The Evening Star SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1883.

Evening Star, Issue 6259, 7 April 1883, Page 2

The Evening Star SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1883.

Tiie election of Mr E. J. Lee for Selwyn is a severe blow to the Opposition, who are thus defeated in a part of the country where they deemed their influence paramount, and in the person of a candidate whose qualifications are far above the average of the party. The Hon. E. Richardson’s defeat affords another example of the inability of electors to understand and appreciate conversions of opinion which do not admit of explanation on public grounds. Mr Richardson apparently had everything in hia favor. If not a brilliant he is at least an experienced politician, has held office in more than one Cabinet, and is credited with specific knowledge of railway management. In private life he is esteemed, and his services have always been available for local purposes. He, however, presented himself to the constituency as a bitter irreconcilable opponent of the Ministry, with the leading members of which he has for years been intimately connected by party ties, and this has proved fatal to his success. Mr E. J. Lee is the son of an old pioneer in the district from whence the rising township of Leeston takes its name, but except as an active member of the Selwyn County Council is unknown, in public life. Judging from his speeches during the electoral campaign, he would appear to be a shrewd sensible man, having clear ideas on the political questions of the day and well informed as to the parliamentary history of the Colony. In his first address, delivered on March 22nd at Leeston, Mr Lee declared himself a supporter of the present Government, and distinctly asked for the support of the electors on that ground. He said that he believed, whilst not agreeing with every detail of their policy and administration, that they were as good a set of men as the country were likely to get; and he thought a great deal of credit was due to those members of the Cabinet who were in the immediately preceding Administration, especially the Treasurer, for rescuing the Colony from a state of impending national bankruptcy; and he was convinced further that they had done good service in relieving the country from those who were in office previous to their accession to power. He thought also, with regard to their Native policy, that the people of New Zealand owed them a very great amount of gratitude. In respect of taxation, he considered the property tax the fairest and most equitable form of direct taxation, infinitely preferable to either 91 land tax or an income tax—the first of which was simply a class impost of most objectionable character, placing a heavy burthen on the agricultural settlers; whilst the second, in this Colony, would be neither more nor less than a tax on labor and industry, mental and bodily, leaving practically exempt accumulated capital which was not remuneratively employed. Mr Lee expressed himself strongly in favor of immigration on a considerable scale. He stated that the experience of farmers this year had proved the necessity. “ He had known “ Is fid par hour and unlimited beer [here is “ a fact for Mr M. W. Green] to be refused, “ and the time had come when the stream “ of immigration must he renewed ; but care “ must be taken in the selection of the right “ class—good laborers, and men with a little “capital who had been starved out at “Home.” His opponent, Mr Richardson, he said, had taken his cue from his new political associates, and endeavored to pose in a special manner as “the working man’s “friend.” He himself had always found that on these occasions “the working “man had a great number of friends, “but was often in a position to say “ 1 Save me from my friends! He himself was not one of those who thought that “the working man required a nursemaid “and a feeding bottle at his elbow, for he “ had always found that the true working “man was self-reliant, and did not require “the hand of the political philanthropist, “which was always held out to him on “ election occasions.” The new member for Selwyn has evidently, to use a colonial expression, hia head screwed on right, and gives fair promise of being an acquisition to the Hopse of jftopreseptatives. Ho is of the old stamp of Canterbury representatives

rather than of the new school, which the last general election brought up to the front, and as yet has been no particular credit to the Provincial which can point to a distinguished roil of members in the past, including the honored names of Frederick Weld, Charles Clifford, James Fitzgerald, William Moorhouse, and Crosbie Ward. What a falling off is there when we come to John Holmes, Joseph Ivess, W. H. Pilliet, and W. F. Pearson !