GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 250, 21 October 1891, Page 5

GOVERNMENT POLICY.

THE PREMIER IN DUNEDIN".

PROPOSED LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL

APPOINTMENTS.

(BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

DuNEDijr, this day. The Premier arrived in town yesterday. A deputation iroin the Protection League waited on him to ascertain hia views with reference to legislation on the tariff next session. The Premier said ib was perfectly clear the tariff required revision, as a number of anomalies have arisen in its administration. The subject would receive careful consideration during the recess. In the course of a conversational discussion the Premier said hia views were entirely in favour of protection, but they did not go very much beyond the present tariff, which he was convinced required revision to remove anomalies.

The Premier addressed a public meeting in the Princess Theatre last evening. Despite the boisterous weather, the building was filled. The Mayor, Mr Carroll, presided.

The Premier said they had been told that the se33ion was one of great expectations, but that little came from such expectations. He was prepared to at once make the admission that even from the Government standpoint the events of the session had not been altogether satisfactory, but he contended that this was owing to circumstances altogether beyond the control of the Government and of the members of the House of Representatives. It was said that the Government should not have dropped the Land Bill, but should have accepted the amendments of the Legislative Council. As the Bill was amended the inevitable effect would have been to enable persons to purchase lands for speculative purposes, make a statutory declaration and improvements and sell again. ■ The amendments made were calculated in the highest degree So favour monopoly and speculation, and the tendency of the Council had always been to oppose all liberal land legislation. His own opinion was that we should sell no more land at all, and thab there would be no freehold in fehe colony in twenty years. When the next Land Bill went up to the Legislative Council ib should be a measure containing only perpetual leases, and the Government should be so sustained by the people of the colony that the Counoil itself would be awed into passing the Bill. (Cheers.) The Government did nob mean to stuff the Council, but would put in a few members of the right colour, and they hoped to get them from all parts of the colony. They would probably aak their friends to meet in the large centres, and suggest suitable nominees. (Cheers.) Care would be taken that those appointed represented the flesh and blood of the country, the manhood of the country, and the liberal and democratic instincts of the country, and he was satisfied that we should then have a better second chamber than wo have at the present time. Hβ denied thab the Railway Commissioners had .improved the management and administration of the railways, and said that they had been saved from the universal hostility of the farming classes by trouble between the railway employees and Commissioners. In his opinion, but for these differences the Acb appointing the Commissioners would have been repealed and the Commissioners would now be no more. As to the compulsory insurance scheme, it was wrong to force employees of either the Railway Commissioners or of large shipping companies from coercing their employees into joining any society, and in this connection he hoped thao Sir George Grey's Friendly Societies Amendmept Bill would yet pass into force. As to Labour Bills, Mr Ballance said that, in consequence of the enormous waste of time thab had taken place in the discussion of other measures, the Government saw it was idle to try and press through the Conciliation Bill, but they hoped that another session would not pass before ib became law. Female franchise was a burning question. Some people argued that if the ladies got votes there would be a Tory reaction, and that no Liberal Government .would again be in office in New Zealand for a quarter of a century. He had given every facility to hare the measure passed, and if he could devise any means of getting a concensus of the opinion of the colony he should be happy to do so. The fault of Mr Bryce's resignation was not thab of the Government, or of the Speaker, or of the House, bub of the member for Waikato himself, who had suffered the consequences of defying the chair.

In answer to questions, the Premier said that he did not consider the present form of central government satisfactory, because it should be accompanied by some more satisfactory form of local government. His own opinion was that the local governing bodies should have larger powers than they now possessed. One of the reforms of the future should be the extension of the one man one vote principle to municipal and country councils. On the motion of Dr. Fibchett, the meeting, amid cheers, proposed a vote of thanks to the Premier for his address, and of confidence in his Government.

The Aremier returns to Christchurch from Dunedin on Thursday without going South.

The Premier said be was favourable to assimilating the conditions of contract to those in vogue in Victoria.