freehold to be got. He "had asked Mr 'Rolleston, in the House, whether he wpuld .uiider-, JtaWe to! gn(H?aqtse. ' $t*s -peftpi&> VoultJ ' ;come.oufc to. the "colony/ and take up these 1 Bplwe/, the, ? scheme^ oottfd , be

deep-rooted prejudices of the -people at. the other end of the world, whom we were now asking to come out to settle on the lands. If the Government of the colony adopted doctrinaire notions, picked out of magazine articles, and ignored sentiment, the country would speedily languish ftlr want of bone and sinew. It was no easy mutter to break down sentiment, and they all know that the possession of a plot of land was a strong sentiment with the Anglo-Saxon race. The Go\ernment would not consent to put in a purchasing clause, and he therefore became an opponent of the system. He believed to some extent in the defened payment system, because it had in it the elements of freehold, but its faults were emphasised by the perpetual leasing scheme. It was well-known that the deferred payment purchasers were alw ays in arrears. Last year the amount of arrears was £3(5,000, and these people were always crying out for relief. The country might put up with that, but the defect would be greatly exaggerated under a univoisal system of „ perpetual leasing, when the leaseholder would unite in crying, " Give us the freehold of the land." The lessees would never pay. He instanced Rotorua as a case in point, and said the scheme would not hold water. He would read an extract from a speech delivered by a member of the House in ISB2 upon _ this subject. That member who was not of his party said '• — " We can come to no other conclusion than that the measure introduced— and it bears throughout its clauses evidence of the fact — is an ill-digested, crude, ill-considered Bill — a Bill in regard to which the Government are not unanimous, the details of which they have hardly scanned at all, and which bears, in my opinion, palpable evidence that the Minister of Lands has tried to gain what I conceive to be claptrap popularity by pandering to those who clamour for the nationalization of the land. If this nationalization of the land is a good system, why should it be applied only in part ? It is cither good or bad. If it is good, and the Minister ot Lands believes it to be good, and his colleagues also believe it to be good, why is it not extended to the whole of the Crown landb of the colony? The lion oi able gentleman knows he does not mean that. He did not dare to do it. He knows his ideas and the ideas of his colleagues do not go so far. I wain the honorable gentleman, if this system of leading is cauied into effect, we .shall* idproduce here exactly what was found to be produced in the case of Victoria — namely, that when a man tries to please a section of the community, without having any heait or sincerity in what he does, he will create a monster which, like that created by Frankenstein, will get beyond conti ol and frighten its creator. It is the weakest of all arguments, to say ' Let us try it : it will do no harm.' It is that weakness of chaiacter, so apparent in this Government, that leads to most of the evils which people suffer under. _ There is no compromise — cither the thing is light or it is wrong —and, if it is wrong, the man who proposes to inflict that wiong should not be trusted with the destinies of a great or even a small country. He looked upon the .scheme as an experiment which the colony could not afford to have tried upon it. The countiy was too much in debt, and it was necessary to do all that they could to promote settlement and to pay their debts. He objected to such doctrinaire notions being put forward simply to test public feeling. They had no right to tiy experiments with the public land of the colony because their lands were in some sort security to the public ci editor. It was not light that New Zealand, should be the "corpus vile" upon which ex pci mients of this kind were to be made. If the people in the old world who advocate these doctrines weie anxious to try them let them put them into effect in their own countries), but he believ ed in planting on the soil of this colony a sturdy ince of freeholders in preference to a class of State leaseholder. (Applause). He claimed that the constituents had ne\ or asked him to suppoit theso measures ; if they had ho would have come before them and le turned the trust they had placed in his hands. When he made the discovery that Government intended to go further with this theory of theh-> and to detiue some new kind of toniue, he at once called a meeting of his constituents and told them what he thought «>f it. He wished to tell them that ho had not changed his mows mi this subject. He believed there was one question on which he was out of accoid with a considerable section of the people of the colony, but he felt certain that what he was going to say abmfc pre-cinpthe right would turn out to he absolutely coirect. Ho wished them to dis-e\er the subject from that of selling native lands through the Ciown Linds Boards. The one should not have bean mixed up with the other at all. What had been the effect of thi-s pre-emptive right. The hist thing it did was to cause the Waitara War. It was the attempt of the Government to enforce this principle in the case of William King that caused the whole of the tioublc. A native before tho Wciikato war used the following metaphor : — Suppose, he said, I had a pig and took it to a butcher, who was willing to ghe me 2jd a pound for it, but refeired mo to another butchei who alone had the light to buy. I afterwards take my pig to that man, and he offers me lAd. Am I to sell it to him at that price, of go without selling my pig? The natn e naturally asks "Why shall I have only one market?'" It was paiticulaily stated by Mr Bryce, in 1880, that the land which had been acquired by the Government had never been sold for as much as was given for it, so that the system of Government purchase was an absolute dead loss to the country. He would lead to them what Mr Bryce had said in reference to this system, and the case was not over-stated a bit. Mi Bryce, who was a gentleman of integrity and honour, who would never do anything but what was right, and he (Mr Whitaker) had not a word to say against him. It was true that Mr Bryce was a little obstinate, but that was nothing. (Laughter.) If they had a guaianteo that Mr Biyce would lne to see this system faithfully carried out then there might be something in it, and he (Mr Whitaker) might nob hesitate to accept it : but in reviewing <vhat had been done in the past, lie felt that there was a chance of the same thing happening again. Mr Bryce spoke as follows; — t( I have said that of late the land-purchase system (Government) attained a magnitude hitherto undreamed of, and I think the House must be ftware of that from the statement I made last year. In fact," there are agieements outstanding now to the extent of far more than a million gtciling. But I have also feaid that the way in which theso transac tions were cairied on was woise than had ever been practised pioviously. Now, I think it is my duty, and it is not foreign to the subject, to show how the present purchase system has worked in order to prove that a change is necessary. I despair of being able to make the House understand the terrible iniquity of the sjsteni which has been in vogue duriug the last few years. I quite despair of it. The knowledge ih .growing upon me day by day, and day by day I am beginning to think it is worse and worse than I pieviously supposed. I shall do my best, before I sit down, to make the House understand what has been going on in connection with these purchases. I shall, at any rate, give a few examples by which the House may judge, and I hope I shall convince honourable members that the present system must not continue. Now, Sir, as a matter of theory a person would suppose, under our present law, that no money ought to be advanced until the title has been ascertained— -until, in fact, you know you are paying the money to the owner. But it is a matter of common notoriety that this has been systematically disregarded, both by Government agents and by agents purchasing on behalf of private individuals. In fact, the advance system has been the great feature in our method of purchasing Native lands. In the Government purohases we have dropped of late into the most objectionable way of making advances that I know of. The making of advances is in itself, if carried to any great extent, sufficiently objectionable ; but the particular mode which has been adopted, of making a,dvan,a,e,s is. fap more objectionable than the payment of money would be : I mean the system of giving orders upon storekeepers. That system has been abused to a degree which I cannot fchink the House can be aware of." These iniquities arose in this way. The Government had to employ a large number of agents. Private mdi viduals could look after their agents hut the Government could not, and all over the country these individuals 'committed, great iniquities. When to all this was added tbe fact that the land invariably costs more than it could be sold for, they would understand why he objected to th« system. With regard to the proposal for selling the land through tho Crown L,ands Boards, .these Qb.jefltio.ns cjidnat, of .course, hold good. * All he had to say about this scheme was that it' was juttefly^iinpracticable, * /It ajways tajteih 'two fa B^^y^*F^ v^w^lfSflyl

could not go* to Ihe riativ^afid W,^*'Y<ft * must do this," or, -'Yon'tnusJ; do that." The native in that case would do nothing at all, and the country would -remain looked up. In 1882, the Native Reserves* BiH'waa brought down, which provided ifor the leasing of native land. Mr Bryce and Mr Rolleston were rtuiiiing»in tEejsaTnrfe^fcove/ and would, if they, could, co'nvert the Vhols country into one vast leasehold block. He (Mr Whitaker) objected to the" bill, but, subsequently, when the Government said it,., would be made a. question of their remaining' in oifice, hti Voted' tor it. Now, from tbat day to the present, he did not believe there had been one single application from the natives to bring l»pd w under the operation of this measure— and if" remained a dead letter in the- Statute Book. It was not possible to make people deal with their property in a certain way if they could not agree to it. The first 'thing 'neces- , sary under this new system would be a separate department, which would probably cost about £20,000 or £30,000 a year. At the present ifc was estimated that the expenses of- survey, sale, &c, amounted to about 75 per cent, of the proceeds of Crown lands, so that the natives would probably get about 25 per ; cent, of the value of their lands, and thU after they have Avaited five or six years for the Government to find ' purchasers for their lands. The result would be that the first native vendor under this system would go away shaking his head, and none of tho other natives -would come forward. In connection with this matter a very reasonable proposal had been made. The Government was going to spend a largo Mim of money on tho Trunk railway — and, by the way, they need not be afraid that this line was in any danger. No Ministry which would dare to ' oppose tins line would stand a day — Now this line would go right through the North Island, and he thought it most reasonable and right (and power wa* given to do it under existing acts) that a certain area of land on either side of the line vshould be proclaimed : it was the application of tins principle to thewhole country that he objected to. While they would agree with him that some lestriction ought to be put on the sale of the land near this particular railway, they would also agree with him that there weie heaps of land in the interior of the conntry for which they would not care to give Cd an acre, and any person who would stock it with sheep would be a benefactor of the country. Land differed so much in quality that it was impossible to apply any fited rules to it. If in three years from the present time he should have the honour of addressing them they would, he believed, admit that he knew what he was talking about, and that be was right. The views he had put before them weie the result of much study and earnest thought, and he had clung to them for a long period of years. If they had never departed from the system of pre-emptive light from the beginning all would have been well, and the story of the war would be unwritten ; but it was utterly useless to think they could settle the country in that way now. Now, these three things, namely, amalgamation of city electorates, perpetual leasing, and the resumption of the pre-emptive right, being in the Hawera and then in the Go\ernor's speech, and following so closely the lesignatkm of the kte Premier, showed him conclusively that a fres.h departure was intended from the principles he had always been wedded to, and he, therefoie, felt that he could not s=uppoit the Government. That this was the impression conveyed to the public mind was made e\ ident by the newspaper extract which he had read to them. Accordingly, when the motion of no-confidence was moved ho supported it on the grounds he had told them of that nighty It had been said that ho should have waited until the objectionable measures were brought down, and then voted against them, but five years of Parliamentary life had taught him better than that. None of those measures had been before the people, but the perpetual leasing scheme had been before the House and had been approved of, and he felt that the House as then constituted would pass the measure. As they weie within a few months of tho end of the Parliament he thought it right that these fundamental questions should be brought before the country. If once innovations of this kind wei c allowed to creep in.long before the uus3 of the people knew about it they became facts. These measures ought not to have boon brought forward in the last session at all. It was proper that the country should make its voice heard on them first (applause), It was possibla that the country might differ from him on tha question of pre-emnthe right, but the chief support to the principle would come fiom the South. He would a<*k them to look carefully at the di\ i.sions on this subject and .see if lie was not light. And why would the South so vote? He would tell them. Because they knew very well what the e(Fect of the measure would be, namely, to lock up tho land of the North, and turn the tide of capital southwards for investment. Although the niatteis he had spoken of might seem to possess somewhat ot an abstract character, he could assuie them that they deserved their best consideration. Great fundamental principles such as these were of infinitely greater importance than a road or a bridge. (Applause.) He had been asked at the Kihikihi meeting why he had on previous occasions voted with the Government when- he did not belie\e in some of their actions. His answer to this was that he would never consent to break with his party upon trivial grounds. So long as he agreed with the Government in their main policy, he would yield upon all minor points, and vote with the Ministry rather than turn them out. (Applause.) A member must look at the geneial scope of a policy, and having summed it up must ask himself the question— " Can I support it?" This was> what he had done, and this wai the explanation why he had at ono time suppoited the Ministry, and why he had afterwards opposed it. He was not before them to plead that his views weie the light ones, but simply to claim that his conduct had been consistent. (Applause). He would not like it to be said that he had done that which he had promised not to do. He had faithfully followed the Ministiy up to the time when they did tbat which was not for the benefit of the colony. Ho then left them, and he had called the electors of Wai pa together to tell them his reasons for doing so. He would not detain them further. He was there to tell them that he had done his duty to the best of his ability, and if on any point he had been mistaken, which he felt that he had not, he was certain that those who bad so loyally supported him in the past would simply put it down to an error of judgment, and not to that , baseness of intention which had been im- ' puted to him in certain quarters. Mr Whitaker resumed his teat amidst loud and continued applause. Capt. Steele said he had much pleasure in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr Whitaker for the very exhaustive and interesting speech he had delivered to them that evening. Hitherto he had been one of Mr Whitaker's warmest supporters, and he expected to be classed as such in the future. He thought they would all agree that Mr Whitaker had been a good member for the distiict, and had always looked after its interest. (Loud applause.) Mr W. Macgregor Hay supported the motion, and in doing so took occasion to say that he entirely agreed with Mr Whitakei's views on the" land question, and that the thorough individualisation of the native title was the real solution of the difficulty. The motion was put to the meeting and carried unanimously. Mr Whitaker in returning thanks said : Mr Chairman and Gentlemen : I thank you cordially for the reception you have given me to-night. I feel that the vote of ;hanks which has been moved by my * late and future supporter, Gapt. Steele,-^ and which has been so heartily responded 1 to, means this -.—That you have been good enough toconsiderthatlhave rendered some service to the State and to this constituency, and that the confidence whioh you have on two previous occasions been good enough to repose in ma has been returned to you inviolate. Gentlemen, I again heartily thank you for the vote which you have passed. (Prolonged applause). ■A. vote of thanks to the ohair, moved by Mr Whitaker-, brought the meeting to a close.

The Sydney health authorities bave proposed that an intercolonial conference be held tq arrange for the 'establishment of a federal quarantine. The Central Board of Health in Melbourne has reported favourably of the scheme, and it is to come; before the. 1 Victorian; Cabinetshortly, .... THERBia & seat; in *the>*Ttiwn r Police Court (says/tlie BalWat Courier) known as the publicans' siitiifgj,* because it is oc> ,cupie4i so|%f tof^dtfday^mbrnings by t^^|^|^^e a look