LEFT WING POLITICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1423, 8 June 1899, Page 38

LEFT WING POLITICS.

* MR PIRANI AS THEIR EXPONENT. A LIVELY MEETING. The Exchange Hail was packed to the corners on Monday, when Mr F. Pirani, member for Palmerston, came forward to give his views on political matters and to expound a “Left Wing Policy.” Hi 3 reception was not a flattering one, and he was interrupted during the course of his remarks, a portion of the audience at times taking full possession of affairs. Several in the audience expressed their disagreement with the utterances of the speaker by remarks apropos or otherwise, and by discordant- noises and stamping. The result was to prolong the meeting until marly eleven o’clock, and then to leave Mi Pirani with a great deal :f his speech unuttered.

Mr Pirani’s entrance was greeted with applause, but immediately afterwards “three cheers for Seddon” were given with gusto by a section of the audience, after which much uproar prevailed for some time. When he could make himself heard, Mr Pirani apologised for the absence of the Mayor, and asked for the election of a chairman. His remarks were punctuated with cries of “rat” and much uproar. Several names of chairmen were proposed. Mr Andrew Collins declined with thanks, and Mr A. R. Atkinson refused to respond to encouraging cries of, “Come on, cold water 1” After some barracker declared despondently, amidst laughter, “Oh, we’ll have to get a lady!” Mr Pirani asked Mr Reed, or Grey town, if he would take the position, and lie agreed, amidst applause. Mr Pirani, after giving an assurance that he did not indulge in personalities, and stating his refusal to accept. Mr Lewis’s definition of the Left Wing as the Filipinos of politics, proceeded to give his audience “a few chips from Mr Seddon’s recent pilgrimage throughout part of the North Island.” Amidst a perfect storm of interruptions and cries of “What about the personalities?” he proceeded to quote figures to show, he said, that Mr Seddon’s statements that the public works expenditure of the Conservative Administration was greater than that of the Liberals was wrong; and that the boot was on the other foot. He was going on to quote something about Mr Seddon’s remarks about women, when the query from some joker, “Wouldn’t you like to have old Dick’s chest?” caused a temporary stoppage of the proceedings. Eventually, amidst interruptions, Mr Pirani went on to say that Mr Duthie’s remarks about “nigger landlords ’ was not to be taken any more seriously than Mr Seddon’s at Dannevirke that “wives were the vinegar.” Besides, M ■ Field, a Government supporter, at Otaki said he was opposed to the Government's proposals to establish a system of Maori landlords. Several other statements of the Premier at Dannevirke were set up and knocked down again, but the audience still remained restive, and persistently asked Mr Pirani to “give us something of your own.”

.. Turning to “our finances,” the speaker said if they were going to be allowed to go to raok and ruin as they had been doing it would lie a bad lookout for the colony. A voice: You don’t understand the figures. . . Mr Pirani: No; but I want you to understand them for me. I will give you the figures, and if you have g>t any brains you will see them for yourself.

A voice: I will not borrow your brains.

Mr Pirani: No, because I have not any to lend. It takes me all my time to have enough brains of my own. A voice: Hear, hear; I believe you.

After intervals to enable noisy individuals at the door to settle down, Air Pirani said the year before last the increase in the revenue was £261,000; last year it was £193,000. (“Very good.”) “Was it?” asked Mr Pirani; “but what was the other side of the picture?” Was it not, he continued, that the expenditure of the year before last was raised by £78,000, and last year by £205,000? (“Not so dusty, you know.”) And there was this fact they would have to reckon with, during the current financial year, that the Premier had estimated that £150,000 would have to be spent in old age pensions. So that if that was taken as a standard of their expenditure, and if the increase went on in the same ratio, the colony would be about £200,000 to the bad next year. The speaker went at some length into labour matters to show that Mr Seddon was not as great a friend to labour as the late Mr John Ballance and Mr Reeves were in their day, and also stated that the labouring classes were paying £1 15s lOd per head per year more for the necessaries of life than they were when the present Premier took office. He pointed out also that, while people in receipt of over £3OO a year had only to pay one shilling in the £IOO for income tax, the poor people had had their interest on their post office savings reduced to 2\ per cent., equivalent to a tax of £1 in every hundred. Tliis, too, while those who had invested in New Zealand Consols weregetting per

cent., and those in the Public Trust Office 4 per cent.

Mr Pirani’s announcement that he was about to proclaim wiiat legislation the-Left Wing considered advisable in the best interests of the colony provoked a great deal of uproar, and a pxolonged interruption. From that point to the end of the speech, however, he experienced a much better hearing. He gave reasons at length for reform proposals, of which the following are the principal: —Elective executives; a committee to deal with fhe distribution of public works votes; an elective Upper House; a Civil Servioo Board; a simplication of the method of drawing up the public accounts; an abolition of the present system of land ballot ; an abolition of the bankruptcy laws to the extent of their enabling men to evade payment of their just debts; the removal of district judges and magistrates from Ministerial control; an amendment of the land laws to enable the distribution of native lands amongst land'ess natives; optional tenure of land acquired from the State; the referendum.; the adoption of Mr McNab’s Bill making poovision for electors to place preference numbers against candidates’ names to prevent minority representation.

The speaker concluded his speech amidst loud and continued applause. Mr Eavnshaw, who occupied a seat on the platform, moved that a hearty vote of thanks be passed f o Mr Pirani for his manly address, and that that meeting considered members of Parliament should be elected plcdp;ed to principles. and not to party.

An individual in the audience stood up to move an amendment, but succumbed owing to the playfulness of the erewd in the immediate vicinity.

The motion was put and declared carried. amidst loud applause, and the meeting terminated.