POLITICS, THE CHRISTCHURCH "PRESS," AND MR REEVES.

Press, Volume LIII, Issue 9322, 24 January 1896, Page 6

POLITICS, THE CHRISTCHURCH "PRESS," AND MR REEVES.

Mr T. E. Taylor at his meeting last night Waa, after speaking for nearly an hour, attacked with faintness and had to retire for a while. The Rev. F. W. Isitt and Mr Biltcliffe filled up the breach. The Rev. Mr Isitt, having said something eulogistic of ** Tom," as he familiarly called the candidate, continued—He rejoiced that Mr T. E. Taylor was an out-and-out Radical, and be believed, as he himself did, in progressive ideas. Their friends the Press were indignant at him because of these progressive ideas. He (Mr Isitt) would tell them a fact. The Christohurch Press was born in 1861 to oppose the Lyttelton tunnel and railway. It came into existence to oppose that great movement, and it had been at it •aver since. It came, they would see, into existence to heap dishonour upon William Befton Moorhouse because he was a man with one idea—(Applause)—and the one ides was that it was better to go through a difficulty by means of a tunnel and train to go over it by a track and packfnorae. The Christohurch Press had been 'the packhorse since then. (Loud applause.) They had got a man, and they were going to pat him in, even if the Christchuroh Prsss oried -'track and paokhorse" until it was black in the face. (Very loud applause.) Ha said this because be claimed to know pretty well as muoh as any man in Christchurch what the outlook was. (Loud applause.) Mr Bi-TCLIFJ-- said that if he wanted anything to lead him how he should go as a working and thinking man, he would read the Press leading articles. They would suffice to show him that Mr Taylor was a man the Psbss detested, and whom the workers should liko. (Applause.) He also wanted to know what the Lyttelton 'Times meant by asking in a leading article a Liberal to support a certain party, when it had not advocated suoh a course itself on all occasions. In Mr T. E. Taylor they had a man who was well qualiSed to take up tho position of the man who had deserted the labour ranks, and had gono to help the aristocracy at Home. (Loud laughter.) That was what the Hon. Mr Reeves had done, and how a conscientious Minister of Labour could desert tiio measures he had brought forward, which were not yet comStated, was more than he could understand, he Factory Act and many other measures were incomplete, for they should be such that tho Inspector could get the information wanted without those affected having to lay informations, and thus lay themselves open to a oharge. For a man who professed to be sincet- in his labour measures as Mr Reeves did, for him to desert them as he had dono i-id then to go away without saying good-1-ye to hia friends, was not the kind of treatment, thoy expected from a man who had prof eased friendship so strongly. (Very lou,-" a-jplause.)