MR WASON AT RAKAIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCVI, Issue 11108, 6 November 1896, Page 2

MR WASON AT RAKAIA.

TO THE EDITOB. Sib—l have no fault to find with your report of my speech at Bakaia; but, of course, regret that it had to be boiled down into such brief space. That the condensation, or boiling down, has been done most ably and impartially I freely admit. In speaking of the tyrannies of majorities, 1 do not think I made use of the term “ Church of Rome.” My mind went back to the persecutions of the early Christians, and I think the expression I used was “Horrors of Rome, the atrocities of the Middle Ages, down to the Spanish Inquisition.” He would be a poor student of history who, at this distance of time, attempted to apportion the blame of religious intolerance between the various parties at one time or other commandingthe rrfajority. My argument was that a majority has no more right to interfere with what we shall eat, drink or wear than it has to say, “To this church thou shalt go,” or “ In this manner thou shalt pray. Of course 1 don’t expect to fight this battle with the gloves on, but I don’t think it quite reasonable of you to try and persuade your readers “ that I am halting between two opinions,” “unstable as water,” &c. What I did make perfectly clear to my audience was this: that while I did not at all approve MrM’Kenzie’s land policy, it must be considered as a settled policy meantime, and that I would support no reactionary legislation. We do not want everlasting change and unrest. I did not advocate putting the unemployed upon the waste lands. I advocated that the Government should sell, let, or dispose of them in sufficient areas, so that a man would have enough, not only to support himself, but sufficient to afford employment to his poorer neighbours. You sneer at my remark about agriculture being a manufacture, grounding- the sneer upon some obsolete text book. If you had been up to date, you would have known that precisely the same definition of the term is made use of by Harrison, Science Lecturer to the Birmingham School Board. At least a friend informs me that not only is that the case, but the book in which the definition appears is in use here. I have no complaint to make about your resurrectionist tactics of digging up old votes and speeches. You did the same thing three years ago, and did me no harm. What concerns ns now is the future, and not the past, as long as that past is an honourable one.—l am, &c., J. CATHCAET WASON.