THE COMING ELECTIONS.

Evening Star, Issue 7280, 3 August 1887, Page 1

THE COMING ELECTIONS.

MR RUTHERFORD. AT CAY&RBHAM.

Mr Robert Rutherford addressed a meeting of electors in the Town Hall, Caversham, last evening as a candidate to represent the Caversham electorate in the sew Parliament. There was a good attendance, the hall being well filled, and the chair was taken by Mr William Bragg, mayor of Caversham.

Mr Ruthbrfobd, in addressing the electors, said he did not intend to astonish them by making a clever speech.' The selection of' a member of Parliament was one of the most important duties they were called upon to perform, and they would forgive him if he refrained from treating them to an amusing address. Who was he, that he should allow himself to be pat forward to represent them? He had been going out and in among them for 20 years. Many persons had come to the district since then, and it was for their benefit, and not from any desire to magnify himself, that he mentioned very briefly his history as a local servant. One evening about 18 years ago there was a meeting in the jpriflshe4 tb elect members of the old road board. He walked m thoughtlessly, and was nominated and elected a member. He thought of his position after he got home, and rightly jpr tp/the {following: That an individual electea to represent W*?ff» & his own interests, oat only care for the good of those, he I flemeßfißtod > vr $W»> .ttlW, *e had never been free from some public position. There had not been »a parliamentary election for very many years in which he had not been asked to becimift a; candidate; :The/late Mr Jlasandrew and many other persons had urged him to solicit the suffrages of the electors, bat op to the present time he had declined to do so, though, as they were#U well awareiba had «Wo»pied public positions in connection with the local government of the muniaipality. He might mention that some time ago an article appeared in one of the Donedin newspapers suggesting that he was a proper candidate to contest the Peninsula seat with Mr Larnach. He would not say who the writer of this article was, bat would remark that if he was fit to represent the Peninsula district he could not be entirely unfit to be a candidate for the Gaversham district.—(Applause.) The question might be asked why he called "himself the lalwor candidate, say that though'Yor years he had been engaged in what might be caned a genteel employment, he considered-Jie haa itf/perfeWtigUl to regard himself as a fitting representative of labour. When he was a boy he remembered noticing a f|JArffi£]§at this man spent thousands of poAMffylaiTOm TAhßelfi^atJnVled * ; though his income was,derived from ihejskfll anßfiWi r : olteeri^^ : nMa^a'h^^M^B then he first formed the, ropuHpfe that •hefewas a great muddle somewhere—that the labourers who did meanly and for it,' ana Ida sympathy then and ever since had been with the working men, and;hk:&Eßii» :«oletevat£Ubb&H6 st*|ftper position, remuneration,, and comfort. Another reason was that he had himsejf worked in manual' dccop»<Bbns. •" He hftd^ ; duV J '3rtins, planted trees, designed patterns, and weaved tartan shawls. .He had taught.pvening classes, and fiad taught them gratuiteufely, : ufthe'aope i of benefiting working people who were less educated than himself, < When te the-colony he expected, as the' pamphlet said, to'find the land lowing with milk and honey, ,He did not conceive ih6 possibility''of busroms 1 deities, and thought thalrthe" new m be'* good country to-come: tev •%e ) l hu!a i he found' right enough, but th« 'pedDle'thst'weVe in utyfctfen 2.Bysars ago, led'fiim'tcV'thlttk'tSia le had 11 to' some extent" made l .an "mTfnrtnnlate tchanje.' Every «»ort.he'nsicl n)aa©;bWßM been with the object of raising t#3 working classes, who were the'majority of iuman%, and fiie honestest of humanily. * He knfew itpo be afaet that toe working ken wereillfitoest men, and the most honest. 1 Butas !i fpr TJjiSejrs, they could not believe one'''''of I ', Jaum,--(Laughter.) He had been taught to truth when a boy, and in 'politics everything else he meant to'speatffau|Ji t ;He had tried to serve'other people while on'earth, and when he left the earth he. intended.'to try still ! to'serve them. For hib-part 1 he'aid not want to reign, hut if he .could, chooseJie would hereafter chdose to be at thO seratfof other people. Leaving the question of his candidature and personal: matters, he would go on to speak of , ; ,i. ~,. },„, . THE POSITION OP THB/CQtOj^f f j ,;' He did not require to go very much,{ntG>ais question, for they must knaw.as much[abpufeit as he did The depression was anrextraoisnaxy depression. It was jaot like the fluctuations of trade, but was a gradual and constant sinking, and the country; was getting poorer and poorer every day, our savings were-behig- trenched upon, and the colony was becoming impoverished. But there would a spirit arise, whether at tbiß election, or not, tftaVmayld make a decided, ?chanjß~ - in*, the co|n|cy. The depression that arose some 16 years ago was Temoved by the iutroductionofjborfoj*d money. By. borrowing.thei country had been stimulated for a time. But the depression had returned;; We bad now to bear the harden.fcf interest upon the borrowed money, and for want of employment many of the best of the working classes were leaving, the What prospect, he asjkedjwu there here for the riringigeneration?—for surely people might be supposed to have some feeling for their children. There was certainly no favourable prospect for the young here now, and the outlook was getting darker and darker. It was plain that one thing most be done in this colony. The great thing was this: they must

EMPLOY THE UNEMPLOYED in .producing those thing? that werejnpm-un-ported.—(Applause.) That was the only mto make a prosperous and independent nation. vPe were now dependent upon supplies from other ' countries sent in exchange for, our raw products, wool and grain, which at any moment might be rendered almost a drug in the market, because other countries might produce them cheaper than it would, be possible .to jprpdnoftj&em in New Zealand.' In that case where would New Zealand be, mi what would its Pfspjs J^KS-W 10 if they could not sell'their produce abrpaaF--aince tiiey seemed to prefer to ettlti»ase c k|Afgly and send railways hither and thither to Bring down the, nrpdnoe.; The, cplpnyjiajing spent millions of money in making railways for the I purpose*of taking produce from one place to another for export, what would they do if it happened in the case of frozen meat in one instance which he had heard of, where a man bought sheep at the saleyards, had them refrigerated, sent them Home, and the price of the sheep had to pay £3O for charges upon them? -With the present tariff they employed 20,000 persons producing what was reallyArealth. Could they not with a suitable alteration of the tariff employ, say, 80,000 people ? And if that were done there would not be an idle hand in New Zealand. The production of wealth was necessary, and every idle man was a drawback and a burden upon the State in which he lived. It was therefore of the highest importance - that work -should be found for the pepplejnnd work must be found for thepeopje of this that work must not be such as had beenj(Becasionajly provided by, the (Wermnenk sucfi as digging into bills to make a railwu rlhn JKgld not be used for 50 years perhaps, fflaffitjfnich there would be nq use from tbl8 ! Payment mustbe in th? 6l,aracles that command, a pHce.'and' mediatery"sold m the markets of the The cry,at Dresent .was that n»re*»pw*ion wbujcpelp the 'country, but could uley Mink 'that any'reasonable' farmer and bring a considerable amountrbf InSfißyiwlth him'to be victimised here bylinaifiaflitfWthat such things as had been done in the pasrwere not known Norcouldlf&flxnfeofcd that ah artwm'pbpulatioft wbulfl t j»me T! when many of the artisaW were idle. The thing was preposterous., If, there was em-, ployment in"the country they'would socdwet papulation'; but then far employmeiflifchdymnst have manufactures, *nd the wants of the people-,would be supplied, and the country would become rich and prosperous in finite of ite present debt.— •;, > FSSKTBADB AND MtOTBCHON. Freetradewas not alwavs right, was not always with this subject they sJwdd .te jajt aujMrßthful. There was no use in protecting gram in a oountry for tho r off wetffh, -faimshuw **nd there itwould bo" wrong; to protect.. Bnfeat.tyajipme time a manufacturing country could not, ha a Freetrade country until i<j most expert manufacturing country in the world. Bat when a country obtained that p/jsition, then, Jhaory "WM Buy,buy,buy: but /matter noiir«ieapwngß *uld not bny them wjthontmoAey;;aadff^j>^er

to pay 10b for a pair of boots when one had the money than to be unable to get the boots for want of money, but to have the satisfaction of knowing that if you had the money the same boots could begot for Bs.—(Hear,hear.) He believed in Freetrade within a country, but thought that it was necessary for a country to be protected from foreign competition. Some Freetraders were apparently very earnest in promoting local industries, but industries could only be promoted if they would prove profitable, and without an increase in the tariff many industries that with help could be established would not be profitable. The tariff should be altered so as to allow these industries to be started, and when they were developed they might be able to compete with the world. The facts of history were entirely in favour of this view, and any man could be convinced of the absurdity of the Freetrade principle by reading a book on the subject by Frederick Liste, one of the most celebrated political economists of Germany, who showed that it was necessary for a country, like an individual, to have a barrier around it and to have the utmost liberty and freedom within. Other nations had seen the wisdom of this and had adopted a policy of Protection. An individual nation must look to itself as a united people, and do the best for itself, as every individual was advised to do according to the administrative scheme. It had been said that a Government could do little for a country; but surely it could do a great deal of harm, and could create a great national debt, and inversely it could do a great deal of good, and if people were united, and the Government was in touch with the people, there was scarcely anything affecting the welfare of the State that it could Dot do. It was urged that Freetrade was natural law, but surely if they adhered strictly to the natural conditions they would not be sitting on good seats in a comfortable room.— (Laughter and applause.) The fact was that there was a constant struggle with the natural condition of things, and an attempt to subdue nature.

RETRENCHMENT. Then there was the grand cure for all our depression—retrenchment. Now, while he thought that they should not keep an unnecessary officer in the public service, and while he was in favour: of the simplest form of government that was possible, he did not think that permanent good would be accomplished simply by the adoption of retrenchment. If they succeeded in effecting savings to the extent of £200,000, it would still'only square accounts according to the last Financial Statement. It would not help the unemployed, and would in faot add to their ranks. The working men as a rule would have very little sympathy with the more perfunctory class of workers, whose services would be dispensed with. Tho real remedy for the depression was to provide work for the industrious portion of the population, and the question of retrenchment, though important, was subsidiary; that alone could not have any great and permanent effect upon the country. The candidate again referred at length to the question of Protection, and expressed the opinion that customs duties could be levied so as to effect good to the country by encouraging local indusories, and. that so far as they were levied for revenue purposes purely the duties should be imposed upon luxuries, but that there should not be an increase in the customs duties for the sake of providing a larger revenue. The country was already sufficiently taxeJ, and by proper management, by the distribution of go* vernment, by decentralisation the necessity for increased taxation could be done away with. He was in favour of reducing the number of the members of Parliament, and of making Parliament a small body with some very well defined and limited powers, leaving local matters to be arranged locally by the people, who know what was right and what was wrong respecting them. In asking the electors for their support he wished it to be clearly understood that if elected it would be as their delegate.—(Applause.) He did not wish to take up the autocratic and aristocratic name of representative,' but wished to he the mouthpiece of his constituents, and in all things, whenever instructed by a majority of his constituents, he would certainly vote as requested, although he might not agree with the opinion of the majority. As |to party, it might be asked to what party he belonged. He might say that there were ONLY TWO PARTIES possible, not only in New Zealand but all over the world, One was the party of labour and the other was the party of the monopolist. These parties would be found under different names—under Radicals, or Liberals, or Tories, at Home. What they were named here he did not know, but the fact was they would find a party on the one hand struggling to see labour righted, and a party on the other hand in favour of the monopolist, who stood, as it were, on the shoulders of labour and crushed the very life out of it. To bo more definite, when Parliament met a vote ot no-confidence would no doubt be brought forward by someone against the present Government. If the question was whether he should vote for the present Ministry, and the proposer of the vote of want of confidence had anything to do with any of the old political hacks, any of the governing families of New Zealand—anything to do with Major Atkinson with his Roads and Bridges Construction Act, and his squandering of money under that act, or with Sir John Hall with his reputed gridironing of the land so as to get large estates cheap, or with Mr Bryce, or with any of these old politicians—he would say that he should have more hj >pe, with all his defects, in Sir Robert Stout than in any of these other people—(loud and continuous applause)— and would vote for the present Government in preference to making any such change. He hoped that they would soon have really Liberal representatives in Parliament, and if they gave Sir Robert Stout proper surroundings he would be the bestmantbecountrycouldiiave.—(Applause.) He hoped they would agree to return him (Mr Rutherford) for the principles he had stated to them. If they sent him to Parliament they would not return a man who had no hope for the country, or one who would coniino himself to cutting and paring at the figures of the Financial Statement. In answer to questions, the candidate said that it would be a great advantage to the public if another resident magistrate for Dunedin were appointed, but there was the question of expense to be considered. He thought that in the retrenchment in the public service the education vote must necessarily suffer, but to impair the efficiency of the system would be a great misfortune. If it was the wish of the majority of the electors that the Bible should be read in the public schools he would support it, although he was personally not in favour of the proposal. He thought it was a great misfortune and a great hardship that the same class books were not used in all the public schools. He thought that the question of the liquor traffic was one of those subjects that should properly come under the administration of local bodies. He was in favour of the application of the Bight Hours Bill to the Government workshops. He had for a very long time objected to the system of free railway passes. He was in favour of the abolition of the Upper House. He favoured neither the leasing nor the selling of the railways.but thought they should be better managed. It would, he thought, be a good thing to have resident magistrates to do the work now done by justices of the peace in all the large cities of ' the colony, and the additional cost could be the only reason why magistrates were not appointed. The expenditure on secondary education was excessive; while the cost of educating 660 pupils in Caversham was £I6OO per year, the cost of instructing 393 pupils in the High School was £12,000 annually—(" Shame!'') —and the High School was of little practical use except to keep up class distinctions. A large number of other questions, many of them bearing on Freetrade and Protection, were also answered. Mr A. Morrison moved and Mr George Piddington seconded the following resolution: «That it is the opinion of this meeting of electors that Mr R. Rutherford is the most fit and proper person to represent Caversham in the new House of Representatives, aud accordingly pledges itself to uso every endeavour to secure bis return." An amendment of thanks only was moved and seconded. About 30 porsous voted for the amendment, but a substantial majority was in favour of the original motion, which was declared by the chairman to be carried. Three cheers were called for for Mr Barron and given lustily, and cheers wcro also given for Mr Rutherford. A vote of thanks to tho mayor for presiding brought the meeting to a close.

MR JAMBS GREEN AT PORT CHALMERS. Mr James Green, one of the candidates for the Port Chalmers district, addressed a meeting of the electors in the Foresters' Hall, Port Chalmers, last night. The Mayor (Mr Allen) occupied the chair, and the building was crowded to the doors.

Mr Gbbbn in stating the reasons for his present candidature said he had never stood for any place of which he himself was not an elector, and he was net an elector of Port Chalmers district at the time of the election in March last. Moreover, he had promised his supporters in unffth** district to offer himself at the next general election; and in the third place he could not have brought himself to support the line of policy adopted by their late member (Mr Macandrew). But the gentleman who had since been elected had not followed inthe footsteps of his predecessor; so both the speaker and his opponent started with the same record in this respect, and they had to choose between two men who would bow have voted on the same side; the side on which their late respected member would not have voted. The next Parliament would, he thought, have to deal with questions which would have the result of either restoring this colony to its previous position or retarding it for ■nany years to come, and he could assure them if the man chosen were himself he should give all the assistance he could to effect a considerable retrenchment in the. expenditure. The time had arrived when Parliament -would have to dedde that'if any more borrowing, took place it should be very very slight indeed, and certainly ao'aoora than would carry the railways that Jhad tteen'commekoed to the first paying point. And £ethought

; A CHANOB IN LEADERS would'have to take place before such an arrangement was come to. He did not expect that Sir Julius Vogel would ever even tone down borrowing if he only had enough gentlemen returned who would assist him to carry out the policy he had initiated and would continue as long as he could get support. The speaker attributed the first financial crisis in this province to Sir Julius Vogel's extraordinary and reckless spending power. In the sixties, prior to the gold discovery, the Treasurer ran short of funds, and got an alteration in the land law to enable him to sell all the unsold land in the hundreds at half-price in large blocks to speculators, and that produced our first difficulty between the ruuholders and would-be bona fide settlers. It was difficult to get the smallest blocks for settlement, aud most of the holders had to be compensated for the cancellation of their pastoral leases at a cost of from 2s 6d to 10s an acre. Sir J. Vogel, as they knew, afterwards became . Colonial Treasurer aud Premier; but although *he speaker admitted that we had derived conveniences and luxuries from his large public works scheme, he thought it was a moot point whether there was any ultimate benefit, owing to the increase of our heavy burdens. When three years ago he returned, found the country in a very depressed state, and was going to put everything right, the people of the colony almost rushed into his arms. He had had three years of office, and a loan raised at a higher cost than any other, but we were now in as bad or a worse condition than before, notwithstanding all the expectations raised by him. (Applause.) Seeing that the present Government had shown their incapacity to get us out of our difficulties, it was natural to ask who we were then to look to. He said freely that notwithstanding the experience he had had he could not answer that question. Some of course said we should rush into the arms of Major Atkinson, but he did not believe it. Major Atkinson was a very able man—second only in the speaker's opiuion to Sir J. Vogel;—but unfortunately he recollected how in 1883 when Mr Swausou brought in a resolution to reduce the expenditure by £50,000 Major Atkinson said it was impossible. At Hawera lately ho had also said that it would bo absolutely ruinous to cease borrowing, and that public works must be pushed on, and at Opunake that he would not, if returned, support a percentage reduction. Tho speaker did not suppose we cared much whether the reduction was a percentage reduction or not, so long as our expenditure was absolutely brought within our income, but he hoped a gentleman would be returned by some constituency with the i capacity to do what was needed, even though he might be a person of whom we had not yet heard.—(Applause.) Of course our leading politicians always asked tho people not to return independent members, but he was not prepared to say that the leaders themselves were not as great nuisances as the independent members. In New Zealand for years past there had been no defined parties. He could remember the. very hard things which Major Atkinson, Mr Rolleston, Sir George Grey, Mr Macandrew, Mr Fitzherbert, Mr Stafford, and Sir William Fox said about each other at the time of the abolition of the provinces. Yet directly the question was settled there was nothing to prevent Major Atkinson and Mr Rolleston going into office together. When, too, had stronger language baen used towards each other as political leaders than by Sir J. Vogel and Sir R. Stout formerly? they had been in office now for three years, but he bad no knowledge or recollection of seeing or hearing that there was any particular distinction or difference between them. He took it for granted that the electors would return men to Parliament who would hot be pledged to parties,,but would give the chief consideration to "what was for the best interest of the country.—(Applause.) He was going to ask them at any rate to insist upon whomever they did return not pledging themselves to any leader or leaders of whom we had any knowledge, but that thoy should go in for drastic retrenchment in every public department. Most of tho salaries were fixed and the allowances granted when we had flourishing goldflulds and borrowed money was flowing into the colony. But now borrowing must cease, so that the.country might not be overweighted and borne down, but might occupy a chief position, whicb,Jhe took leave to think, was its natural position, and which it would be occupying at the present moment were it not for the large borrowing and extravagant expenditure in the past. He asked for a reduction in the present departments, commencing with the Governor and going downwards. Looking over tho returns presented to last Parliament, he was amazed to see the enormous expenditure that had taken place, and the amount of the travelling allowances and other expenses that had been incurred by our present Government. He found in looking up the past records that no Government ever held office whose expenses, other than salaries, had been so high as those of the present Government. (Hear, hear.) He thought that all would agree with him that however good that Government had been, or however good their successors might be, our circumstances were now such that we could not afford to pay so highly for their services as we had done in the past.—(Hear, hear.) He also thought that the honorarium of the members of the House of Representatives should be reduced by £SO a year, and that the honorarium of the members of the Legislative Council should also be reduced.* He did not think the latter should complain at £IOO a year for the services they rendered.—(Applause, and a Voice: "Nothing at all") He did not think it would be advisable to do away with the honora-

rium altogether, because he thought there were some gentlemen in the Legislative Council who would find it very difficult to occupy their present position unless their expenses were paid. Another alteration which required to be made, aud which would he thought bo beneficial, was the substitution of an income tax for THK rnOMSRTV TAX with which we had been aftlicled for a long time.—(Hear, hear.) Aud here ho would like to Bay that he did not consider an income and a land tax should be ono and the same tax. He did not think there was any necessity for the General Assembly imposing a land tax. His opinion was that an income tax would be the better of tbeso two taxes. He thought—and spoke with some knowledge of the matter—that if subsidies to local bodies were discontinued, and he felt sure that they would be, as the same body that raised the money should expend it, then things would be managed bettor, and the expenditure kept down to the lowest point. He had no doubt that they would feel that if they did not get any subsidy for their borough, the council was capable of taxing their property to the extent that thoy were able to pay.—(Applause.) To his mind the property tax was oue of the mobt uu-Euglish kind of taxes ever imposed upon a community, and he wondered that we had submitted to it so long.—(Applause.) He would take very great care tho first time that there was an opportunity that he would vote for the repeal of the tax.—(Applause.) THE RAILWAYS. Now with regard to the railways, he noticed by the last quarterly returns that there was a very pleasant feature in connection with them—that was, notwithstanding the general depression, they showed an increase of £20,000 over the corresponding quarter of last year. Bat despite that, he found wherever he went very considerable dissatisfaction was expressed about the manner in which our railways were managed.— (Hear, hear.) He noticed particularly, too, that there were very many things in connection with the administration of them that probably the head of the department, and possibly others, could not understand. He at any rate could not understand them. For instance, he could go from Sawyers' Bay to Dunedin and back for the very reasonable sum of Is 9d. But if ho went from Sawyers', Bay to St. Leonards and back again it cost Is 6d. How on earth the department ever arrived at such a tariff as that was a puzzle to him. On making inquiries he found that tho same kind of thing applied to all tho intermediate stations between Sawyers' Bay and Duuedin.—(A Voice: "And Port Chalmers, too"). He did not know whether it applied to Port Chalmers, but oue thing he did know, and the conclusion ho arrived at was that it did not matter where you wanted to go to; it did not matter what your business vas, or how much you had to contribute to tlio ;;• ;t"ral taxes of this oountry; but if y<>u wanted to go into Dunedin oue could travel at a vory much loss rate than if ho were going anywhere else. He would make further inquiries about the matter whether he became a member of Parliament or not. It seemed to him that the tariff was so thoroughly absurd, and its arrangement so thoroughly unbusinesslike, that he was sur- ■ prised that someone had not discovered it before, and.the matter dea.lt*with and rectified. Another question that would have to be dealt with was the Bast and West Coast railway, whioh was still before Parliament and which he feared would never be settled until the colony either compensated the contractors or else bought them out. It was just possible that it might be money well spent if we could get rid of them at a reasonable price, and he thought it -Was. a. pity, we had, .everJtiad a Government, who would consent to part with 2,500,000 acres on any conditions.- It was, he thought, a pity the line had been undertaken", and so far he feared our troubles had'only commenced. He referred also to the purchase of the district railways and the price (£35,000) that had been paid by the Government for one of the lines, besides their having undertaken to pay no less than 6J per cent, interest "on the money. No one capable of forming an opinion would deny that this was far too high a rate. He had given offence to various monetary institutions when this line was constructed, by pointing out that it was'constructed on the wrong side of the river to'benefit the Crown lands as well as the land of a large company, and his opinion was proved to be correct by the result. Another question to be considered next session was the San Francisco mail service,,which was a luxury we should have to dispense with. £25,000 could well be saved here, and with two direct steam services and the prospect of a third, we should have no difficulty in getting our letters carried cpuclc e'uonglx.—(A. Voice = " "We have a large trade with America.") He wished we had, but we had not, and were not likely to have while ! America continued such a high Protective tariff. They would probably' wau't to hear whether he was in favour of

PBOTECTION. (A Voice : " Oh, yes") He could not go the length of those who said it was desirable to have a prohibitory tariff, but he had no doubt our tariff would have to be rearranged, and if without much increase of our taxation the Treasurer could see his way to give increased advantages to local industries, nothing would please the speaker better. Plenty of political economists would remark that this was a most absurd thing to say.—(A Voice :"So it is."—Laughter.) But it was not the first time he had been laughed at and told his statements were absurd, especially by theorists. Nothing was pleasanter than reading a well-thought-out work on political economy, but when things were reduced to practice thay did not dovetail in so nicely as could be desired. Where a community was large and a country old, no doubt Freetrade was right, but as a general principle it carried no more weight with him than if a person were to tell him that because nothing was nobler than a strong self-dependent man, therefore a child did not require protection in its infancy. As a principle, he believed Freetrade]was the best the world had yet seen, but he should like to know how it was possible for this country to follow a Freetrade policy when we had to raise a million and a-half through our customs. Was that Freetrade ?—(A Voice : "Yes.") If that was so, all the speaker's reading had been useless, and he could have little or no judgment.—(A Voice : ««Granted."—Great laughter.) They might think it pleasant to call this a Freetrade country, but to his mind it was very protective—so much so that he was not sure whether we could without injury to the mass of the people give industries more protection. But he would not vote against a slight increase in the tariff where it could be shown to be beneficial to local industries. THE HARBOUR WORKS. He found by the last returns that the money that had been spent on the upper harbour amounted to no less a sum than £626,256. That was a very considerable sum of money, and he believed that it should not have been spent. He sf.id about 20 years ago, and he was of the same opinion still, that in the interests not only of Fort Chalmers but of Dunedin and the whole of Otago it would have been better for ships to have stopped at Port Chalmers than that a great amount of money should be spent in the upper harbour. He thought that if wharves were constructed, at Port and a double line of railway from there to Dunedin, the harbour might have been left as it was.

THB LAND LAWS. He would now refer to our land administration. He held very decided and pronounced views in connection with this matter. He regretted very, much that during the last three years the administration of the land laws had been what it had.—(A Voice : " What is that to do with Port Chalmers ?") It was one of the great misfortunes of the residents of Port Chalmers that they had not given the consideration to that question which it deserved. He was told many years ago the people there did not care a rap about the land. Now he took leave to say that they should be as much interested, in the land question and the settlement of people on the land in other parts of the country as they were in the ships coming into their port.—(Hear, hear.) If a large number of prosperous settlers were settled on the land, it followed of necessity that ships would come into the port. ThW4atitt ; lawß of this colony, so far as his reading would Jenable him to judge, were as liberal as any land laws that existed in any other country, but ho was sorry to say that the administration of these laws was not equally as good. There was an act making sufficient provision for the taking-up of land under almost any system. He found, however, that one-half of that act was kept as closely closed as it was possible for it to be. He did not know of any law on our Statute Book where we had such a large portion of it rendered inoperative as in the case of our Land Act. He felt we suffered very considerably trom a mistaken desire on the part of the gentlemen who administered that act—namely, Sir Robert Stout and the Hon. Mr Ballance—for what they considered to be of benefit to the country. He knew those gentlemen thought that to make the country grand and noble the State required to retain possession of the lands and not allow anyone to hold a freehold. But he (Mr Green) was one of those who thought that was a mistake. During the last three years he had seen people who had been landholders at Home coming here with the expectation of getting freeholds. Some of them brought large sums of money, and they were unable to buy so much as 100 acres of Crown lands. Did they think that was the way to settle the country ? Did they not think if we could have retained these people here, seeing that we would have had the benefit of their agricultural knowledge and the benefit of their money, that it would have been one of the best things that could have happened to us. He thought people of experience and capital like those he had referred to were the kind of people we were languishing for. Ho thought that people should not be compelled to take up land under a system which the administrators of the Land Act thought best. We had implanted in our breasts a strong desire to possess land, aud this desire would take a very long time to eradicate. conclusion. In conclusion he said he sincerely hoped that the electors would send to Parliament men who would give effect to such measures as would raise the colony out of the present depressed condition, and lift it to the position that it Bbould occupy.—(Applause.) In reply to QUESTIONS, Mr Green said he thought our present education system was excellent, and he was opposed to raising the school age on account of the hardship it would inflict on country districts. The

fact of the system having been in operation for 10 years was a strong argument that in the opinion of the bulk of the electors it was sound. On the question of the Bible-in-schools ho believed an overwhelming majority of members in this district would be returned pledged to vote for its introduction, and that in Auckland it would be just the reverse. Tho introduction of the Bible would, in his opinion, be tho first note of denoruinatioualism, and our educational reserves would then be in danger. But seeing that to an overwhelming majority of parents this was a question of conscience, although he thought they were in error in thinking that tho simple reading of the Bible would do good, he would, if returned, vote for its introduction, unless a requisition signed by a majority of the electors was presented! asking him to vote the other way. He was in favour of a reduction of the number of members to 71.

A number of other questions, referring for the most part to local and personal matters, were put, and the proceedings grew very noisy, owing to the hostile attitude taken up by one or two individuals present. The candidate was questioned about the Silver Peak dummyism cases, the expenditure in the lower harbour, and various other matters. Mr A. Thomson said that the attitude of Mr Green on tho Bible-in-schools question was very unsatisfactory, and Dr Drysdafe concurred. Mr Green said he did not expect that his answers would be satisfactory te his opponent's committee.—(Applause and laughter.) An endeavour was made by one gentleman to move a motion, but he was interrupted by another elector, who shouted him down and refused to allow him to proceed until more questions had been put. No resolution had therefore been moved when the reporters left the meeting.