The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Tuesday, February 17, 1891. THE PREMIER’S SPEECH.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 571, 17 February 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Tuesday, February 17, 1891. THE PREMIER’S SPEECH.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

Banquets have latterly gone a good deal out of fashion, and a very agreeable thing, too. But when the occasion is taken advantage of for the purpose of enunciating a Ministerial policy, any such gathering is invested with a new and wide interest. On his return to Wanganui the Premier was banquetted, and then made a speech indicating the policy of the Government. There was, however, nothing really new in it, so far as the policy of the Government is concerned. The late Government set the fashion of announcing intentions which were never fulfilled, and many of Mr Ballance’s opponents seem to have taken it as a matter of course that he would do likewise, following the bad example already set. They therefore made pretence—possibly they were in earnest, after the experience of their own side —of expecting some new light to be thrown on the attitude assumed by the Government. A full report of the speech, now to hand, shows it to be only a repetition, in so far as the question of policy is concerned, of what the Government have all along declared to be their policy. On other questions the Premier deals in an interesting way, He generously removes all blame from the Governor in the matter of the appointments to the Legislative Council, but the people of the colony are not all inclined to be so generous, and Lord Onslow will never be held entirely excusable in the matter. Those who advised him are, of course, still more blamable. The defence of the granting of the large honorarium was a good one, but no defence can get over the plain facts, or remove the conviction that a wrong was perpetrated. Still what can be done is to expose the hypocrisy on the other side. “ Who,” said the Premier, “were the people who had moved in the matter ? The gentleman who had moved the resolution came up to Parliament hot for the Speakership, with its £6OO a-year. The purists who had stood up and made the proposal, in order to place a stigma upon what were called and known as ‘labor representatives,’ were themselves men of immense fortune; and yet they came forward and wished to deprive the poorer members of that to which they were entitled by Act of Parliament. All those gentlemen who had supported that motion drew every single penny of the honorarium which they objected to. Indeed, the very gentleman who had proposed the motion, the great purist Who wanted /‘GOO a-year with the Speakership, was the first to draw the honorarium, while another gentleman who had declared it was a criminal act, was the second or third to draw his honorarium, so sat they must come to the conclusion that ibis gentleman was a self-styled criminal of the deepest dye. It was a miserable business. That Act was passed in order that members should not be placed in the humiliating position of having to vote their own salaries—for It was nor an honorarium, it was the payment to members of a salary for doing the work which they were sent to do, and without which payment for -work done, the people could not be equally represented. It was a necessity in the interests of the people that there should be paymfifit of members, He

hoped they would hear very little more of this honorarium business; but, if the gentlemen who voted to prevent the honorarium being paid had such tender consciences, it was wrong of them to go to the Treasury. They should have left the money there as conscience-money.” On the subject of labor troubles the Premier expressed himself very hopeful of carrying into effect measures that would result in a permanent reconciliation between labor and capital. He spoke very highly of the labor representatives, and strongly appealed to the young New Zealanders to come forward and take an active interest in politics.