PRESENTATION TO MR V. PYKE, M.H.R.

Otago Witness, Issue 1943, 14 February 1889, Page 14

PRESENTATION TO MR V. PYKE, M.H.R.

On Wednesday, the 4th iusfc., a meeting of Mr Vincent Pyke's constituents was held at Clydo (writes our correspondent) for the purpose of presenting that gentleman with a purse of 200sovs. As the hour of meeting drew near the streets became crowded with both sexes, and punctually at 8 o'clock Mr William Fraser (county chairman) was voted to the chair, and requested to make the presentation. The hall was very tastefully laid out, and comfortably filled, Mr Fraser said: Mr Fyke, I have been deputed by your constituents residing in this northern portion of your district to impart to you their appreciation of the numerous services you have rendered to them, more especially of your services in promoting the construction of the Otago Central railway. I know it is the habit nowadays in many quarters to decry enthusiasm. Well, I confess, even at the risk of being deemed old fashioned, to have a very sincere respect for genuine enthusiasm, What great movement in the past has been brought to a successful issue, or what great work has been acomplished without the aid of this important factor ?■ Now, if there is one thing more thau another which has characterised your attitude towards this undertaking it has been your enthusiastic advocacy of it. Your enthusiastic faith in this railway has never failed you from the iuception of the work to the present day. Nay, more, it has again and again re-animated the flagging seal of those who should not have needed this spur. You, at anyrate, may claim to ]be exonerated from any blame for the (It Uy that has occurred. Your tfforts last sesbion have been far from fruitless. Who can doubt that the long and animated debate which took place oil your bill, and the Ministerial vibit in December last through the Interior of this province (the visit btiug a dh-eot result of tho discussion on the bill; have advanced this project many stages farther, more light having been thrown on the subject? Is it nothing, also, to have at last enlisted the active sympathy and support of the mercantile community in Dunedin, whose apathy in the past in regard to this question has been simply incomprehensible ? I will, however, leave these points for you to touch on in the address which I understand it is your intention to favour us with this evening. Suffice it to say that we are met here now to evince to you, in a more substantial form than mere words, our recognition of your untiring efforts to promote the construction of this railway. This purse of sovereigns which I am about to request you to accept has been contributed in part by your constituents resident in this portion of your district, and in part by the principal firms in Dunedin, who, hearing of our iv ten tion, requested to be permitted to join ia this presentation, as they are fully alive now to the fact that in advocating our interests on this question you were advocating theirs also. Mr Pyke, on behalf of your constituents (resident and nonresident;), I have much pleasure in requesting you to accept this parse of sovereign's, — (Loud and prolonged cheering.) Mr Pyke said that he would prefer to postpone the personal part of his address until he had dea{t with more public matters. It afforded him great pleasure to see so many ladies present. He was an advocate of female suffrage, and felt sure that the moral and material aspect of the world would be ameliorated if women took a more active part in public business. Referring to the Otago Central railway and the various efforts that had been made to have it construe* ted— by the Government, by the oounties, and as a dernier rresorti t by a private company-— Mr Pyke declared that he was almost indifferent as to the means whereby it was made, bat made it most be, and should be, '.to LakeWanaka, before he wonld consent to die. When the line was first proposed on the very spot of ground— on the same planks, in fact— as he stood on now, seven lines were projected, the, object, ia every c&s^

being to tap the interior, and bring it into communication with the coast. At present the interior was isolated, and consequently not prosperous. Here he might mention the almost incredible circumstance, that there were some ' settlers, very few he was happy to say, who feared that a railway might bring them into competition with growers on the coast. What dense mental faculties these people must have, if they, in fact, had any. Communication with the coast would enable them to get rid of their surplus produce which now was unsaleable. The seven lines projected were all considered by the two Houses of Parliament in special committees in 1887, and both Houses concurred in recommending the Strath-Taieri line. But the Palmersfcon and Shag Valley people and the Waitaki-Oamaru people were dissatisfied, and they had opposed every effort to build the line up to the present time because it did not pass their doorsteps. He (Mr Pyko) always wanted the line begun at both ends arid in the middle, because he understood the selfishness of human nature, and knew well that every advocate of the line would become either indifferent or obstructive as soon as it reached his own domicile— and so it had proved to be. Every little village wanted the terminus to be at its own doof sill, and so it would go on to the end ; bat he (Mr Pyke) wanted it to reach the natural terminus on the shore of the grandest of our lakes— Wanaka, which was the true and proper road to the West Coast and to Hokitika. Anyway, it must not be stopped until it reached the DunBtan plains, which were, in fact, the " gateway to the interior." Once there it could be pushed on at little cost . Then, he had been pushing on another way of communication in the interim by way of the Clutha river. The trust had an endowment of 56,000 acres of splendid land, and the rental of this estate was dedicated by law to the clearance and removal of obstacles from the river, and this was being done ; so that, sooner probably than they anticipated, the whistle of the steamboat on the Clutha river would emulate the shriek of the locomotive on the Otago Central railway. Sir Robert Stout and Mr Smith Fish had rendered themselves peculiarly obnoxious by their wanton opposition to the bill last session. That bill was prepared by the Attorney-general with the expressed stipulation that it should have his— that is, Government — support in the Council. It must be remembered that a similar bill had passed through the House in the previous session, and that Sir F. Whitaker's opposition prevented it from becoming law Well, the supporters of the bill consented to allow of the postponement of the bill if Sir F. Whitaker would undertake to carry it through the Council next session. Then he (the Attorney-general) drafted a bill— a bill with very hard conditions, as he would presently show; and the Government, divided amongst themselves in the Lower House, fiually supported the staunch majority who were in favour of the bill by going over to the minority and converting them into a majority. The Auckland members with one exception worked hard to smother the bill, as they always do work to injure Otago or Canterbury. And two traitors to Otago helped to turn the scale. Sir Robert Stout has a stupid fad, from Henry George, that the State should never part with the freehold— therefore he opposed the bill by writing in the Wellington papers. He (Mr Pyke) would venture to say that every word penned by Sir Robert Stout on the matter had cost the country two settlers. Then Mr Fish, who knew nothing of the country, whom he could only characterise as an intense Dunedin cockney, must needs come to the aid of the northern enemies of Ofcago. Only in May 1887 he (Mr Fish) had moved in the Dunedin City Counoil a resolution approving of the formation of the line by a private company on the land grant principle; yet in May 1888 he was loud in his denunciation of the very Bame thing. [Mr Pyke here read extracts from the Otago Daily Times of May 6, 1887, in whioh, amongst other things, Mr Fish said in the council : "It would be a good thing for the colony if a company were allowed to make the line, as it would save the colony hundreds of thousands of pounds, and the cry of the unemployed would no longer be heard in and around Dunedin." Within so short a period Mr Fish had found that " circumstances altered cases," to use a favourite phrase of his own. It was not that Mr Fish had much weight in the House, but his opposition enabled the Auckland folk to say, •' Why, the Dunedia representatives are not in favour of this railway." The teredo navalis is a small worm,but it is mightily injurious, and so was the member for Dunedin South. Then Mr M'Kerrow (the late Surveyor-general), when giving his evidence, has enunciated the startling theory that no settlement should be allowed in the interior of Otago "for many generations to come," and the Minister for Lands had openly endorsed this extravagant doctrine in the House. What a pretty state of isolation and desolation this presented! Mr M'Kerrow must have been giving his evidence to Ministerial order, because it contradicted everything he had said before. What sort of Railway Commissioner he would make remained to be seen ; but if he were as subservient to Ministerial influences as he certainly was in relation to the Otago Ceutral railway, his value to the State would be fitly represented by the smallest coin of the realm. Never would any government have the ( offer ef such terms as those in the Attorney-general drafted bill thrown out by unholy combinations last session. The company were to buy the line already built and carry out existing contracts. This meant half a million cash down on the nail. Then they wore to build anotherJlßo miles of railway, and in return for all this they wer a to get'£22s,ooo worth of wasteland. In private life a firm refusing such an offer would be considered unfit for business, and be relegated to Seacliff Asylum, and that was where all the opponents of the bill ought to be sent,.except the Otago traitors, who should be put upon the roads, with a big broad arrow branded on their backs for the rest of their lives. Mr Pyke then spoke of the reduction of members, saying he did not know what was going to happen. What with the reduction.the enlargement of electoral districts, and the diminution of the honorarium, it would be difficult ■ to find true men who would take the trouble to ' seek a seat in Parliament. The game was not worth the caudle. One contested election would absorb the three years' honorarium. The town members did not understand what contesting an election meant in the country. Coming to the more personal business of the evening, Mr Pyke expressed his thanks for the 62nd anniversary of bis natal day having been selected for the presentation that had been made. He said, v To me this presentation has two values. There is the value per se, for I am not indifferent to the money. I am a poor man, and lam not ashamed of it. If I had used the people to promote my own interests, I might have been rich, but I could not so misuse the trust reposed in me. I have lived amongst and with you for 26 years; and I have made myself riph at your expense, I am rioh in the reepeot and esteem of those,. who best know me, whioh is of more value thanimuchfine gold and silver and more precious than rubies. Possply this is thelast thnel shall address you as your representative's XupVqt know where my.dis-; trictwiU fee ; but^wherever my^Jot may fetfcast, I shall ever retain, the utmost love : and:affection

for the warm-heated people who have always so kindly entreated me, who have been so tolerant of my mistakes— so readily appreciative of any good qualities I may have been endowed with, and so gentle, kind, and good to me in all the relations of life." . „ Mr Pyke resumed his seat amidst deafening applause. A vote of thanks to the chairman was moved by Mr Chafpei.i< in » few well chosen sentences and seconded by Mr Na-xxob. The chairman responded and brought a very pleasant evening to a close.