POLITICAL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 19, Issue 1513, 20 December 1872, Page 2

POLITICAL.

the m.h.r. for eden (Auckland) addresses his CONSTITUENTS.

(From the Thames Advertiser, 6th December.) Me. Ceeighton delivered an address to the electors of Eden on Monday evening last, which, for length and subtlety, has not been equalled by any member who has rendered an account of his steward* ship since the close of the last session of Parliament. Mr. Creighton referred as far back as the time of his return for Eden at the last general election—a return secured on the " ticket" of free trade, retrenchment, reform of the civil service, the colonial administration of waste lands revenue, and the return of the seat of Government to Auckland—and endeavored to show that lie had faithfully stood by those principles amid all the changing scenes of the past two years. And in part he succeeded, at all events so far as to get a vote of thanks, by a narrow majority, for his services during the past session. But this will surprise no one who has carefully perused the ingenious, and in its way really clever defence made before his constituents. It displays on the part of Mr. Creighton the possession of a vast amount of tact and skill in twisting round facts so as to tell against his opponents and largely in favor of the line of conduct he pursued, iu assisting to turn out the Stafford Government a month after he had helped them to place and power. Taken as a whole, however, we think no impartial person can rise from a perusal of the proceedings at the meeting of the Eden electors with any other than a profound and sincere conviction that Mr. Robert James Creighton is smarting under what he firmly believes to bean indignity, through being left out of office on the formation of the Stafford Ministry. The whole tenor of the speech leads clearly to this inference, and we can come to no other conclusion. Indeed, Mr Creighton told his constituents that he *' recognised no superiority on the part of any gentleman iu the Assembly, except a moral and intellectual superiority, and he considered the balance entirely in his favor, morally and intellectually, as compared with Mr Gillies or Mr Rolleston." This was not a very modest assertion ; but, further still, he ridiculed the " small political taper" of Mr Curtis, Superinten lent of Nelson, and quoted a funny and rather indecent anecdote to show that Mr Donald lieid was not " up to the department" of Public Works, whilst he ridiculed the " ingenious youth from Auckland, and * Innocent Abroad,' Mr Sheehan," who, it seems, was, like Mr Creighton, looking f.rvvard eagerly and anxiously for a p'ositi n iu the Stafford Government. Mr Creighton went eveu further, and announced that he was the coming "Premier of New Zealand." This is the wonderfully modest estimate formed by the member for Eden of Mr. Creighton ; but whether the public at large, and especially outside of the Eden constituency, will take the member for Eden at bi 3 own estimate, is exceedingly doubtful. And whether his political morality equals, or is of a lower, or of a higher standard than that of Mr Gillies or Mr lidieston, is fairly open to question ; but to furnish absolute proof on the issue thus raised, the public career of each gentleman would require to be carefully traced out, and then it is possible we might not determine the matter satisfactorily to Mr Creighton, as we fear he would scarcely be first in the order of merit.

The defence made by Mr Creigbton rested mainly on the assertion that the Stafford Ministry departed from their professed principles as soon as they attained office, and consequently forfeited his confidence. But what are the facts? Mr Creigbton is a disciple of free trade, whilst Mr Stafford holds so strung an opinion upou the subject that not even the fear of an angry constituency couhl induce him to vote for the imposition of a duty on gr;<in and Hour. On the other hand, the principal members of the present Government are avowed protectionists, and Mr Vogcl has saddled the mining community with an obnoxious bread tax. Therefore Mr Creigbton, as a free-trader, assisted to remove from office a Freetrade Ministry, and to put into their place a Government with strong protection proclivities—without abandoning his principles. Agaiu, the. reform of the civil service, and retrenchment, are two of the cardinal points of Mr Creighton's policy, and they are points upon which

' the Stafford Ministry gave no uncertain sound. There are yet two other matters on which the charge of a departure frdm the leading principles of the party is based —the change of the seat of Government to Auckland, and the colonial administration of the lands revenue —but we can discover no difference of opinion between the present and the late Government on these questions; and Mr Staffjrd never for one moment swerved from his oft-expressed opinion on the two points raised. He has frequently stated that he is opposed to the removal of the seat of Government from Wellington, and has always*supported the localization of the loan fund. Either Mr Creighton was guilty of a transparent attempt to mislead his constituents, or else he spoke from an imperfect knowledge of what Mr Stafford's opinions are in respect to the land fund of the South, A careful perusal of the extract which Mr Creighton quoted and relied upon to prove hi» case will show that it referred to the management of the waste lands by the Colonial Government for the benefit and on behalf of the provinces. And yet this alleged change of policy on the part of Mr Stafford is the main reason for Mr Creighton's defection. At a caucus of the party we are told that—

Mr Fitzherberfc assured the Southern gentlemen, that although the Government had power under the Public Works and Immigration Act to resume possession of the waste lands of the Crown, yet so long as he was a Minister, and things were allowed to remain as they were without separation, he would practically allow those clauses of the Aot to remain a dead letter, and that the lands of the Middle Island should continue to be administered under the existing laws of the various provinces. I felt that that was an entire departure from the principles of the leading members of Mr Stafford's party in 1370, as expressed in the debate on my resolutions in the House, and as reiterated by Mr Stafford on more than one occasion—in tho House, and to his constituents at Timaru.

The declaration in the latter portion of the extract we have quoted is without, foundation, and it clearly indicates that Mr Creighton did not examine his facts very carefully before he gave utterance to such nonsense. Here is the extract relating to the laod revenue from the speech delivered by Mr Stafford to his constituents at Timaru in 1870 :

The land fund should be applicable to the improvement of tha localities where it had arisen, and what was called a land fund was not strictly revenue, but rather a contribution, from a number of persons to be devoted to the improvement of the common estate in the district where that land fund accrued. . . . The public works he referred to should be carried out by loan. They should not be limited (o one spot, but should go all over the couutry to open up lard wherever it was worth opening up, and the land fund should be left for purely local ivories.

We might multiply extracts by the score, but surely we have given sufficient to convince Mr Creighton that he made a statement not founded on fact, in representing that Mr Stafford wa3 at one period io favor of making the land fuud colonial revenue, and that the departure from this principle justified him in the line of policy be thought proper to adopt. Perhaps Mr Creighton has forgotten that Mr Stafford was a mem* ber of the Government of 1856 when the land fund was localized, that he was the author of the local Government Act of 1887, which proposed to still further localize the land fund, and that he voted for the Tiuiaru and Gladstone Board of Works Act, passed in the same year, which localized a portion of the land fund of Canterbury in the district where that fund accrued.