MR T. B. GILLIES AT AUCKLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1192, 3 October 1874, Page 5

MR T. B. GILLIES AT AUCKLAND.

(prom our own correspondent.)

Two more meetings since I last addressed you show that the political feeling is not yet allayed ; and now that we are to have Mr Vogel here, I should not be surprised at having a third to chronicle next week. The first ol these meetings was that of Mr Gillies with his constituents at the Mechanics' Institute, which was crowded to suffocation. The meeting must have been highly satisfactory to Mr Gillies, for he was applauded throughout, and cheered vociferously when the vote of confidence was passed. It is the first time he has found himself thoroughly in accord with the constituency which he represents, and the consciousness of this produced a complete change in his manner of addressing them. There was none of the bitterness which characterises him generally when speaking of opponents. Nor was there any occasion to rouse in the slightest degree the approhensions of his hearers as to the actual position and prospects of the Colony. Nor had he, like Mr Header Wood, to stand on his defence, or to confine his speech mainly to a justification of the vote he had given on one subject. The consequence was a speech replete with information as to the proceedings of the session — a speech that bore the character of homely and friendly conversation with his constituents, rather than a set oration, and that was, moreover, varied by the happiest hits, which kept his hearers in good humour throughout. The choicest fun was extracted from the Premier's speeches on the Forests Bill, and on that for the abolition of Provinces. The quarrel between Mr Vogel and the cantankerous Superintendent of Wellington was treated with great liveliness ; but nothing could beat the quiet telling style in which Mr Gillies gave out his extracts from the Premier's expressed views on the Provincial and Forests questions, and showed the ludicrous contradictions with which they teemed. Let me, however, endeavour to give you a brief resume 1 of what Mr Gillies said. He spoke first of the thorough disorganisation of the Assembly as a deliberative or legislative body. Members voted for the greatest measures without argument, and passed laws without reading or understanding them. The Government was all powerful, and had at its back a block vote with which they could carry any measure it liked. The Opposition thoroughly recognised the situation, and when the Assembly met they were bent on two chief objects. The first was not to allow a changs of Ministry if they could help it, and the second was not to give the slightest pretext for a dissolution. A change of Ministry would be, they held, injurious from both a party and a public point of view, while it was highly desirable not to have a dissolution until the effects of the policy of 1870 were more dearly Been. Therefore the Financial Statement and the statements of other Ministers were allowed to pass without notice or debate. All was serene, and the apathy of members could not be more strikingly shown than by the unanimity with which they concurred in the belief that the session would not exceed six weeks in duration. The State Forests Bill was the first break in the general calm. Ministers had invited full discussion upon it ; it was net, therefore, a critical measure. The tongues of the Opposition were immediately lcosened, and they exposed the Bill as impracticable. If the Government had proposed only to plant forests in waste places, in order to replace those which were being gradually destroyed, well and good. But the proposal to conserve the natural wild bush was, as everyone here knew, absurd. It would only lead to new appointments. But from the nature of things and the experience of this Province, it was safe to say that the only way of conserving was to sell the bush to private owners, where it was practicable to find buyers. As far as could be judged from Mr Gillies's statements, the chief objection held by him and others to the Bill was a feeling that it meant more than appeared on the surface. At all events, the oppo^ Bition to it was the signal for a revival to some small extent among the members who, until then, had been asleep. Just about that time, Mr Thomas .Russell arrived in Wellington from Auckland, and Mr Gillies attributed to his influence the new movement for the abolition of j Provinces in the North Island, which burst upon the House with all the suddenness of a surprise. What Mr Russell's object could be no one has yet been able to fathom, but that finance is in Borne way at the bottom of it no one doubts. Generally, it is believed, I may observe, en pareuthesc, that the view taken by your Wellington correspondent at the time was the correct one, and that the object ot the Ministry is to get hold of some valid security— never mind what —on which they can borrow a couple of millions to carry them through the year, and thus avoid putting more debentures on the London market for the present. Mr Gillies only incidentally, however, referred to this when pointing out the peculiarities in the Four Million Loan Bill which gives the Government power to pledge the seven year debentures in security for advances against them— a policy which Mr Vogel formerly denounced in the strongest terms as pawning or hawking, but to which there U too much reason to fear the Colony -will be again reduced. To return, however, to°the roßolution f or the abolition of the North

Island Provinces. Mr Gillies, as an avowed Centralist, could have nothing to say against abolition throughout the Colony. But he pointed out with great force the incongruity of the Premier's action from an Auckland point of view. In his Financial Statement, Mr Vogel had drawn attention in a very marked way to what he termed the lamentable condition of the three Provinces of Auckland, Nelson, and Westland. Mr Gillies, amid loud cheering, disclaimed the statement as applied to this Province, which was sound, commercially and financially, though some of its local institutions are at the lowest ebb through the Government absorbing the only revenue on which they could rely. In that respect only was the Province, which contributed its £270,000 last year to the revenue of the Colony, in a lamentable condition. However, when the Bill came down to abolish Provinces, it was not those in the " lamentable" condition which it included, but the whole of the Novth Tsland only. It is needless to give the further points on which Mr Gillies touched in connection with this now famous resolution, as they have already been reported in other ways. He stated that although Mr Reader Wood was quite correct in saying that had he proposed to abolish the whole of the Provinces, only 12 members would have voted for it ; yet, had the Government introduced it, they could, hs believed, have carried that or any other measure by the block vote always at their command, and this elicited from him indirectly, another statement of considerable importance, as coming from a lawyer of his standing. This was to the effect that the block vote in question could not be used with too sudden an effect on the Abolition question, as the Provinces could only be abolished by the direct action of the Imperial Legislature. The Constitution Act gave no such power to the Assembly, and any Act of theirs, even if sanctioned by the Queen, would not be legal — a statement which was received with vehement applause by the meeting. Altogether, the conclusion to be drawn from the conduct of the meeting was clear. They were strongly in favour of the abolition of the Provinces throughout the Colony, and of the administration of the Land Fund by the Colonial Government, in order that it might be charged with a fair proportion of the expense of governing the Colony. But they were firm and unanimous in the strongest disapproval of a course which would place the North Island in a different position to the South, and practically place it under a different Constitution. They felt the full degradation implied in such a proposal, and made it quite clear that no argument, no reliance, on the secret intentions ascribed to Mr Vogel by his supporters, but disclaimed by himself, would reconcile them for one moment to the consideration of such a change.