TOWN AND COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVES.

Press, Volume XLVI, Issue 7383, 8 August 1889, Page 5

TOWN AND COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVES.

PHILIPPIC BY MX SAUNDEBS. £Bt TttXGBAraO [TOOK OXTB. COKJ£»SPOVD«NT.] WELLINGTON, August 7. Mr Saundets made come remarks tonight as to the advantages city representation had over the country. Speaking as a country member he said that his observations of the last thirty years had allowed him to form some idea of the influence the four cities had on the representation of New Zealand. Commencing with Dunedin, he asserted that when that place was inhabited by Scotchmen only the influence of its public men was good, and nothing but good, and if he could not be an Englishman he would be a Scotchman. (Laughter.) Scotchmen were the easiest governed people in the world, and at the same time they always managed to govern "yell. While theii influence as pure Scotchmen was exceedingly good in this House, a race had grown up since whose influence went altogether in the other direction. The people, since they had been mixed up with Australian adventurers, seemed to have the same power without the same prudence, force and foresight, and the result was that they had sent up representatives like Sir J. Yogel and the late Mr Macandrew, who had been guilty of raising loans, expenditure and extravagance, which the pure Scotchman never dreamt of, and would never have sanctioned. His observations had led him to the conviction that the influence of the great city of Dunedin—great and good and important a city as it was—had of late years been exceedingly bad in this House. Then he came up to his own (neighborhood of Christchurch, and he admitted they had got a very peculiar race of politicians from that city. They called themselves Liberal, and yet the politics they had adopted were the most illiberal that he had ever heard of in any country in the world. They had said in this House that minorities should not have a voice, and yet when their turn, came of being in a minority they wanted all the voice. Oae great reason why the cities should not have so much representation as the country districts was that during the whole of this session their representatives had taken up considerably more than half of the whole time of the House with their speeches. An excellent arrangement would be that representation should be regulated by the number of hours' talk indulged in, in which case the cities would not, so far as the number of members went, be more than adequately represented. (Laughter.) One of the great evils the country complained of in j connection with Christchurch represents- I tives was that they were the advocates of monopolies. The Liberals of Christchurch were protectionists and monopolists. They put taxes on the farmers' ploughshares, on his manure and clothes, and on the tools of miners and farmers, with a view of maintaining some paltry industry or manufactory in the town, but were not prepared to protect farming and agricultural industries of the country. Then the Auckland members had talked very freely in the House, and had often made compacts with the South, and as a result of their compacts the rest of the country had shared very badly in t$L& plunder that were going on. He advocated that the representation of Wellington should be rooted out root, and branch. The principal reason why Wellington should send no members to the House was this : They came here invariably as representatives not of the taxpayers of the country, but of the tax receivers, and were, in short, advocates of everything in the shape of extravagance and of robbing the country. No man would have a chance of being elected for Wellington unless it was known he stood as a determined advocate in the way of extravagance. Wellington took everything it could out of the poor, miserable, over-taxed farmers of the country, and as the sexfc of Government was sufficiently, represented.