(Monday's Daily Times.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2231, 3 December 1896, Page 3

(Monday's Daily Times.)

In proceeding to deal with the Premier's speech in more detail than was practicable on Saturday morning we are faced with an initial difficulty. Mr Seddon said nothing new. For the most part he did not even trouble to vary the phraseology employed at Kaiapoi and other places. -His choicest sentences — those, about "the selfish few," "la crime de la crime" and the iniquities of " Conservatism "—" — have evidently been" got by heart. They have been reported half a dozen timea, and uttered still of toner. Now*

we have criticised this sort of stuff < again and again, — we have shown its utter unreasonableness, its essentially tricky and insincere character, — and we are loth to follow Mr Seddon's example of wearisome reiteration. Again, the Premier shirked or trifled with most of the charges that have been brought against his Government. Take, for, example, his treatment of the borrowing question and the reversal of the Ballanob policy. It is not much more than a week since we felt obliged to offer our readers something like an apology for requoting the old non-borrowing utterances of Mr Ballanoe, Mr Ward, and Mr Seddon himself. The quibbling of Ministeria candidates- seemed to make the repetition necessary, — but may we not now assume that the truth is appreciated by those electors who do not prefer untruth or fallacy, and that the Premier's paltry defence calls for no further' reply? That the Ballance | policy of self-reliance has been reI versed is a self-evident proposition, — I or we . should rather call' it the AtKini sou" policy o£ self-reliance to which Mr Bai/lance to a large extent adhered. i There are limits even to Mr Seddon's I powers of shirking inconvenient truths, j and he is obliged to admit that the public debt has been 1 largely increased ; but, the admission made, he straightway proceeds with an utterly fallacious j comparison, remarking that " the ConI servatives, on the other hand, had placed ©n the shoulders of the colony .£32,000,000." The hasty inference (and Mr Seddon likes his hearers to make hasty inferences) would be that -the last Atkinson Go- _ vernment had borrowed to this amount. What says Mr Satjndebs, ex-chairman of- the Public Accounts Committee (who cannot be said to have any party , bias against the present Government) ? i Speaking at Kirwee on October 19, Mr Saundebs said : " The average annual j borrowing by the Atkinson Government for their last four years was £757,000; the average borrowing of* the Ballanoe Government, including the purchase of Cheviot,, was £400,000, ' and the average borrowing of the Seddon Government had been £1.375,000, to which was to be added £218,000, which was the average rat© at ' which they reduced the £700,000 of borrowed money which was in hand when they came into office, and which they had, on the 31st I of last March, reduced to £45,000, thus practically increasing our debt by £1,594,000 a year." As a matter of fact, Mr Seddon's charges against his predecessors are quite unreliable, to say nothing of their irrelevance. Our cor- ; respondent, " Ex-M.H.R.," pointed I out a signal error on Saturday morn- | ing, and it should be noted that i Ministers have lately taken to number- } ing the Stout - Vogel Government among what they are pleased to call " Conservative " Administrations, — delightfully oblivious of the fact that Mr Baliance was, " from first to last, a member of that Government, and that Mr John M'Kenzie kindly acted as whip. The Premier's remarks on the customs duties . must be regarded as quite inconclusive so long as the papers | necessary for the settlement of the | controversy are unforthcoming. In an " Election Note " on November 12, we exposed the hollo wness of the I Premier's claims in regard to the increase of population, and no further notice need be taken of the silly sarcasm at the expense of members of Parliament who opposed the I Wrawino nolioj and. yet very Dro- i

perly advanced the claims of their constituencies to a fair share of the loan money. No doubt it would suit Ministers to divide the loan among those districts which return supporters of the Government, and — judging by the £700 voted for the Bruce Electorate — they are giving the plan a trial. And need we say anything more concerning "repeal"? Well, we will just point out that the Premier's ideas are somewhat mixed upon this subject. At Port Chalmers he said : "If the Opposition came into power they would not be in sympathy with progressive legislation. As a matter of policy they would allow, the legislation to remain on the Statute Book, but practically it would be a dead letter." At Dunedin, however, he varied the prediction : "If the Conservatives .got into power they would repeal the land and income tax, and would go in again for the property tax. They would put the taxation on the shoulders of the masses, and they would make the, people pay for. the relief the Liberal party had given them during the last six years." "They would make the people pay " ! Would it bo possible for unscrupulous partisanship to go much further than this ? Of equal worth is the assertion that " there had been a deliberate attempt to ruin Mr Waed privately in order to get at the Liberal party." And yet Mr Seddon affirms that he has a clear conscience ! Why, the memory of last Friday's speech ought to keep him awake o' nights for half a year. . The fact is that the Premier, has underrated the intelligence of the people of Dunedin. He pitched his "intellectual and moral tone many degrees too low. It is no secret that he disappointed his own party, who were fondly hoping that he would make a serious attempt to place the Ministerial case in a reasonable light, with a view to " hardening up " the perplexed and disappointed forces of "Liberalism." He only pleased those whose votes were already assured; doubtful and disaffected electors are not Convinced by rhetorical buffoonery and desperate special pleading. Wholesale ' and irrelevant abuse 'of bygone Administrations ; Vulgar mimicry of Sir Haket Atkinson's voice and manner ; sneers at opponents .who happen to be blessed with more culture than the Premier; grotesquely far-fetched references to the " Conservative " (!) Maori war ; reckless censure of the present Opposition for legislation to which Mr Ballancb was a Ministerial party and which Mr John M'Kenzie anxiously supported; in a word, cant and claptrap, piled thick and high; — this sort of thing may, and does, tickle thoughtless groundlings, but it makes the judicious grieve. It is not for us to say whether or not the Premier's visit has bettered the prospects of Ministerial candidates in this "electorate, but we do say that if the saleyards speech brings votes to the Government cause there is more stupidity and credulity in our midst than we could have thought possible.

I Afc a special meeting of the Fotbnry Sohool Committee, held on the 25bh, it was decided to recommend Miss E. J. Wilkinson to the position of assistant junior teacher. At the Masterton Magistrate's Court lasfi week a woman, whose husband was recently drowned, was charged with theft and vagrancy. Accused wai in a terrible condition from the - effects of chlorodyne, which she had been in the habit of taking in large quantities. She hud pawned all her belongings, even down to hep boots, to procure this drug. Accused said she could not help taking chlorodyne, as she was driren mad by the loss of her husband. The benoh sentenced her, In spite of her pathetto I aDDealflj to three months' hard labour-.