The Ensign. GORE : SATURDAY, MARCH 81. THE PREMIER AT AMBERLEY.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 718, 31 March 1900, Page 2

The Ensign. GORE : SATURDAY, MARCH 81. THE PREMIER AT AMBERLEY.

In that jaunty fashion, exclusively his own, the Premier set himself the apparently easy task of tickling the ears of the groundlings at Amberley the other evening by way of suitably tapering off the joy and excitement of the multitude occasioned by the turning of the first sod of the WaiparaCheviot railway during that day. The same venerable stock speech regarding the shelter sheds, depression, and soup kitchens of the " wretched past " and the glowing progress and prosperity of the present that had been manufactured solely by the present Government, was resurrected by the Premier on the occasion named— the same weird blend of bathos and pathos ; the same political fairy tale whose hypnotic influence upon dozens of electorates induced the people to sacrifice the colony's best interests upon the brazen altar of Seddonism, and to entrust its affairs into the hands of representatives whose individualities give tbe lie direct to any hope or assumption that they can possibly achieve any good for any interests save those of tbe Premier and of the immediate satellites who scintillate with the brassy glory reflected from him. But to his credit it must be acknowledged that not all of his Amberley speech was culled from the back numbers of his pre-election trumpetings. Criticism of Mr James Allen's recent Wyndham address served to rescue the Amberley audience from a flabby re-bash of wellthumbed Ministerial statements, the claims of nearly every one of which have been successfully disproved wherever the Premier's audacity has led him to give voice to them. Naturally enough, Mr Allen's Wyndham address, comprising tbe first Opposition political speech since the elections, demanded attention at the Premier's hands, but bis treatment of it disclosed tbe sorry fact that he either regarded Mr Allen's accusations against the Government as having too solid a foundation for categorical denial accompanied by proofs of their falsity, or else that he preferred that short cut to the demolition of an opponent's arguments — viz., to distort and misrepresent what be did say. Which course the Premier pursued is not quite clear. His speech indicates a judicious blend of both, the result, of course, being highly satisfactory from a Liberal point of view. Essaying a reply to Mr Allen's statement that when the Atkinson Government came into power borrowed money at the rate of a million and a-half was being spent ; that by means of a taperingoft' policy this was substantially reduced, but that since the present Government came into power such expenditure had been gradually creeping up until once more we were spending a million and a half of borrowed money a year — replying to this the Premier said, " Now, the whole amount spent yearly in public works was under one million, and of this £425,000 came out of revenue, so Mr Allen was only some £GOO,OOO out." This explanation the audience received in a manner which left no room for doubt as to its complete satisfaction, and so paid homage to the audacity of the man. But the Premier knew that Mr Allen was right, and in naming only one item of expenditure of borrowed money he successfully duped his audience by stating a truth that was only a quarter true. He purposely omitted mention of the cost of purchasing private estates for settlement, tbe cost of maintaining and administering the Advances to Settlers Department — all this comes out of borrowed money and creates a total which places Mr Allen well within the mark of accuracy. But the Premier did not say so and let it be inferred that Mr Allen had lied to the extent of £600,000. The Amberley speech proceeds : " Again, Mr Allen had said the Government had put an extra tax on the mining, agricultural and dairying industries, but he (Mr Seddon) quoted from the Customs tariff to show that these articles were free of of duty. (Applause). He would have to buy Mr Allen a Customs book. (Laughter)." Such a statment as this convicts the Premier of standing in need of a Customs book ; a need all the greater not on account of his ignorance of its contents, but -because of his wilful perversion of the facts it sets forth. Quotations from the Customs tariff as it stood before the present Government essayed to tinker with it (and incidentally to squeeze from £300,000 to £400,000 more per annum from the masses than previous to such tinkering) and from the tariff of fco-day are fraught with the greatest instruction on this point. In the former the following items appear : '.' Machinery for agricultural purposes n o c, also materials for manufacturing the same — free. Machinery for dairying purposes — free. Machinery for mining purposes, including dredges

an.d dredging appliances (not .including nails or bolts and nuts/for mine tramways)—free." -This is a Conservative tariff. Let us turn to that framed with the. object of fostering the colony's industries, of ■-, placing : the burdens on the sbp'uiders best able to bear them, and of; lightening so far as possible the load of-the settler and the man who endeavors to develop the country's resources. How does the present, the Liberal, tariff compare with that preceding ? " Machinery for dairying purposes (excluding separators and coolers) 5 per cent. Machinery of eveiy description for mining purposes (including machine pumps, but excluding machinery for gold-saving purposes and processes)— s per cent. All machinery for. agricultural purposes,^ including corncrushers, cornshellers, also articles used in manufacturing the same — 5 per cent." It is incomprehensible why Mr Seddon should rn„ke such easily disproved statements as these. Certainly they do not at all flatter the intelligence' of the people he endeavors to seduce by their employment ; neither do they comport with the dignity or honor of his high office.'' The prestige of a Government which has to be bolstered up by barefaced distortion of facts is a poor thing indeed ; certainly it does not warrant the sacrifice of any man's honor or credit for truthfulness in its interests. Mr Allen's damning accusation against the Colonial Treasurer's action in seizing post office savings bank and Government life insurance securities to be advantaged in the matter of raising money cheaply was met by the Premier in much the .same way. He avoided the point at issue — namely, that if the post office savings bank were suddenly called upon to realise its assets it would be from £80,000 to £100,000 short, owing to £1,742,000 of deposits having been borrowed at 3 per cent, by the Colonial Treasurer, by stating : "If the remark of Mr Allen that the Post Office -was losing from £80,000 to £100,000 was correctly reported, Mr Allen was a traitor in thus traducing his country. He (Mr Seddon) would tell them that when New Zealand had paid all her debts she would then be 200 millions to the good — (applause) — but the colony was behind the depositors in the Post Office Savings' Bank, and would see that they were safe." If Mr Allen is to be regarded as a traitor for exposing an iniquitous transaction by which the post office is being compelled to lend nearly two millions to the State at an unprofitable rate of interest, and for exposing another by which the Government life insurance office is rendered unable to compete with other private offices on account of not receiving a proper rate of interest from its Government investments — if to make an exposure of this sort is traitorous, then all that honest men could wish is' that there were more treachery in public life. From his unconvincing and inconclusive criticism of Mr Allen, the Premier gravitated towards Mr Lewis, who, it will be remembered, made a short speech on the occasion of Mr Allen's appearance at Wyndham. Referring to the member for Christchurch, the Premier said : "As to the venomous remark that the Minister of Lands would allow no one to have land but his own sons, and made statements in the House ■that be would not make out of it, if there was one man in the Ministry careful of his statements, it was John McKenzie. He challenged Mr Lewis to repeat his statements on a public platform." The Hon J. MoKenzie's references in the House to Sir W. BuliiKr;' bis historic remark as to " that fool of a Magistrate " ; his strictures upon Judge Kettle, au;l examples of colloquial hysteria on numberless other occasions are all doubtless proof of the care with which the Minister for Lands bridles his tongue, and go far to show how ridiculous was the Premier's attempt to defend his particular weakness. Mr Seddon proceeded to say further tbat "Mr Lewis had made statements about fellow-members of tho House which no gentleman should have made, and it could only be put down to the speech being an after-dinner speech." Unfortunately there are too .few men nowadays wbo are prepared to denounce the evils and abuses of Parliamentary life. Unseemly brawls have usurped the place of statesmanlike intercourse and dragged our halls of legislature down almost to the level of a pothouse. Mr Lewis at Wyndham lifted the curtain a little and disclosed the seamy side of Parliament and was stigmatised as no gentleman for his pains by the man in whose keeping its honor lies ! He drew no fancy picture of the moral squalor rampant in political circles, but exposed au evil to which the Premier, of all Parliamentarians, should have been foremost to direct public attention. " There was a member," Mr Lewis said, " who was carried out of tbe chamber last year with the lights lowered, so that the public might not see Parliament's sbame ; another, who for six weeks did not articulate a sober word ; and still another who, intoxicated, got into a railway carriage and in the course of an argument struck a woman wearing the Salvation Army uniform, and knocked her hat from her head. There were members whom messengers were told off to watch lest they should fall into the hands of the police, and there were men who, failing to get in at the' front door crept in at the back into the Legislative Council. If these men had done their duty, please God the Premier should never say of him (the speaker) tbat he had done his." Considering all things it would perhaps have been better had the Premier left Messrs Allen and Lewis severely alone. By his attacks upon their utterances at Wyndham he has aided his cause not at all, but merely added to the numberless opportunities already existent for his opponents to successfully unmask his Administration as one of political eharalatans and selfseeking opportunists.