POLITICAL.

Otago Witness, Issue 1797, 30 April 1886, Page 11

POLITICAL.

Mr Vincent Pyke. M.i 1.11. at 'I ap.iuui.

At Tapanui oa Thursday evening, 22nd, Mr V. Pyke, M.H.R., addressed a well-attended meeting of the electors in that portion of his district. The mayor (Mr J. Mair) occupied the chair.

Mr Pyke commenced his remarks by referring to the last dissolution and the mauner in which the Stout- Vogel Ministry were allowed on the second occasion to take office constitutionally and by the will of the House. Fair support was given to the Government. Members knew them. Thuy knew Vogel, but wero content to give him an opportunity of airing his little schemes, provided there was a brake upon him, and this they thought, they had in Mr Stout. He was sorry to say the latter had not acted the part in the past, but he was not without hope yet. Mr Stout's recent speeches seemed to indicate that he saw he had gone too far in acceding to the demands of the Colonial Treasurer, and was not inclined to follow the same path next session. The speaker, for one, was glad to see it. Referring to the past session, hu said that the House in ISBS found itself confronted by some very difficult questions. The first thing was the new Budget. That proposed to add to the burdens of the country £75,000 a year.

PROTECTION AND MJEETRADE were freely talked about, and under the rose Protection was attempted. He did not hesitate to tell them that when that battle came to be fought he was a Freetrader to the backbone. — (Applause.) He was sure that in future days, when our children held the seats we now occupied, they would realise the grand position of New Zealand in the Southern Ocean as the outpost of civilisation in the Pacific, that all her ports would be thrown open — that there would be no customs duties, — and she would be the greatest Power on this side of the line when that was done. But that time was not yet. This was not a Freetrade country — we need not delude ourselves with that idea. Them was not a thing we wore upon which duty was not levied ; and whether people bought imported goods or not was no matter, because the duties raised the price of goods made in the Colony. It was the same with all the necessaries of life. If this was a Freetrade country with 15 per cent, on all imported goods, he should like to know what Protection meant. It was true we did not go to the extremes proposed last session, but taking 15 per cent, as the basis of his calculations, it meant £16 10s on £100, because if goods were invoiced at £100 the customs officer at once reckoned that 15 per cent, added made them worth £115, and so made l-£ per cent, more. This, with the charges of importers, middlemen, &c, meant in moderate terms 20 per cent, added to the people using the goods, and this, he thought, was about enough to levy. If an industry could not prosper with 15 per cent, protection, the sooner it ceased to exist the better. After detailing the manner in which the Freetraders in the House and those opposed to increased taxation united to reject ths proposed tariff, the speaker went on to say that the question of 'Freetrade v. Protection would have to be fought out. The day would come before long when they would have to range themselves upon one side or the other, and it was desirable they should at once prepare themselves for a full understanding of the question. What Protection really meant was that every penny added by the customs to the cost of an article was a penny taken from the money the purchaser possessed. Money, ifc must be remembered, was merely the medium of exch.vi?:>. and its only value was that a man could y !, something else with ifc. Take, then, the casr' ut' a farmer who sells his wheat at 4s a bushel ami goes to buy something else that pays a duty of 20 per cent, or 4s in the pound. The result was that instead of getting 4s a bushel for his wheat the farmer only got 3s 2d, because he had to pay a p equal to lOd in the shape of customs duties. The same illustration held good in the case of the gold miner. The latter class objected to having to pay 2s an ounce for export duty, but what was that compared with the import duties they paid on the goods they purchased ? Sir Julius Vogel the other day said he did not desire to raise the cry of Protection ; Major Atkinson said on no account did he wish to raise the cry. In point of fact, as the speaker told them, they were Laodiceans — neither hot nor cold — and they would suffer the fate of the Laodicean Church. He merely wished to open their minds to a consideration of this subject and how it would effect themselves, because when the struggle came it would be a sad thing indeed for the country if, in the heat of an election, they were led to vote for a thing which practically meant ruin. — (Applause.) The next matter that engaged the attention of the House was amusing from one point of view and distressing from another. He alluded to

THE MEIGGS CONTRACT. A region existed between the habitable part of Canterbury and the West Coast, across which it had been proposed for some time to make a railway. The Government sent a commission to inquire and report on the matter, and the commisson reported that there was neither agricultural nor pastoral land and no prospect of traffic for many years, and recommended that the line should not be gone on

with. Then Christchurch determined to send out a commission of its own, and this commission reported that as a commercial speculation they would not recommend anyone to undertake the work. In the face of this, an attempt was made to force the thing on the country. It was necessary to show them the clanger there was in having men of speculative tendencies on the Government benches. There was on the New Zealand Statute Book an act called the Railways Construction Act, authorising ihe Governor-in-Council to enable private companies to make certain portions of main lines on certain conditions. The terms of this act were not considered good enough for the East and West Coast railway, so a special act was brought in giving greater facilities for its construction, aud the following were the distinctions the Colonial Treasurer thought fit to draw : — The Railways Construction Act proposed to give the companies 30 per cent, of the cost of the line in the shape of land chosen in alternate blocks; — the proportion to be given to the East and Wrist Coast railway was 50 per cent. The valuation of the land in the case of the geneual act was the estimated market value ; in the case of the East and West Coast railway it was 10s per acre. The cost allowed in forming the railway was, in the general act, £5000 per mile; tho cost in the case of the East and West Coast line was £11,000 per mile. In the event of coal being discovered, the general act provided that a royalty should bo paid to the Government; in the case of the East and West Coast railway no royalty was to be paid, and as the line was supposed to go through a coal country, this ■ was a very important point. This special act was passed in 1884, but nothing came of it until Meiggs' contract was submitted. He did not know whether those present understood what that confounded contract was, — it was one of the most startling things ever submitted to Parliament. Under the act the company was to spend about £3,000,000, and acquire laud which, at JOs an acre, would mean £1,500,000; but not satisfied with that, they wanted the country to guarautee £97,000 for 20 years, which meant £2,000,000 more, calculating the interest, and brought the cost to t.he country up to £3,500,000; and after that the line would be the property of a private company, and the Government would have to pay its full value in buying it back, making its total cost £7,000,000. Then the calculation upon which the £97,000 was based was made up in a peculiar manner, and one item which attracted special attention was "syndicate allowances, underwriting, £380,000." Members naturally wanted to know into whose pockets this was to go, but they could find out nothing about it. The Government, finding the temper of the House was against them, but hounded on by the Christchurch members, next asked for a committee to be granted. Now this must be marked: it was the duty of the Government, in all matters of finance especially, to take the House into their confidence and impart to it every bit of information they possessed. On the 4th August the Government came down proposing a committee, and the House was so disgusted with the proposals that it refused to listen even to that. Fortunately for the country it did so. But at the time they asked for this committee the Government had a telegram* received on 24th July, which they kept back until the 14th August, and in thit. telegram two other demands were made, viz.— that the Government should pay any deficiency in the working expenses for 20 years, and that the syndicate should be allowed to make the line in two or three portions, and not compel' ed to finish the whole unless they thought fit. This telegram was not laid before the House until 10 days after the Government had made their proposition.

THE EAST AND WEST COAST LINE.

The speaker then exhibited a plan of the route, and pointed out that the line ascended to a height of 2550 ft above the sea level, at the top of which was a tunnel three and a-half miles long, and then a grade of 1 in 44, which meant letting it down with a pulley. To cross this country would cost, according to the Government engineer, two and a-quarter millions, and according to the syndicate three and a-quarter millions ; and we were assured there was not a single place all along the route fit for a man to make his habitation, and no possibility of any traffic. According to Mr Blair's report, there were 24 tunnels, besides extraordinary grades and 14- iron viaducts over 50ft high of a total length of 72 chains. And the object of this line was to settle people upon the land. Well, they would not "get any welleducated rabbit to settle there. — (Laughter.) And as to the traffic — the cost of conveying grain from L.yttelton to Westport was 10s a ton without competition, and coal was 9s a ton, and how a railway 140 miles long with these grades could compete with tho seaboard under those circumstances he could not understand. The work the House did last session was simply to save an expenditure of £7,000,000 to the Colony; and if they had done nothing else during the whole session than to prevent this wicked and wasteful expenditure of public money they would have done well for the country. — (Applause.) The outcome of this seemed to be that a syndicate had now been formed to take up the work on the terms prescribed by the act. Well, if these were the terms, and there was to be no excess of favour shown, we had no right to say a word against it. He was surprised to see that some papers — the Otago Daily Times particularly — almost denounced the arrangement that a L >ndon syndicate should take up the line. The sp'-aker was pleased, indeed, that the raatrer was baleen out of the arena of politics, because he was certain that any Government who came to the House and ventured to propose it again would lose their seats the same day. But there was another point : the credit of the country was at stake. They had seen the Otago Woolgrowers' Company denounced, aud very properly ; but what was that compared with the East and West Coast railway, if it were what it was described to be by the commission and officers of the Government and the commission of Christchurch merchants. An uninhabited wilderness the country had been represented to be, where it was an impossibility for there to be any traffic ; and if people at Home had been induced to invest their money without fair explanation, he said it was the biggest swindle over perpetrated, and would wipe out the credit of the colony quicker than anything else— because the Government in signing the contract became responsible. He, for one, should insist upon an inquiry being made. The worst way in which we could foul our own nest was by representing circumstances as better than 'they were to the estimation of the world.

PARLIAMENTARY PROSPECTS. The House was prorogued in a curious temper. In the course of the session the Government had succeeded in alienating eight or ten of their most ardent supporters, and whether they would get them back it was impossible to say. They were alienated first by the action of the Government and the harsh and improper language used by membois of the Government towards them. The speaker knew some members who ho resented it that they would under no circumstances again support the Ministry. What would happen then ? Should wo have Miijor

Atkinson back? No! He spoke advisedly in saying that the majority of the former Atkinson party would have nothing to do with him because he wotdd nofc boldly avow himself either a Protectionist or ai. Freetrader. There was a new party growing up^ not strong enough at present to take the lead ? but he was bound to say that of all the fallacies: of a public kind that embarrassed people, this 1 doubt as to who to follow was one of the most absurd. Why, some of the men in the Ministry were never heard of before they took office, and he had no hesitation in saying that there was the composition of half-a-dozen Ministries at present in the House, each one of them quite equal to the present Ministry or its predecessor. During the recess we had been amused, delighted, played with, befooled. Tho Government had occupied themselves in sending up kites — or, as they might better be called, pilot balloons. The first thing was a proposal to confiscate the North Island railway loan ; then there was to be a 10 million loan; then protective duties; and then a dissolution before the House met. The lastnamed was a mere threat, because no Governor in his senses would allow a Government in a majority — as they professed to be — a dissolution under any circumstances- As for the

NORTH ISLAND RAILWAY LOAN, we were all interested in that for the following reason ; The North Island people, who were very wide awake, would not allow their work to appear on the general schedule, but said they must have a separate bill, so that the money could not be used for any other purpose ; and they got it. But to the surprise of everyone, the Treasurer said that the money could be taken, because it was not earmarked. He thanked Sir Julius Vogel for that phrase. It was one that would recoil upon him again and again, and effect by that operation very great good to the country. The loan was earmarked, and so much so that it could not even be raised till Parliament had assented to the line and until certain Maori lands had been purchased by the Crown, so that the construction of the line should not be a mere gift to the Natives ; but the Native Minister went down, rubbed noses with the Maoris, and said, " Do not sell a single acre, and I will give you a memorandum binding us and all future Ministries that you shall never be called upon to payafarthingof taxation — you or your grandchildren and descendants for ever." Of course he had no such power, and he (Mr Pyke) ventured to say the House would not consent to the line going on until enough land had been secured to guarantee its cost. Certainly they had begun a tunnel in the middle oi the line, the material for which had to be brought 80 miles through a wilderness at enormous expense ; but that was simply done to fix the route so that it should not go through Taranaki. When Sir Julius Vogel said that this loan was not earmarked, he gave a cue which would be followed up. In the past the custom had been for a number of railways to be grouped together in a schedule and a loan raised for the purpose of making them, but as each particular line was not earmarked, the Government took the money and did just as they pleased with it. In future they might be sure the House would have every line earmarked; and he would go further, and say the votes would be earmarked too. It was always possible to improve upon a good idea. Members went up to Wellington and did their level best to get the money so placed over the country as to produce the greatest advantage, and as soon as they turned their backs the Government spent ifc where they liked. One instance was when a vote of £300,000 was passed for the Otago Central, of which £28,000 was spent on it and the rest went to build a railway near Taranaki. The next proposal thrown out was a

TEN-MILLION LOAN, and when that matter became public the whole people of the Colony gasped. When asked upon the subject, he had said that the 10-million loan was a shadow and would pass away ; and it had done so. The idea was only thrown out to see what popular favour ib would meet with, and when it was found that public opinion was not in that direction its was abandoned. No doubt a large part of it was intended for the East and West Coast railway ; but apart from that, it would have been madness to assent to such a thing. What was the cause of

OUR DBPRESSION,

but the Public Works policy of 1870 ? The facfc was that instead of following a wise aud statesmanlike course and taking the railway through the centre of the country to build up population, it was carried along the coast to compete with water carriage. It need not be thought that he was- opposed altogether to borrowing. To some extent it must be done ; but it must be done judiciously, with some attention to the number of the population and the amount laid on their shoulders. Out oi" £33,000,000 of debt there had been only £13,000,000 spent on railways up to the present, of which £12,000,000 v/as on opened lines ; and the average returns from these showed a profit of £2 15s per cent., so that instead of paying 4 per cent, for that money we were only paying £1 ss. But on the £1,000,000 sunk in unopened lines we must continue to pay 4 per cent, until they were available for traffic. To finish these it was necessary to continue borrowing to a small extent, but it was the greatest possible mistake to think that by the Government spending money we were going to become prosperous. The elements of prosperity must come from ourselves. What the policy of IS7O did was to drain the population from the interior into the towns, where they remained and created the class called unemployed, — as much a professional class as were lawyers and doctors. Year after year they said, as winter came : "We are not going to stop in the country. We will save the money we have earned, go into town and get 4s a day just by raising the pickaxe and letting it fall again, and wo shall be able to enjoy ourselves and go to the theatre occasionally." Of course there were many who were really deserving men with families, hut no distinction was made between the best men and the veriest loafer who hung about the corners of the streets. Therein he thought the Government were very wrong. Now, supposing this £10,000,000 were borrowed to-morrow, there would be simply a. big boom; the agencies which had been lending money at a hight rate of interest would get their money back — which they never would otherwise, — and then they and others would clear out, and in 10 years time the state of depression would be 10 times as bad as at prepont.

OUE INDEBTEDNESS as a people was something so startling that he could scarcely believe his senses in making the calculation, and went to one of ih« best accountants in Duuedui, who told lum he was within tho mark. Here we had only a handful of prophs sufficient for a simul village in the Old Country— ooo,ooo, of whom 400,000 were women or children, so that reduced it to 200,000 breadwinners ; and our indebtednes, public, and private was .£100,000,000— nothing less. There was £33,000,000 public debt ; municipal, h;irbour board, and local debts of all kinds, about £20,000,000— or £15,000,000 at the lowest ; then

there was our private indebtedness. Ihey 3mew the real estate of New Zealand was raort«affed up to the hilt and a little beyond, and this might be pub down at £20,000,000 odd; and then there was our other private indebtedness. The banking returns totted up to £12,000,000 of overdrafts; and altogether there was £94,000,000 or £100,000,000 which we owed to people at Home. The result of this was that, taking the average interest at a moderate figure — 6 per cent.— we sent £5,000,000 a year away to pay interest on money borrowed — a sum which, if spent here, would make a very great difference to New Zealand. Could we wonder at the state of depression ? The man who made a large income by simply investing his capital did not pay a sixpence to the expenses ni the country ; and the incidence of taxation must be so chauged that the burdens would be less ,on the necessaries of life and more upon the large incomes derived from money aent Home. He could not understand why an income tax was not levied long ago', why a man's goods should be taxed and income go free and not contribute to the necessities of the State. Another cause of the depression was that everything we produced had become cheaper in the world's market. We often heard unthinking Protectionists say " Why not keep the money in the country ? " We never sent any out. We sent produce and brought other things back ; and just as the imports were larger or smaller than the exports, a country was richer | or poorer. Last year our exports were in round numbers £6,000,000, which was very good for 600,000 people ; and the imports were £7,000,000, giving £1,000,000 profit. Referring to THE FUTUBE, the speaker said if he- were gifted with the powers of Cassandra he could not tell that. If Ministers addressed the public they were careful to say that their opinions were nob those of the Ministry, but of themselves individually. The last utterance of Mr Stout was to the effect that he would not encourage the wild schemes of the Colonial Treasurer. He (Mr Pyke) should say that the Governor's Speech would embody the magnificent visionary schemes of Sir Julius Vogel, and wind up by saying that it was not proposed to put them in operation at the present time, or at least only in a small part. He went up to Wellington as much in the dark as the man in the moon when the light went out— (laughter),— and he could only say that his vote would be directed entirely, to the best of his intelligence, for the good of the country and of his constituents. They must trust him in all or not at all. A member on the scene had to he expeditious and resolute in deciding, and could not wait until his constituents called a meeting. He himself had been burned three times, hung once or twice, and drowned, but was not much the worse for it, and they might be sure that neither popular threats nor Ministerial favours should draw him one inch from the path of duty. One other thing he must touch on — our PENAL LAND LAWS, as they might be termed. There were the agricultural lease and the deferred payment, the perpetual lease, the pastoral deferred payment, the rural deferred payment, the small grazing runs, special settlements, homestead system, and no one knew how many more. He agreed with Sir George Grey in thinking there was not a man in New Zealand who understood our land laws ; and he would say, Wipe them all out, aud begin afresh. What puzzled him specially was seeing them all so full of penalties. In all directions there were snares and traps set, nome one of which .one must fall into. He would have free selection after survey, and then deferred payments — nothing more. The speaker passed on to deprecate the action of the Government in stopping assisted immigration, and the ineffective manner in which it had been resumed. To charge £12 for an adult was scarcely any help at all ; £4 10s used to be paid, and that was enough. He thought the people in the country were to blame for making their voice so little heard. They should organise , and associate themselves together. Their position was this : that the Premier by the most disingenuous process of reasoning had induced them to believe that the Constitution Act was based upon representation by population. This was not so. It was based upon the number of electors, and they should at once get this false basis altered. There were two members too many in Dunedin, where there should be only six ; and the districts had only got six instead of eight. A great deal was heard about

but could anyone tell him what was meant? Where was the party ? It was like Hans Breitmann's party — it existed once, perhaps. What was called party here was an absolute abuse of the phrase, because it should indicate a platform on which a number of men combined to advocate certain principles. But what was party without principles ? An umbrella without ribs. (Laughter.) He hoped to see a party come before. the country and take a stand upon a certain platform ; but what was called party now was whether Vogel, Stout, or Atkinson shouM be supported. He said, "Away with your Stout, Vogel, and Atkinson ! What are your principles ?" He had always taken that course, and sometimes suffered considerable abuse because he had chosen to vote with one side or the other, as he approved of the measure or not. He intended, however, to continue this course, and would never vote for a personal party, but always for principles within the walls of that House. — (Applause.) The speaker then concluded, after alluding to the extension of the Heriot railway aud other local matters.

A number of questions were then asked and replied to by Mr Pyke, after which

Mr William Simmonds moved and Mr Patterson seconded a vote of thanks to the speaker and of confidence in him as their representative. The motioa was put and carried unanimously.