MR WASON AT SOUTH RAKAIA.

Press, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5025, 15 October 1881, Page 3

MR WASON AT SOUTH RAKAIA.

On Thursday evening-, Mr J. C. Wason addressed the electors of the Wakanni constituency tin the Town Hall, Sooth Bakaia, which was well filled. Mr C. K. Mackie was voted to the chair, and briefly introduced the candidate. Mr Wason, who, on coining forward, was greeted with applause, expressed the Reuse of pleasure he experienced on being afforded on opportunity of explaining his views on matters intimately connected with the future of the country, a nnmber of important questions being on the tapis at the present time. It was a very fine thing to stand up before an audience like that and boast oneself to be an independent candidate, prepared to vote "aye " or "ao" according to the dictates of a noble conscience. In practice, however, this did not work. It was usually with independence as with virtue— those who made most noise about it had the least of it. The politician who would fain stand aloof, and from a 'lofty pinnacle of self-conceit lecture the House on what it should or or should not do, would be apt to find himself sitting between two stools, a useless representative to both his constituency and the country. So-called independence in politics resembled independence in other walks of life; and the lawyer, clergyman, doctor, laboring man or artisan, fairly successful in his profession, yet constantly bragging of his independence, would be a wonderful and unusual specimen. In reality our interests were all mutnally bound together, nor could we stand alone in any line of life. The sole examples of independence of which he was aware were those of the noble savage lighting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, the Malay with his crease running a muck, and a mad dog. For a man to be of practical service it was necessary for him to take a side. The first question to be asked in Wellington of their representatives would be as to whether or not a member had confidence in the Ministry. To that question, if honored by election, he would be able to give an unhesitating affirmative. The present Government deserved the confidence of the conntry because they had been iudu-triouo, had set themselves sensibly to work in matters of finance, had often sat quietly under abuse rather than waste time in fruitless discussion, and had passed most important measures. Through the representation Bill the people had been given an efficient voice, rotten boroughs had been swept away, and the people would be able to return candidates proportionate in number to population. It had been said that gratitude was a lively sense of favors to come, and he was not prepared to vote for any Ministry unless tangible good might reasonably be expected from them. It was not true that the Government had misused their opportunities, but it was a fact that much good had been thwarted by unprecedented opposition and stonewalling. Last May at Leeston, before the House met, the Premier pledged himself to important reforms in the lland laws. One object all desired to obtain was that every man shonld be able to sit and smoke his pipe under his own haystack or vine tree. A progressive land tax had been proposed, based on what some were pleased to call the unimproved value of land; but this plan would not work satisfactorily. A hundred acres in one place might be valuable, while a thousand elsewhere might be useless. An acre in Christcburch would not compare in value with an acre on the top of Mount Hutt. Numbers of people had been induced to come out here, and then steps had been taken .to tax them to the verge of confiscation.. We were a young country, impatient of abuses, and having , almost a clear sheet on which to write our laws. Through the pressure of business the Premier had been unable to introduce the question of the alienation of land to the Lower House; but through the Attorney-General the matter had been brought under notice of the Upper House. An Alienation of Land Bill was by far the most important measure for consideration. The evils resulting from entail, wills and settlements were familiar, culminating in the reversion of land to its native etate, in ruined fences and ruined walls: He wee not speaking of a country in which unhappily dissensions had ever prevailed, but of peaceful Scotland, where the "dead man's grip upon land " was known as " mortification," being a contact of the dead with the living, embodying a principle of ancient punishment under which a dead body was chained to a living one. Already in the colony the disposition of land after I death was limited, and it had been proposed to enact that a man shonld have no power to deal with land after his death, beyond the power of directing in his will to whom the land should i belong at his death. The keen amassing of acre upon acre would cease oitee land became purchasable equally with other property. The agricultural distress in England might be teace' to the fact of the unfortunate nominal owner being destitute of capital; hence uncut fences and buildings out of repair. If a man wished to sell his land, a dead hand arose from the grave and forbade the sale. An able article on this subject had beea published in an Australian paper by Mr Higgine, M.A., who quoted from Mill to the effect that whatever facilitates land passing into other hands tended to augment its productiveness, and thereby its usefulness to the nation at "large, since those amofcg the owners who were-least provided .with skill; enterprise, and capital were those who were under the strongest inducements to sell their land. As the law now stood, anyone possessing land (not under the Land. Transfer Act) might leave it locked up for, perhaps, a hundred years. The Distress for Bent Abo- . lition Bill was a dry bat important snfcjecfc. Tha law was a feudal remnant ol paert times to create rich and powerful landlords nn&.atrngglins tenants. In introducing the second reading of the Bill, Mr Whitaker defined it as "a Jaw made to prevent those people who ruled the "country from losing , anything in the way of debts." A tradesman supplying goods, and wishing to obtain payment, must obtain a decision of .Court, and then levy execution; but where rent was in arrear thb landlord.could seize what he liked, and the tenant must go to Court. .Even the fact of a landlord's accepting additional security would not deprive him of the right to seize. In 1879 occurred the case of _ Lake v Dnppa. There were Tour and a half years* vent due to Dnppa from his tenant, a poor man. Lake, a grazier,. knowing nothing of the monetary relations between Duppa and his tenant, arranged with the tenant to run a flock of sheep on i the-land which the tenant leased from Ihjppa. ■' Previously the landlord had never distrained torrent, bnt so soon as Lake's cheep were on the land down came the landlord'and distrained them. An action for wrongful seizure and excessive distress was bronsrht by Lake against Dnppa,-and thereby Lake lost over £250. A similar case occurred near Bakaia, when a farmer, having agreed with a friend to place sheep on his land to feed oS a field of turnips, had a valuable flock seized. In another local case of recent hardship, a man's horses and ploughs had been distrained upon. Even now goods of third persons which happened to be on the tenant's premises, in the way of his trade, and also goods in the hands of a factor or agent for sale, were not distrainable. The goods of lodgers were also to an extent exempt. On what principle, then, were a stranger's Bheep or cattle allowed to be sacrificed to a landlord's cupidity? In Scotland, by the Act of 1867. the stock of a third party, taken on a farm to graze, was liable only to the amount of consideration payable for the grazing—a very much fairer principle. By the law relating to fixtures, as it now stood, a man fairly conversant with law could, as a tenant, put up almost any builiing by an ingenious use of screws and bolts, with liberty to remove it at the expiration of his lease; while another tenant, ignorant of the law, might lose valuable property. On this point the Government promised us reform, so that no man shonld be at a loss through his own ignorance and the rapacity of his landlord. The Beal Property Limitation Bill was the fourth of the series of Beform Bills. From the inception of law there had been statutes of limitation. During the Boman Empire actions could not be brought after a lapse of thirty, or in some cases, forty years. In England, in the reign of William IV., it was enacted that no person should bring- an action for the recovery of lands except within twenty years next after the time at which the right to bring such action should have first accrued. In 1874, by the Beal Property Limitation Act, the time was restricted to twelve years, except in certain cases of persons laboring under disability; and he certainly thought that twelve years' peaceable possession shonld be sufficient. Joshua Williams, in writing of the two different systems for regulating the enjoyment and transfer of property, had stated that the laws of real estate, though venerable for their antiquity, were in the same degree ill adapted to the requirements of modern society, whilst the laws of personal property, beiegof more rece&t origin, were proportionably suited "to modern times. These laws could not, indeed, be now said to forma system. Theirpresent state was not that in which they could remain. "For the future, perhaps, the wisest course to he followed would be to aim as far as possible at a uniformity of system in the laws of both kinds of property, and for this purpose, rather to take the laws of persoaal estate as the model to which the laws of real estate should be made to conform than, on the one hand, to preserve all the ancient rules because they were once usefnl, or, on the other, to be annually plucking off by Parliamentary enactment the fruit which such rules, until eradicated, must necessarily produce." He (Mr Wason) was sorry to find the Premier advocating the reform of the Upper House. The present constitution of it seemed eminently satisfactory. What could be more beautiful in theory than*that the body politic should elect a hundred of the "best men available to represent it, that these hundred should meet to appoint seven of their number as an executive committee, and that this committee should ' select 40 or £0 men distinguished for their age and senatorial wisdom. HA voice—"lt's very doubtful."] If the system m vogue did not work satisfactorily, the constituents had themselves to blame. It had been suggested that the Upper House should be comprised of half the number of the Lower House, and be elected by the latter by ballot. Such a plan would inevitably give rise to wearying canvassing and log-rolling by members, and, were such plan adopted, the will of the people on some pressing qaestion might be thwarted for years. Aβ it was now, let any Ministry have a fair majority at its back, and he defied the Upper House to stop the consideration of a pressing question, or do more than impose a passing check upon it. The people, in point of fact, were at present absolutely powerful: It was to be regretted that the question of railways and their management had not been, satisfactorily dealt with. We found farmers had been in pocket by driving their stock to market, and by <atrrying their produce by team in competition with lie railway. Flesh and blood had been triumphant against tteam! This should not be, and an alteration in this respect .was needed. [Applause.] The same arguments were now used in regard to mile- ■ age rates tkat used to be urged against the postage , system advocated by Bowland Hill. The adoption of a uniform railway rate was required,, charges to be by weight, and pre-payment te be adapted. For similar reasons was it that a letter wa# carried for twopence from the Bay of Islands to the Bluff, and for the same sum from Bakaia to Christchurch. Where was the use of enticing people fo come out if they were taxed to such an extent that they could not live? Some had suggested that a Board should be appointed. With euch a proposal Be had no sympathy. H sash & Board were to he elected, many important functions of government would be done away with: if it were to be nominated, and hold continual office, a tyrannical master would thus be introduced. If the Board were nominated, and to be removable at the pleasure of Government, a hundred fold more political power would he thus introduced. Hitherto, the laudable coarse had been followed of keeping politics and the Civil Service asunder. A Premier was appointed to manage affairs, and he wbb reepone-

ble. In the event of things going wronff, he wonld be told to clear out. T?aken altogether, the present system was commendable, and was not more liable to abuse than any other system. Thanks to the present Government, elections would in future be conducted on a better principle than formerly. For paid agent*, paid canvassers, hired traps, and express trains, there wonld be no need. So far as he was concerned, there would be no necessity for committee", End he hoped every man would be a committee in himself. This matter of election was entirely in the electors' own hands. Whatever the result might be, he sincerely hoped that the proceedings wonld assume a business-like form. LApplaose.j In reply to questions, the candidate stated that he thought the present Educational Act satisfactory. Education was almost free; it was secular, thus obviating trouble and dissension; and, at the op ion of committees, it became compulsory. The practice of giving land for nothing had been tried, but had invariably been found wanting. [Cheers and laughter.'l The statement that no Besident Magistrate, with one alleged exception— that of Mr Ayliner—wonld give a laboring man judgment for wages, he (Mr Wason) heard with | regret, nor could he help thinking that the gentleman in the Hall who made the statement must be misinformed. As to the question whether an employer of labor, having gone bankrupt, could not be forced to pay a penny of I wages over a month due, he (Mr Wason) thought the employer should be called on to pay much more frequently than that question implied, and that it would be well if wages were paid weekly in hard cash instead of in cheques. [Cheers.] Upon the question of removing the local post office from its alleged dangerous position, he would be glad to bestow his attention, should he receive a memorial on the subject from the inhabitants. The Local Optionßill, he thought, must have been in practice for some time before an unreserved expression of opinion as to its merits could be given. He agreed with the principle that it should lie with the people to decide whether they should or should not have in their midst a certain number of licensed houses. In regard to the Property Tax Bill, he was in favor of direct taxation. He held out no hope of the abolition of the property tax. It was fair, exempting property to a certain amount, and touching all parties pretty weU alike. On Mr Brinunicombe's motion, seconded by Mr Shellock, it was proposed thit a vote of thanks should be tendered to Mr Wason for his address. On Mr W. L. Allen's motion, seconded by the Bey. B. Weetbrooke, an amendment was proposed —" That this meeting has every confidence in Mr WasoH as its representative, and will do its utmost to secure his return to Parliament. The amendment was put, and was carried without opposition. A vote of thanks to the chairman was proposed by Mr Wason, and was carried by acclamation.