THE HON. JOHN HALL AT LEESTON.

Otago Witness, Issue 1489, 29 May 1880, Page 9

THE HON. JOHN HALL AT LEESTON.

We make the following extracts from the full report of the Premier's spßech at Leeston as published iv the Lytfcelton Times, the telegraphic summary not having done full justice to the hon. gactleman :—

SIR GEORGE GKEX AND ROTTEN BOROUGHS.

Sir George Grey does not appear to have got over the fact of my having left the Legislative Council and entered the House of Eepresentatives. You will remember that he asserted in Christ^hurch on a former occasion that it was au unjustifiable proceeding, and that the_ Governor should not have accepted my resignation. 1 think I gave good reasons before, but na nevertheless returns to the charge. He Bays : " One of the peers thinks he can make a party in the Assembly, and he sits for some rotten borough in the other House." Now, in order that there may be no mistake as to whom that applied, he went on to say : " The gentleman v/ho left the Council was the Hon. John Hall. It is not the first, time he has done it." That, gentlemen, is perfectly true, because he helped me to do so on a former occasion. I don't like my constituents to have their district designated aa a "rotten borough." — (Laushter and cheers.) Wnat is a rorten borough? lam old | enough to recollect what it was, and, as far as I remember, it was a very small constituency consisting of only a "few electors, who were almost entirely dependent on some powerful individual, and who were compelled to vote as be_ desired, and who generally got certain favours in return. Now ho calls you a " rotten borough." But that ia not all. You snem to have occupied his thoughts to a considerable extent. In Auckland he says, "These gentlemen sit for some small place that ought not to return a member at all." He then comes nearer home, and when he gets to Christ church he is kind enough to refer to me again. He says : "It is no time in which a Minister of a great and rising community like this may sneak to some obscuro village and say, I will speak to my constituents. The days have come when men who are to rule men must speak to great communities of their fellow citizens, and not to a few farmers in some country place."— (Laughter and applause.) You are a rotten borough, you ought not to return a member at all, and you are a few farmers in an obscure country village !— (Laughter.) Sir Geo. Grey represents the Thames. Comparisons, they say, are odiou>3,butlhoyare sometimes very useful. Now, in the House of Representatives ifc was my duty on one occasion to throw some little light on the electoral ioll for the Thames. I stated facts which I am going to repeat now, and which were not and cannot be contradicted. Tho electoral roll for the Thames comprisod 4400 electors— more than the whole mala population of the place — but of these people on the lvll 53 were dead, 262 were twice on the roll, 118 were tbree times on the roll, 699 were absent, 400 could not be found by the gentlemau who sent me this information, and who is v,-ell acquainted with the district ; 850 were not properly qualified, 50 had n.i qualification, 1G Natives were twice on the roll, 21 Natives were absent, six Native women were on the roll, and 12 Natives wore on the roll v/ho were doud. — (Loud laughter.) Now, gentlemen, I think if one of usi repreiontc ;u rotteu borontjh it in certdinly not myself.— (Applaiue.) Then, gentlemen, I said thiii, ii-tt v boroughs { r oup«.'ally np it-nirad, iy '■' > r !, If you look a!, tlio ai,o, cf' of .Sir C" o;/e Gr >y to the rlc.'tn.s of (,'io Tin:!,!) y v -vill find iv colmn : im\ a-luilf d< vo'od ' -> '-X'lhi-'in', : V 1,-> u\ni" for t'T* d !u 'ri' i — l"'i: h» h^ r vi kt ' c 111-, • Sj'n n, i! ■ vail .y, \ 'd so ci. 'ih c\i .h»i Trj'y ij») fi; (' 1-, uer'^s ry to u;» a1:a 1 : to 'Uo '.leotn- •» ot l ! n 'i'ttbiuoa. 1 htWO iiou found li uocowcuy to

speak to you in this way. I have told yon thatsome of your wants ought to be considered, but that under existing circumstances they cannot be considered. I don't think he was wise to provoke a comparison between the two constituencies.—(Cheers.)

THE PRIVATE TELEGRAM EPISODE. I now come to a more serious matter, and I shall have to speak very unpleasant words about him. He said that tbe Premier of tbia country sent to require the authorities of that office (tho telegraph-offico) to send up his private telegrams to find out whether there wasanything which would raise a feeling agamsfc him. Now, gentlemen, I have to say in regard to that, and I say it deliberately, that it in neither more nor leas than a deliberate falsehood— l repeat the words— a deliberate falsehood — (Cheew.) Public officers are allowed the privilege of franking telegrams on public business, but not on private business, and such telegrams are public property to all intentnftod purposes. They are the prop arty of the Government of the day. If they frank that which is private, they rob the public chest of the amount of tho f69f 69 they save. The member for Cheviot, in consequence of suspicions which had been entertained thai; the late Government; bad been using the telegraph for electioneering purposes, aaked whether the Government, of vhicn I was a member, would nscert-iin vb.etb.er that had been so, and if any telegrams had been sont as public merges which were roally privato ones, they should bo laid before Parliament. After consultation, we decided that they should. I made the inquiry, aud taeanswer was that th;-re were a considerable number. Before laying them on the table, I took the precaution of going through them, to see if any private telegrams were improperly included. I found that one or two were of a private character, and they were put on one Mde. The question was referred to a Select; CommiDtee, on the motion of the leader of the Opposition. That Committee took evidence, aud reported that they were public telegrams, and had been properly produced. I ask you whether, that being a fact, which no one can deny, the statement in Ohristchurch was not most discreditable to any public man?— (Applause.) PAUPER IMMIGRANT?.! Sir George Grey did not think it worth hie while to explain to his so-called constituents ot Chriafcchuroh the reason why he sent a telegraphic dispatch about 15 months ago to the Secretary of State, asking him to sand out 6000 paupers to this country. I do not know whether you have heard of it, or wish to hear it read. I tbink that in addressing an audieuce^ of the working classes, the reason why that dispatch was sent would have been a very interesting piece of information. The dispatch is as follows:—"New Zealand Government regrets greatly distress in Mother Country. It respectfully informs Imperial Government that 600Q able-bodied immigrants could at once find permanent and profitable employmeat in NewZealand, in addition to largo numbers whose passages are being paid by_ the Colony.' That was sent at the conclusion of a second bad harvest, when a time of depression had arrived, and when any man of ordinary intelligence must have known that the labour market would be overstocked. There is another circumstance —that in 1879, when the unemployed question was a difficult one, and when papers were laid on the table relative to immigration, of a later date than that telegram, that telegram was left out, and was intended to be a secret until his auccassors came into office and found it, and laid it on the table of the House. Was that dealing frankly and fairly with the people of this Colony ? Certainly not.— (Cheers).

THE FINANCIAL SITUATION. _ _ The Treasurer made a searching investigation into the financial condition of the Colony. The people of the Colony had not been told that their financial position was very serious, but in point of fact we found that it, was. Speaking of the ordinary revenue aud expenditure, there was a deficiency on July Ist last of over LIOO.OOO, but for the financial period in which we then were, the revenue of New Zaaland, bo far as it could be fairly estimated, fell short of the necepsary expenditure by a sum of no less than LBoo,ooo— that is to say, nearly at the rate of L 2 per head for every man, woman, and child in New Zealand. I venture to say that that is a state of things which has not often been revealed to the people of any country, and yet we had no kind of warning of it. Members of the late Government have attempted to deny that the deficiency was so great. They have said that the present Treasurer took an unnecessarily gloomy view of the prospect before him, and that, in point of fact, the revenue would be much larger than hia estimate, and the expenditure much less. What has been the real result ? We have got to the end of the financial period, the accounts hive been made up and signed and printed, and instead of the Treasurer's estimate being a too gloomy one, it wa3 not nearly gloomy enough. The deficiency turns out to be nearly L 200.000 more. I see Sir George Grey stated in Auckland that the deficiency was only LBO,OOO o? L 90.000, unless it was a misprint ; he said at the Thames that it could not. be L 500.000. But there is this fact— that before Sir George Grey went out of office, withiu three > months of the commencement of the financial year, ho had himself issued deficiency bills to the extent of L 400.00 0; and the first thing we bad to do when we succeeded him was to pass a bill through in one day to obtain L200 ) 000 more, without which the public paymeuts could not have gone on ; and yet in the faoe of this, with these facts and figures before them, these gentlemen tell you that we are tiyiiig to create a panic, and unnecessarily frightening you.— (Cheers,) Now with regard to the loan. You are aware that in the previous session a loan of five millions had been authorised to be raised. When we came into office wo found that it had not been raised, but wo did find tbat it had been very largely anticipated. A largo draft had been made upon it iv advance. Our agents iv London had been drawn upon. Evovy mail, drafts had gone Home to provide funds for carrying on public works. The liabilities to be met bofore Christmas out of that loan were over one million, and a further liability had been incurred, which would have to b« met bbforo June, of another million ; so that, before tho loan was raised, it had practically bsen spent to the amount of two millions. We found, also, that liabilities had been incurred for purchase of Native lands to tho amount of between L1,1C0,000 aud L 1.200,000, and that was U'f"re a sixpence of the loan had been raised. lam told that we magnified the difficulty. You will perhaps see when the papers are published that we did not magnify the difficulty ; that it would have been almost impossible for us to have magnified the difficulty and the danger. You will see that they could nut have got on without drawing on our agents in London j that the Bank of Now Z 'aland had refused to advance any moil' y, and that they wero at fbi-ir wits' end. If <.ha* ii not a posiMou of difficulty and danger I should HJcb to know i i.a. is.— (Applaud.) TT ~ r e wra fe till to]d by '1 ) l".to G 'vrrnmi'i! tb"i !h(r>wo3 no cause

r • ji r>-., 1 ..j, i ,ji, X omu'il imdoistond bow :.uf C'Wki li i\L ffiii jTjVu to t-k > ivt.r [> t (ff.mri if IT'ic C'ninliv in a greater m .i, m t ) ' ako oUii-" undec movo discouraging oji'ouuiHlanceß— (Cheers.)

FINANCIAL EXPEDIENTS.

But w« had one or i<>vo rarnarkable argu meets offered for mtaiuing tho land tax. A gentleman in WVstland objected to tbis property tax recently, and said be should continue tVift laud tax; nnd for wimt, reason do you think, gentlemen ?— for Wrslland is an important part of the Colony, producing a large amount of gold, and has a very fair share ef the public expenditure of the Colony — it does not consider it has enough, but no part of the Colony does think it has enough, so that there is nothing peculiar about it in that resrect. This gentleman objected to the property tax, and thought that the land tax should be increased. He says : "At prasent, under the land tax, there are only four individuals in Westland who are taxed, but under the bill before us all our struggling settlers will be taxed." It is quite fair tbat the land tax should touch the struggling settlers aud farmers in this and in other parts of the Colony, but it is not fair that they should be taxed in West laud. I think it is a rerv good reason why there should bo a r>ange It is 8 very wast, ful tax. In the Ifctsoii Provincial District it cost more last year to collect the iax than it brought in.— ( Laughter ) In Auckland the return was very small. In point of fad the land tax is chiejly derived from Canterbury and Otago, tmd to a lesser extent from Wellington, and therefore I say it presses ■unevenly on the country at large Well, gentlemen, we thought, as I told you when I last addressed you, that it was a fair thing that taxation should rest on all property ; that all property protected by the State should pay ior that, protection. Land is not more protected thtn anything else. Tho man who has a mortgage upon land pays for it ; a man who has a house pays for it. It is a perfectly fair and right principle that whatever realised property exists should pay a reasonable sum for its protection.—(Applause ) I never expected a property tax to be a popular tax ; very few taxes are popular, and a direct tax of all taxes is the laast Dopular. I am aware that considerable dissatisfaction exists on this subjec'., but I da puggest that it should not rest upon those who introduced it; for the purpo^o of raakiog- up p. deficiency, bu* upon those who caused that deficit ncy and bo rendered that tax necessary. — (Oheere.) It is said that the taxis of an inquisitorial nature. I admit tbat it is so, but it is as little inquisitorial as possible, and the cry against it has been raised by political opponents of the Government, who take every opportunity of making the position of affairs as alarming as possible If the law can be so altered as to make it less inquisitorial, and so l<ss obnoxious, without lessening the amount to be raiaed by it, such an alteration will, I can assure you, have the serious attention of the Government.— (Cheers.) Sir George Grey at Christchuroh stated that we shrank f rom bearing the pu blic burdens ourselves, and threw them upon tbe mass of the people. If that is true I am very dad to hear it, for this reason : Every person who possesses less than LSOO is exempted ; therefore it follows that the mass of the people have at leaHt LSOO worth of property.— (Cheers. ) I don't know that this is so . I hope that it is, at least in this ob acure village.— (Cheers and laughter.) I don't think that it is so in other parts of the Colony, and I believe the fact is that fi ve-sixths of the people will not pay this tax at all.— (Applause.) That is an assertion which cannot be contradicted too diotinctly. and the contradiction cannot be too widely published,— (Applause.) There 1b an advantage abeut the property tax which I think has not been sufficiently dwelt upon, and that is that a great many gentlemen who place large amounts of money on mortgage escaped under the old tax, but will not so escape under this lax.— (Cheers'.) I was lately told of one perßon who is very wi-ahhy, but who does not employ his wenlth in farming, or anything of that kind. Thas gentleman will, under the present bill, have to pay LIOO a yoar, while under the former law he paid only L 5 a year. — (Applause. ) I could understand his objecting to this bill, but I think that ia his case it is only fair.— (Cheers.)

THE FUTURE,

However grave the present pnsition is, we believe we have ceen the worst of it. The depression is passing away, the falling off in the revenue is diminishing, and I trust we are on the eve of better time* in matters of finance. — (Cheers.) One thing is necessary both in pub lie and private finance in this Colony, and that is that we should practise what we have hitherto not sufficiently practised, strict economy.— (Cheers.) It ia the duty of Government to do tbat. If we devote ourselves to prudently managing the finances of the Colony, to developing the immense resources of the Colony, I believe that in a comparatively short time the present depres«ion will have parsed away, leaving t,o other trac s behind it than the lesson of thrift and economy which it will teach for the future. — (Ch°era.) I have said that it is the duty of Government to practise economy. We did not come inta office promising, as some if our predet evtnra have done, to reduce expenditure by LIOO.OOO, or, aa Mr Montgomery said at Akaroa, to reduce it by L 150.000. We said we would endeavour to reduce the expenditure as far as powible without impairing the efficiency of tin public eervice. — (Cheers ) That was a prudent promise, and ono which could be kept and was kept, while the other promises have nob been kept.— (Cheers )

DEFERRED-PAYMENT LANDS.

Now with regard to another feature of last session. A law was passed in 1877 relating to the disposal of Crown lands on deferred payment. This was found to be too restricted, and the prices too high. My hon. friend Mr Rolleston has devoted himself during the recess to the consideration of this question, and has visited several places, and tho reßulfc has been that the total amount of lands thrown open on deferred payment since October Ist is 71,000* some odd acreß. — (A. Voice: "Where are they ?") The Government has published a little book called " The Crown Lands Guide," which gives every information. This can be obtained at any of the Crown Lands Offices, and is a, very useful little wwrk.

* These figures were erroneously telegraphed as 713,000, and commented upon by us accord, ingly.