MAJOR ATKINSON AT HAWERA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 691, 29 May 1885, Page 24

MAJOR ATKINSON AT HAWERA.

(united press association.) Hawera, May 22. Major ATKINSON addressed his constituents here this evening. He said it was his business tocriticise the actions of the Government, but he hoped that his conclusion would be honest and not carping. He believed in men. not in measures ; for after all measures were but of secondary importance to good administrators, and it might be that even if an Opposition agreed in general with the measures of a Government, but mistrusted the administration of a Government, it would be its duty to turn those men out of office. But lie held these views as to the duties of an Opposition. He did not believe in harassing :i [Government simply for the sake of harassing them. The Government, however, according to the speech of the Colonial Treasurer at Christchurch, rested their claims to confidence on their own merits, not on the demerits of their predecessors, and he therefore had to criticise acts which had been done and measures which he understood it was proposed to present to Parliament, and to point out where Government had failed,. and where it was likely to fail. First he had to refer to federation, with respect to which subject there was a Bill before the Imperial Parliament. The people of the Colony had not yet mastered this subject, nor had many members of the House, and public opinion had yet to be formed and expressed. The question was, were we to, remain part of a great nation with the people of England and the Australian. Colonies, or did we desire to have separate existence apart from them ? He desired the former..and that we should become part of a - great • empire.

The adoption of the Federation Enabling Bill recommended by the Intercolonial Conference would be a step in that direction —a small step perhaps, but an important one. Such a confederation as that of Canada was no doubt impossible, bu we wanted, and could have, a body which would speak the will of the Australasian Colonies in matters of Australasian interests. For want of such a body to impress uponthe British Government the interests of Australasia, France and other countries, for instance, had been allowed, in spite of agreements and understandings to the contrary, to seize islands which would be of immense importance to us when the Panama Canal had been completed and shipping came by that route. These positions had been seized not for colonising or trading purposes, but for strategical reasons, arid history showed that this meant that when next a war occurred in which , Britain was involved the war would be carried on at our doors. This would never have occurred if we had had a federal authority constituted in these seas. The public men of New Zealand for years past had been drawing the attention of the Home Government to this matter. Sir George Grey had represented it to the Home Government as early as 1846, but the Colonial Office did not regard the representations of. any single Colony, and finally said this: “That if all the Colonies can tell us what they want, we will do our best to meet them.” Hence the Conference. The Federal Council Bill now under consideration of the Imperial Parliament was only a slight amendment of the draft adopted by the Conference, the most important amendment being that, if any Colony at any time were dissatisfied with the Federal Council it might leave it. This was strongly objected to by the Victorian Government and several other Governments, who were strongly of opinion that federation should be indissoluble. The present Government raised many difficulties to the Bill, but he confessed that he did not share in them at all, and he hoped that the people of New Zealand would not share in them either. Looking at the fact that the New Zealand Government had objected, and that the Government of New South Wales strongly objected to the Bill as originally drafted, it was perhaps far better to have this clause contained in the Bill, especially as he did not suppose that it would in the slightest degree interfere with the working of federation, because if a Colony withdrew. from the Federal Council it simply . meant this, that it would no longer have a voice in controlling the external policy in these Southern Seas. He did not think any Colony would consent to be placed in that position for any length of time. He saw no prospect of the internal affairs of New Zealand being meddled ,with by the Federal Council. Still, that was the argument against the Bill, and no doubt it was possible, hut he saw no practical likelihood of the Federal Council doing anything which was calculated to injure any Colony. There was not sufficient divergence of interest between Colonies at present. They ran the risk of the Imperial Parliament legislating against the interest of a Colony, but that was not advanced as a reasou for separating from the Mother Country, and there was no reason for assuming that the Federal Council would do so. . A member who represented any constituency in the House of Representatives was only one of 94, but it was not assumed that the other 9.3 would. legislate against the interest of the district he represented. There was no danger which counterbalanced the advantages of federation. He understood that Government would not recommend the New Zealand Legislature to accept the Bill unless it were provided that the action of the Federal Council should have no effect in the Colony unless it had been first approved by the Legislature of the Colony ; but federation of that kind would. be useless, and if that condition were to be insisted on, federation had better be discarded.. As to defence, he was only partially informed as to the reasons Government had. for the action they had taken in proceeding with the defence of the Colony, and therefore he could not say whether he approved of everything that had been done. It seemed certain a short time ago that war would take place, and therefore the. Government were justified in expending public money without the authority of Parliament. But they must show Parliament that there was a necessity for such expenditure. There was no doubt that the Colonies must be defended, and holding that opinion, the late Government had obtained the services of Major Cautley, and it was because of the action of the late Government that the present Government had been able at once to proceed with the defences which were approved by Major Cantley, and by so eminent an engineer as the Governor. The Government might certainly have taken a vote last year for defence, but he was not going to blame them for that, and when the question was considered in Parliament, he should simply judge their action by this standard : ‘ ‘ Had I been placed in such an emergency as. the Government, what should 1 have been justified in doing ?” He was not prepared, for party purposes, to blame them for doing that which most probably he should have had to do himself. He thought the Government were wise in proceeding to carry out plans approved by Major Cantley and the Governor, but whether they were justified in spending £200,000 without authority of Parliament and in calling out the Militia, he should be able to say when he had considered the reasons which had induced the Government to do it. He held that it was the clear duty of the Colony to fortify the principal pores in such a way as to make them thoroughly effective against swift cruisers which might be sent out by an enemy, which was the main thing to be feared, and it was also their duty to the Mother Country to place them in such a position that they would be available for Her Majesty’s war vessels for the purpose of refitting without danger. He did not believe that the Colony, . or any Colony, should start a navy of its own, and if it were true that the Government had sent home to obtain a cruiser, he entirely dissented from their action. The proper method would be for the Colonies to devote so much towards the maintenance of the Imperial Navy, conditionally on their being protected by the British Navy. He thought that that would be the most efficient naval defence, and more than that, it would lead to Imperial federation in this way, that it was not likely that the Colonies would continue to contribute to the maintenance of the British navy unless they secured some voice in the control. He eulogised the action of the New Sonth. Wales Government in sending troops to the aid of the Mother Country in the recent crisis, and agreed that under the circumstances New Zealand was not called upon to do the same, but had the severity of the emergency necessitated it he had no doubt that New Zealand would have made whatever sacrifice might have been required, and would have been justified in doing so. The action of New South Whales had done a great deal to bring about a clearer understanding of the real position of the Colonies, and in that way had done immense good, for the great difficulty in the way of a better understanding between the Colonies and the Home Government, in the way of federation was British ignorance of the position, power, and requirements of. the Colonies. He con-

fessed, however, that he should liketo have seen sent Home an Australasian regiment containing companies from, all the Colonies composed of native born and native bred colonists. As to the Governmentsending the Colonial Secretary to Samoa, no doubt that had been greatly ridiculed ; but, if he was correctly informed that it was merely he intention of the Government to send a high official to Samoa to inquire if the people there desired annexation under Sir G. Grey’s Act, he did not think the action of the Government unreasonable from the Government point of view. Whether it would be advisable for New Zealand to accept the responsibility of Samoa was a matter he need not go into, for neither the Imperial Government, nor Germany, nor the United States would permit New Zealand to take possession of those islands. As to local government, nodoubt good local government was the root of’ the prosperity of the country, but good local government was entirely dependent upon the public spirit and energy of the ratepayers of the country. Unfortunately the tendency of the ratepayers ■was this : If they discovered a mud hole they ran to their member to stir up the . Government to fill up the hole. They were constantly asking Government to do for them what they ought to do for themselves, and no localgovernment would be satisfactory until the ratepayers had determined to be more independent in the way of doing matters themselves. He did not say that there should not be assistance from the Central authority* There should be; but the ratepayers must be got to believe that the duty was upon them of providing necessary funds, and not upon someoutside body. When the present Government had come into office they were supported by men who desired the restoration of the- provinces, some of whom had always been provincialists, and others had taken part in the--abolition of the provinces, but had recanted their faith. The Government was nob only supported by these men, but raised hopes in many minds that such desires would begratified. Larger bodies with extended powers, was the phrase. But what did they find, thatthe Government, having been a few months, in power, and having an opportunity of looking: into the matter, said?—That there should heno restoration of provincialism. The Colonial' Treasurer decided that there was to be nothing of that kind; that there were local bodies enough, and that all that was wanted was more assured finance, and he had told the people at Christchurch that he had .been deputed to do the finance part of the business, and that the Premier would draft. the general scheme. What a very nice Bill it would be ?’ and what would people not give to see the proposal as originally'drafted by these two hon* gentlemen ? for there were no two men in the Colony who held more diverse views with respect to life, and the objects of life, than thesetwo hon. gentlemen. He learnt from Sir Julius; Vogel’s speech at Dunedin that they werenot' going to abolish the Road Boards, but they were going to kill them by slow degrees, that they were going to give them inducements to come into the county government. In other words, the Road Bjards were to be deprived of advantages and placed under disabilities, in order that the people might prefer county government. What he thus meaint was that there was no trust in the ratepayers--of the country. The principle on which the late Government always went wasthat ratepayers in these matters must work out their own salvation. They must determine what form of local government wasthe better, and it was impossible to impose any measure upon this country which would be satisfactory unless it was first worked out by the people themselves. He agreed that the unit of local government must be the Road Board, and if any mistake had been made in the past it was possibly that the Counties Act was passed. What they should have done was to have relied upon the Road Board system, but given the Road Boards power to-. unite for certain purposes, such as. for the purpose of carrying on larger works in their districts. Then they were told that they were to have assured finance. That had been the cry for the last ten years, and what did it all amount to ? That the people must put their hands in their pockets if they wanted more money. New schemes might look nice, but it came down to that in the end. But it was not possible to make roads out or rates, and therefore it came to this, that they must borrow money for making roads. .What the Government were going to propose m that respect he did not know, except it was to. subsidise ; but he could not conceive howsubsidi.es would be made satisfactory to the poorer districts. Subsidies would not provide for making roads. Subsidies might be given for maintenance, and it might . be reasonable to grant subsidies for maintenance of roads throughout the country, and for this reason, that the localities, maintaining roads were not equally taxed, owing to extra external traffic which sometimes passed over roads situated in poor districts. The people who used these roads did not contribute to the cost of maintaining them, and in. that view it might be fair that Government should to some extent, by way of subsidy, assist the local body | but that did not affect the question of making roads. Evidently the Government recognised this, because it said that they were "oing to give local bodies greater facilities tor borrowing. Well, greater. facilities for borrowing meant greater facilities for taxing ourselves What was the extra facility to be given if the Government was going to guarantee local bodies loans so as to reduce the interest charged to local bodies ? It f ol.lowed.that the Government must place more limitation upon the borrowing of local bodies, and if that were done, then political favoritism at once came in. The only way in which the Government could assist local bodies to borrow was under theRoads and Bridges Construction Act. He con-> tended that that had worked well, as far as it had gone. The Premier, at Dunedin, had expressed horror that something hire L200,000> a year had been spent in roads and bridges, and said the country could not stand it, but, on the contrary, he (Major Atkinson) said the country not only could, but must stand it, and that the expenditure.m this direction was the only method of securing trie successful occupation of the couutry. xhe country could not be occupied without roads, and it was one of the first duties of the Government to see that roads were provided, and that funds were found for constructing necessary roads. He believed that the only wav to give local bodies borrowing power was under the Roads and Bridges struction Act, and lie should be prepared tosupport any measure which went in that direction ; but he should not be prepared to support a Government guarantee to a local body’s loans. As to public works, the late Government were charged with being a great deal too slow, and the present Government were going to. push things on with great rapidity, in order to make the country prosperous again.. Answering his objection on the occasion or the last election, when he said that it might be that the Government were going to do ' this by capitalising the interest which would have resulted in prosperity for a time, but only to be followed by terrible depression, the Treasurer had said that that proposition

-would be quite reasonable, and that he should not hesitate to make it if he thought it necessary. Fortunately, he did _ riot think it necessary, and the reason he did not think it necessary was that he knew the ITouse would never consent to it. Well, the fact was that the Government did not push on the_ works at uny greater rate, in proof of which he instanced the case of the Otago Central where people were saying that the present Government were even a little worse than the very bacl Atkinson Government whioh had preceded it. He did not find fault with the Government, but he merely wished to point out that their promises in this, as well as in other matters, ha,d not been fulfilled, and could not he fulfilled. He spoke at some length on the question of the North Island Railway. Dealing with the question of the route, he considered that in the interest of the Colony a mistake had been made, and intimated his intention of doing what he could to get a survey made of a line to connect Taranaki with the Central Railway. an( i to opsTi communication with. A-uckland. As to the District Railways purchase—when those railways were made, he, for one, foresaw that the Colony must purchase them. I he Act which authorised their construction was parsed to relieve the Government of pressure ; and that they were not expected to pay was shown by the fact of the Colony being liable for 2 per cent, interest, and the lands of the district for 5 per cent. He described what took place in the House last session with reference to the question, and said he should be prepared next session to support the purchase of these railways if the price at which they could bo obtained was the fair market value of the cost of their construction at the present time ; but he was not prepared to give more than they were worth, nor should he be prepared to return to ratepayers what they hau had to pay. As to the East and West Coast Railway Bill, it must be remembered that the railways had always formed part of the public works scheme, and it seemed to him that the people in those districts had a perfect right to ask that it should he made, but ■ on the other hand the Government werehound not to proceed with it until the * was in a position to undertake it. _ It come to this, however, that when in a small community like this, any section of the people declined to wait their time the Government was forced to proceed. It. was so in this case, and to avoid difficulty this company was authorised to make the line. He Had no objection to the Bill except that he did not like to see the title to the Crown lands parted with. As a whole the Bill was not an unsatisfactory one. He also approved with some reservation what had been done in respect of the Greymouth and Westport Harbors. He spoke of the value of the coal deposits there, and said his Government, on the strong representations of Mr Munro, had prepared a Bill,” but instead of giving a colonial guarantee as had been done, he would have proposed that the coalfields should have been made the security for loans. He had fought against the guarantee, but Sir Julius Vogel was too strong for him, and in view of the importance of the coal industry being developed, he had .preferred the Bills with the guarantee to no Bills. Railway management had not improved under the new Government. Mr Richardson was to move everything right, and, indeed, only took office preliminary to hissecuringanon-politicalßoard, of which he was to become Chairman. He had been eight or ten months in office, but there was no improvement, and he. had even told a deputation that he could point out 500 faults in the present tariff. Why were they. not remedied ? He had more power as a Minister than he would have as chairman of a non-politi-cal Board, if the Victorian model were to be followed, for there the Board had no power to alter the tariff. He could not imagine how there could be such a body as a non-political Board. The country would never hand over its railways to a body appointed for life, and if it were appointed for a term, say of five years, there was no doubt that members who wanted to he re-appointed would be very anxious to secure favor in political circles. If a general manager, working under a. responsible Minister, could not give satisfaction, neither would a general manager working ujider a Board. He believed that the present grumbling would continue to the end of time. Railway companies were grumbled at at Home, as was to be seen by indignant letters in the Press and actions in law courts, and there would be grumbling here though there was a Board. He. should, oppose a political Board as wrong in principle and utterly futile in practice. As to Native matters, he did not think there was any fear. An outbreak was possible, but improbable, and this was due mainly to Mr Bryce, who made the Natives understand that whan he said a thing he meant it. They did not like him, some of them, but they believed him. It was said that Mr Bryce had made mistakes, but then, if that were true, it would be seen his mistakes consisted in scrupulously guarding the Treasury. He recognised that he held public money in trust, and would give none, unless the claim for it was to be substantiated. Sir Julius Vogel said that Mr Ballance was the best Native Minister the Colony had ever had. He hoped it would turn out to.be the case, but he confessed he saw no signs of it at present. He did not consider the Native Minister was doing satisfactorily for the country. For instance, as to the Central Railway, the late Government had a requisition from Native chiefs in ths King Country to place the whole of that country under survey. • The surveys were being finished when the present Government came into office, but he understood they had now been stopped, and the only reason he knew of, was that it was desired. to encourage what were called Native Committees to deal' with matters of titles. He ridiculed, the idea of any good following from leaving titles to be \ dealt with by the Native Committees. It was 1 preposterous, and the Natives never could settle such matters. If it were true that the surveys had been stopped for this reason, a fatal mistake had been committed. He also complained that the land for the railway had been taken before the titles had been ascertained. The late Government took up the position that a million would be added to the value of Native land by the construction of.this line; and they had determined to get the titles ascertained, and then they would have gone to -the Natives and said, “ We must have so much land before the railway comes this way.” We must have a reasonable proportion of the land or we must purcnase at the present value. They were bound to do that in the interests of the Colony, and were bound not to put a. million in the pockets of the Natives without the Colony reaping some advantage. But the present Government were in a great hurry to make a splash, and in order to make a splash they had sacrificed the interests of the Colony. The land had been taken, and the Natives would naturally expect to be paid the value which the land would have when the railway was made. An exorbitant price would have to be paid for the land, and the Colony would suffer ; in fact, the Colony was absolutely and entirely in the hands of the Natives; whereas if there had been a delay of a few months, and the Government had delayed their splash, better terms would have been obtained. That was one reason why he had no faith in the Native Minister. As to the position of the West Coast, he

should be glad to see the back of the last A. C., but as he could make out. the Natives still believed absolutely in Te Whiti. They were not following their usual avocations, but were parading the country, and what it meant he did not know, neither did the Native Minister, but they were to get money for selling their produce at ruinous prices. Te Whiti had never deviated from the statement that the land was to come back, and the Natives believed him, and it seemed to him that the removal of the A.C.s encouraged this belief, and was therefore a mistake. The Native belief seemed absurd to Europeans, but they, must take into account the Native belief, and, in justice to the settlers, the Government were not justified in encouraging the Natives in the belief that the land was going back to them. If was true there was force at Opunake to crush any trouble, but they did not want, to come to that. Then he came to the question of dealing with Native land. He understood that the Government had a great Bill in preparation, which was understood to have the object of creating a Maori aristocracy in this country by enabling them to lease whatever land they had more than they would require for their own use. If that were the intention he should certainly be found opposing it. He did not believe in creating IMaori landlordism in this, country any more than a European landlordism. He also feared that there was being created in the Native mind a strong idea, that they were to be supreme again. He did not think the Native Minister intended to produce this effect upon the Native mind, but such an effect seemed to have been produced. Promises were being made, and they seemed to think that they would receive more advantages presently. He thought great difficulties would arise from this railway business ; and he was under the impression that what the Natives thought was that there was about to begin again a resumption of the flour and sugar policy. He knew that such an idea was abroad, and he very much regretted it. As to the special settlement scheme of the Native Minister, he did not object to it, but he did not think it would be any great boon. He thought that there was not sufficient provision for road making, and that there was danger of getting people upon too small quantities of land. However, if the scheme was shown not to possess those disadvantages he should rely on it as one more means of inducing the people to settle upon tbs land. He thought they try every experiment in connection with the the Grown lands to see what was the best way of settling them. He objected entirely to the finance of the Government, for this. reason that it was not honest finance, but simply an endeavor to make things pleasant all round to keep up the fictitious value of land, and to avoid taxation, though it were really necessary. The Colonial Treasurer held he was going to save L 300.000 by abolishing the sinking fund, but the saving had consisted not of ceasing to pay sinking fund, but of paying it out of loan instead of paying it out of revenue. All that was secured by this operation would have been done better, though a little slower by keeping to the inscription under the consolidated stocks, under which conversion.had been proceeding for some considerable time. It had been said that it had not a detrimental effect on the credit of the Colony, but he maintained that it had. It was one of those smart things just within the letter of the law, which a man might do once or twice, but he would then suddenly find his credit gone. We had undertaken to do a certain thing, but had not done it. We were said to have a surplus of L 20,000 this year, but if, as formerly, this sinking fund had been paid out of revenue, the accounts would have shown a deficit of L 200,000. Yet last year, in the face of this, the Treasury did.not hesitate to take L 130,000 of taxation, from the shoulders of those best able to bear it. Meantime the cost of education, which was to be reduced, hadgoneon increasing, and they were told that there was defence to pay for, and that the Government were seriously considering the position. No doubt there were difficulties, hut the Government had created them. Taxpayers would have to take up their burdens again, though things had been made pleasant for a time. The Treasurer, had failed, as every other man would fail, in his attempt to show that two and two made five. With regard to local industries, it must be admitted that if the Colony was to. he. prosperous, if the land was to be occupied in small blocks then there must be provided in some way a home market for our produce. He referred to the difficult question of the employment of labor, pointing out that all over the Colony arose the cry that industries were being worked by boys. As soon as a person had finished his apprenticeship his services were no longer required. This was a serious question, and he called attention to it because the community as a whole must consider it. He did not doubt for a moment that the present Government were doing their utmost to promote industries according, to their views. The late Government did exactly the same, and no doubt the feeling of many public men in the Assembly was that the local industries should be encouraged in some way. No doubt the question of free trade arose, and he was not going to enter into that question; but he said this, that if to-morrow they were to remove the whole of the Customs duties, supposing the Colony could afford to.do without the revenue, one-half the population would of necessity leave the Colony. What that argument might be worth was a matter for people to consider, but it was as certain as possible that if the protective duties, if 15 and 25 per cent. were to be removed, it meant the closing up of the industries of the Colony. That was a matter that needed consideration, and he was certain that the local industries question was one of the greatest problems that was to. come up for their consideration. In conclusion he said he had no confidence in the present Government, but his Opposition would be the opposition of fair criticism. He would never be a party to useless obstruction, but as soon as he saw that the people of the country were satisfied that two and two could not be turned into five, he should do his utmost to eject the present Government from office. In the meantime there was nothing to fear for the Colony, as . he had always said, even in the gloomiest times. The Colony was thoroughly sound, and lie ventured to say that if the colonists went on as they had done in the past in the great work of colonising which they had undertaken, they would see the Colony made more really prosperous than it had ever been, but there would not be progress, as the Treasurer put it, by “ leaps and bounds.” It would only be by the labor of our hands and the sweat of our brows. Industry and thrift must take the place of crying to Jove, and then Colonists would be convinced, as they ought to be, that their lines had been cast in pleasant places. Several unimportant questions were asked, and then a vote of confidence was carried, there being only two or three dissentients.