THE COMING ELECTIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 8248, 15 August 1887, Page 5

THE COMING ELECTIONS.

Mr Garrick is to deliver an address this evening, at 7.30, in Baber’s small grain store, Addington. Meetings of Mr W. P. Reeves’ Knightstown Committee will be held this evening and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. The Central Committee will meet in one of the rooms of the Electors’ Association, Cathedral square, on dates to be arranged. The Fendalton Committee (and supporters of Mr Beeves) will meet in the Fendalton Schoolroom at eight o’clock this evening.

A meeting of Mr Eden George’s friends and supporters is convened by advertisement for eight o’clock this evening. A numerously attended meeting of the Wools ton Branch of the Canterbury Electors’ Association was held on Thursday evening in the Public Library, Woolston. Mr R. S. M’Diarmid presided. Mr R. Cockburn was elected Secretary to toe Branch. It was decided to meet on alternate Thursdays, in toe social room of toe library. The members of toe Association wish to thank Mr Spackman for copies of his pamphlet on Protection v. Freetrade, and the Committee of the Industrial Association for 100 copies of Mr Blair’s lecture on" Local Industries,” and for a number of copies of Sir J. Vogel’s recent speech at Christchurch. All the above are being distributed in Woolston. The Branch now numbers between thirty and forty members. Mr S. Bareham, it is said, will contest toe Cheviot seat in opposition to Mr Lance. Our Ashburton correspondent writes : A requisition to Mr S. Buxton, farmer, Rangitata Island, is in course of signature at Ashburton, requesting that gentleman to stand for the Rangitata seat in opposition to Mr Rolleston. As yet it has not been very extensively signed, as Mr Buxton is but little known in toe lower part of the electorate. Mr Palmer has announced himself for the same seat, but his first advertisement in connection with his candidature, and the circumstances surrounding it, show him at once to have but little of the showman element in him, SO necessary in electioneering. He announces that his electioneering campaign will begin at Done, a hamlet half way or more between the railway line and the sea, and thence following a line almost direct southwards, only diverging to take in Chertsey, and giving us to understand that he will neither speak at Ashburton nor Eakaia—the vary head-centre of both his friends and his foes. If Mr Palmer has any political friends at all in this matter, they would do well to advise him to speak at the largo centres of population, bearing in mind that in both Eakaia and Ashburton he will meet a large number of townspeople who have votes in both districts. Again, he can scarcely expect the reporters to be kindly towards him when he asks them to do a twenty-mile drive out, and the same hack, on a frosty night, and write up his speech after they come home.

[Per Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, August 13. It is reported that a movement is on foot amongst the Natives to bring out Te Wheoro as a candidate for the House, Mikorehu having been asked to nominate him.

GEEYMOUTH, August 14. Mr Joseph Petrie opened hia election campaign at Paroa on Saturday evening. He declared himself a supporter of the Stout-Vogel Government, though not approving of their actions. He condemned the giving of money to Mr Maxwell for his trip Home, while trying to cut down the wages of the working men to 6s per day. He opposed the Tariff brought down last session. With the land question properly mnpaged, there should be no need for Customs.. Tariff*, which rarely touched- the.

pockets of capitalists. He said that be saw 200 men out of work along the Midland Railway, and the contractors were advertising elsewhere for more labour to glut the market, and thus bring down the price of labour. He wanted the total abolition of the gold duty. The land laws were not as liberal as they should be, and the only landlord should be the State. He wanted to see a good stiff Land-tax. Retrenchment was absolutely necessary, but we must commence at the top of the tree. The heads of Departments were ruining the country. He was in favour of the abolition of the Upper House, and doing away with " old fossils.” He designated the Purchase of Railways Bill as the most rascally swindle ever perpetrated in the Colony. The Legislative Council prevented the Lower House from advancing the interests of the country. He described the Greymouth Harbour Board as the most corrupt body on the West Coast; it was a mass of corruption, and he was thoroughly ashamed to own that he was a member. The people should elect the Governor. Borrowing must absolutely cease, except for the completion of railways to paying points. He objected to Party Government, and attacked the Civil Service at Wellington as too costly. The Audit Department should be cut down, and a local audit adopted. He would dispense witn such men as Mr Maxwell, and cut down all high salaries, the Premier’s and other Ministers* included. He took the Premier’s view of education, and opposed free immigration. He received a vote of thanks and confidence.