MB. SCOBIE MACKENZIE AT MOUNT IDA.

Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 63, 12 September 1887, Page 4

MB. SCOBIE MACKENZIE AT MOUNT IDA.

[By Telegraph. | [united pbeBB association.] Dunedin, 10th September. Mr. Scobio Mackenzie addressed the Mount Ida electors at Naseby last night, the Mayor occupying tho ohair. Mr. Mackonzie aaid ho would say nothing- but his honest convictiona. Ho did not care whether tboy wore popular or otherwise. Expenditure wan steadily going up aud incomo steadily coming down, and travelling expenses and othor tilings over whioh Ministers had fall control we.ru scandalously ineroaiort. A largo portion of these exponsos, he said, wore simply legalised spoil by an organised bund of public plunderers, disregarding tho toil of tbo taxpayers. I'hoy periodically sot ont on marauding or filibustering expeditions against the peoplo of Now Zealand. That was wbat Ministers' travelling trips actually woro. (Choors.) The country imperatively required a policy of stern, unrolcnting economy, and a lower scale of expenditure to got true retrenchmont. The first step was to stop tho loan moneys ; then all the moneys for roads and bridgoa, buildings, native lands, immigration, and a host of othor things would be thrown on the Consolidated Fund ; and, to make room for absoluto necessaries, the pooplo wonld, by atom compulsion, bo compelled to effeot such retrenchment as it had never, for seventeen years, entered into the hoart of a New Zealander to conceive. (Choors.) Then jobbery and corruption would die. At present, when the Government wanted to mako themselves popular, they scattered tho loan money about, and if a parliamentary mouth was clamorous it was shut with loan money. If a member could not roooinmond himself to his constituents by any other means, he could stagger homo under a load of loan money. (Langhter.) It requirod no brains— only baokbono. (Renewed langhtor.) Referring to railways, ho said the proposal to complote all tho lines, including the Otago Central to Lako Hawea, was pure nonsense. All tho railways that really required finishing, in the proper sense of the term, including tho Otago Central as far aa tho Taieri Lake, could be finished for .£5,000,000, and that sum must be obtained. As regarded tho land fund and settlement tho career of the Govornmont was the most awful record of bungling conceivable. In 1884 they had taken over tho land fund with a credit of .£BO,OOO, and they left it the othor day with a deficiency of .£54,000. Any Govornmont by the expenditure of .£70,000 could get settlers on tho land as had been done lately on tho spocial settlements scheme- ; but any-. one who know tho difficulty of gotting on in this part of the country with even 320 acres of good land could jadgo for himself whether men, carted on to 32 aores of romoto bush land at the public expense, would take root thereon and flourish. The proper teat of settlement was the deferred payment system, and undor that more settlements went on under their predecessors than under tho present Government. (Applause) Dealing with the issue of tho election, ho said it was not education. Every attempt in tho Houso to attack the educational systems had boon repellod by onormoua majorities. Nothing more ridioulons had ever been seen than the spectacle of the Premier rushing over tho colony at the pnblic expense, and hysterically soreaming that he would go out of Parliament if the education system wero touched. He (Mr. Mackenzie) was a strong supporter of State education. He advised the meeting if over thoy heard the Promier or anyono else say he would go ont of Parliament if any department, for which the peoplo wero taxed, wm touched, to make to him the ready answer of an Englishman : "In God' a name, go I" There was no department on earth too saorod to bo touohed. When the leading men of New Zealand wero building up tho present ednoatipn system, the Premier was engaged in writing pamphlets against it. Sir Robert Stout was iv Parliament when the Bill was brought forward, and he made a miserable carping speeoh, almost dreading to give it six months' shrift, and declaring that it was years too soon. On tho second reading he did not even record his vote. Mr. Mackenzio thon dealt with the progressive property tax, and pointed out that tho oaroor of the Government had been simply a crusade against the property tax. Coming to protection, he said that was not the real issue. Ho read the Financial Statement of 1885, where the Government deolared that they abjured protection, denounced it as an unhealthy fostering of native industries, and asserted that they wonld only assist commanding industries liko the fisheries, and that only by bounties, and now Ministers wero clamoring for higher duties as the salvation of New Zealand. They now abjured their own abjuration. Who had ohanged ? Sir R. Stout said he had not ohangod for 16 years ; but what were convictions with other mon wore simply briefs with Sir Robert Stout. When the Promier was out of Parliament ho was a legal practitioner ; when he was in Parliament he was also a, legal practioner — ho simply removed his practice from the bar of tho law Conrts to the bar of the House. That was the explanation. Give him enough support and ho would take up a Parliamentary brief for anybody, and of course he was not conscious of any change. An order bad been sent down to Sir Robert Stout by some half dozen or bo of his (Mr. Mackenzio's) opponets to send up a candidate for Mount Ida, and a candidate had been duly sent, packed, and labelled and addressed to them like so many feet of ironpiping — (laughter) — " This side up, with oaro. ' Whon they camo to open that E* they would find very little in it. htor.) There was a telegram from tho er stuck up in a shop window in Naseby to say that Mr. Hodge camo in the Liberal interest. Yet all tho Liberal candidate oould Bay was that he (Mr. Mookenzio) had purohaaod his furniture from England ! Could degradation, or could infamy in politics go farther? True Liberalism consisted in freedom, and so long as he was an Englishman he wonld pnrohaso his goods where he pleased. It waa deplorable that protection harpies should come to Naseby to attack tho very first principles of liberty. It was said that Sir R. Stout himself was coming up to speak for his faototum. He (Mr. Mackenzie) invited him to do so, and hoped the peop 'of Mount Ida wonld kindly remit his ongagethonts so that he could take the saino platform a.-\ the Premier. The real issue was whother wo were to retain a radically bad and vicious QoYGrnmenb. Nothing on earth would induce him to support thorn. Lot that be olearly understood. Mr. Mackenzio olosod his address with an eloqnent appeal to the doctors to support true and honest principles. A fow questions wero asked, and a vote of thanks and entire confidence was unanimously carried amidst great cheering.