MR DUNCAN AT NASEBY. (By Our Special Reporter.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2231, 3 December 1896, Page 10

MR DUNCAN AT NASEBY. (By Our Special Reporter.)

Naseby, November 25. Mr John Duncan addressed a meeting of the electors of Waihenao ia the Town Hall, Naseby, on Tuesday evening. Mr W.> Guffle, m&jor t ' occupied the chair, aud briefly introduced the " speaker. . The hall was crowded, to the doors with a large audience^ which, warm ftfc iirab, became finally . entbuMa&tie, and indulged ia none of the vagaries which have disgraced election meetings elsewhere. Mr Dukcan, who was received with a warm round cf applause, said that he mneb throw himself on the generosity of his audience, j because, in the first place, a severe aocidenb had j left him in no very fib condition to speak ; nest, because it required no little resolution for a j political novice to face a Minister of the Grown. At a time when their deiresb liberties were in grave danger he did not think that the eleotorate ! should fail to enter a protest at the ballot-box against the misgovernraonfe of the Seddon j Administration. Ho had held back in hopes ! that on abler man would be found, bat as none | appeared he was there. " A forlorn hope it ! might be, but that would nob deter him from I coming forward at the call of duty. The parky who dubbed themselves Liberals did not understand the meaning of the term. Look at; the last election at Palmers ton. How shamefully the meeting oE Soobie — (cheers)— was packed with 40 howling hoodlums, who. roared and bellowed to prevent his getting a hearing. Bir R. Stout had a similar experieuoe in Wellington the other day. Liberty of speech — their dearest inheritance— waß denied by the new Liberals, and what they denied to the speaker they denied to the hearer?. The system of tale-bear-ing wan most despicable. •• Curse not the king ; no, not in thy chamber," was the motto of many of the timid. He did not exaggerate. The brazen a«suranc« with which Ministers claimed credit for the labours of others, was nauseating. Mr Seddon claimed the gratitude of womeu for giving them the franchise, whea everyone knew that the fight was really won by Sir John Hall, to whom the honour was due. — (Loud applause.) Which of these was tha true | Liberal P Regarding himself, he was no over- | fed aristocrat or capitalist, bub a hard-working dairy farmer, who appeared there to support a principle. He detected in his opponent's I statement that the speaker had a right; to oppose him a tone of complaint that he had not been allowed a walk- over. Notwithstanding the«expression of opinion that his candidature was nOj to bo taken seriously, his opponent would fiud it a very serious | matter indeed. He stood there because he j was opposed to the personal composition j i and to the corrupt administration of the j present Government. This was all the length he would go. The Government were always I holding up the bogie of what the wicked OonBervatives woald do if roturned to power : they would reduce wsgts, depopulate the country and throw it back into sheep walks, raiee rents, and increase taxation. The people I of Petone might swallow suoh chaff, but the | country people were too wide aw^ke for that. Did thoy imagine that the people woald tolerate, i or that Captain Russell and Sir R. Stout would | propose, such folly P As a political novice he i could nob yeb spin suoh brazen yarns, but if they sent him to Wellington he might, like the rest, learn to lie like a gasometer. — (Laughter and applause.) Briefly, his great objeotion to the Government lay in its corrupt and autocratic administration, which was a menace to their liberties, degraced the status of their publio men, defied the law, and abused the power entrusted to them. The principle of ' spoils to the victors h»d given dire offence on ' the Coast. The natural remedy was to turd them oufe and elect honesfe men who will place* each restrictions on their power as would prevent their abusing it>. The Premier quietly appropriated seven billets, added to which he was advisor of the Anglo-German Syndioato and member of the Realisation Board, both highly lucrative. The Minister for Lands did the same. The Government In the beßtowal of favours bo acted as Indirectly to buy votes. Their power mosb be restricted and subjected i to the will of the people. Hii opponenb boasted that his Government, more that) any previous i imu ttaia ifi jitait .*ia.J» fitted jawa&J

'on the Iftjjd. Ia going routd Maniotofco ho noticed nearly til the. eettleraeut vfss long established! and ihe Mitjjater for L»n& donfese^d during his \>isi6 to Nasebyin April that only a few scraps remained. Did tbfcj; point to neglect of previous Governments P This was nof a party policy, but must be th 6 policy of every party, and always. The Minister earned £1500 a year for his work, and ought to do it well, without continually niakiDg a virtue of what was only his duty.— (Applause.) Hjs predecessor (the Hon. G. F. Richardson) hack without any boasting, eotually settled mora people on Crown lands than the present Government, and without publio money. The old settlers weve more independent tb.au the new spoon-fed Government settlers. As to the land purchase scheme, Home of the estates were good enough bargains, some they had been forced to take, and sovaQ—eg,, Fomahaka — they had been diddled into taking. The Miafatcv boasted of the success of Cheviot), which was not obtained under the Land for Battlements Act, but forgot to mention the failure o£ Pomahska, where some sections were not taken up, some had beea forfeited, &nd rents were '£,192 in arrear. The last report of the coramisr aioner was very unfavourable. The Minister had now sent teams to plough and take a crop of totnips off the land. Pukstapu fell into the hands of a company of which the Minister wap a director. Of ita eight settler* only two wera bona fde, the resb were dummying for friends. They were not to blame ; they were simply taking advantage of the law. These bwo settlers cost the country £2000 each. He lived beside Puketapu, and his statements wero irtef utable. Already two settlers there had been keelhauled for a breach of the regulations, but nothing was done. Ib was near okction time. Oii the Makaeroa estate, Dunbaok, of 32 settlers only four were bonajide, and not one cixpence was spent beyond whiit the regulations required. Across the road was * section bought from Me Bell where work was going on like a hive. The Government advances to settlers echeine wa« not such a success as its advocates made oat. They took only gilt-edged securities to threefifths of their vrlup, charging 5 per cent, interest, 1 per cent, of which was for a sinking fund. The Government had si ill something like half of their money, and the ridiculous gpectade was presented of * Minister going about among his friends beseeching them lo take the money off hia bands. The Dunstsn Times instanced amm who borrowed £300 from the Government and before he gob lid of them had 8£ per ctnt. to pay. The fact was those who had good securities could always easily raise money c^eap. Wildcat ecbeaaes mmi pay dear. He inotanced two pilot's not far away whera money was willingly advanced at 4 and 4£ per cent. For the most necessary expenditure, such as fencing, stock buying, &c, the farmer could nob get advances. Again, tbe Government would buy land, road and let ib, paying ita fail value uuder the Advar.ces Aofc. His neighbour the freeholder could raiee only the vaiue of thre*-fifths hjs land, -which did not seem fair. He criticised sharply the Fair ReDfe, Usury Prevention, and Betterment Bills, and pointed cut a miechierous clause in the Valuation Bill allowing the Minister to revalue lands , on the authority of the Governor-in-Council. The Minister had bragged that he was to create * real Jive Stock department. A large number cf ofSrera had been appointed/ reports wrifcteD, ueelesa statistics compiled, and tbe mischievous interference' of public officers increased, bufc at none of hta meetings had he been able to learn from farmers of any pr»ctical benefit derived proportionate to tho coat. The department should bo reduoed to a minimum. Of the factories claimed by tha Government to have been opened mosb were oreameries, and raoafc were due to private enterprise. The Government dairiei at Stratford and Edendale produced the streakiest butter in the market. The Government had departed from the original self-reliant policy, «nd were wildly plunging. They had appropriated this year £884,000 more than Jaefc, and they mnab borrow again. Ho thonght a crying need was tbe simplification of tho publio accounts, which the common man could not understand. He contrasted the paltry sum voted for the Otago Central with the lavish expenditure elsewhere. . The Government had in six years brought the line to Hyde It bad been very meanly treated. If the £172,000 that had been squandered on gratuities, pensions, &c, had been spent on this line it would have been far advanced. — (Applause.) He thought aid should be given to mining jast as to land settlement. It was significant that the Minister for Lands wai bo friendly with tho water monopolist when he hab;d the land monopolist; so much. The email minera were in danger of being cruslud out just a3 tbe small farmers had been. The system of co-operative works was the rottenest ever adopted— (loud applause), — destroying tba independence of the working man and t-tasving him, for in some cases Is 2d a-day was a labourer's wage. Ib was most costly too, and in the south the cost of inspection was far higher than the charge of a private engineer. The way labourers were packed into the works last eleotion was notoriously shameful. The speaker referred to other matters, and oa resuming his seat after a two and a-half hours' speech received prolonged applause. After replying to questions, Mr Duncan, who asked that the electors should testify their confidence at the proper place — the ballofc box, — WR6 accorded a very hearty vote of thanks on the motion of Mr W. Donneix?, seconded by Mr R. F. Ikdeb, Three ringing cheers wore then given for the candidate and for Mr Scobie Mackenzie.

The civil cose of Harrison v. Harraway has been fixed to come on for hearing at the Supreme Court on Thursday, December 17,