PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, November 19, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1001, 19 November 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY, THURSDAY AND SATURDAY MORNINGS. Saturday, November 19, 1881.

Mb. Locke has delivered his oral address to the Gisborne electors, and with that the main part of the electioneering brigade may be said to have finished its evolutions. The rest will consist of deploying, flank- movements, and skirmishing by the reserve forces ; although the electors need not expect anything like political rest before the elections are over.

Mr. Locke did not speak so long, nor did he give us the information on many subjects that was expected of him. lu fact, with one or two exceptions, which he curtailed to his own disadvantage, he was largely repetitionary of the other candidates. Whether from design or principle, we cannot vouch ; but it is a noticeable fact that all the candidates, even including Mr. Allan McDonald, are avowed supporters of the Hall Ministry. Mr. Locke, consequently, moved his king’s pawn, one square in this direction, an opening of the game which pretty clearly predicated the rest of what he had to say. It would have been refreshing to have listened to some one —especially after hearing Mr. Gannon’s address—who was an opponent of the Government; for, while the candidates all run in the same groove, as far as general principles are concerned, it is too much to expect that their ideas on identical subjects will be so dissimilar, or that they will be clothed in such language, as would create a new-born pleasure in listening to their exposition of them. One of i he new subjects Mr. Locke introduced was the law of entail which he properly designated as injurious to a young Colony. In that he has the sympathies of every well-wisher to New Zealand, for, although historic entail and primogeniture will, probably, never be removed from aristocratic England, it will be a sorry day for those who are to fill our places in the distance in this Colony, if we legate to them an agrarian inheritance that brings with it so many evils.

Mr. Locke is in favor of a harbor and breakwater, but he attaches himself to the more sensible party who protest against saddling the district with the cost of it. He told his hearers little that was new in connection with land administration, and he was disappointingly repressive on the question, par excellence— with regard to which he is credited with having comprehensive views, and correct knowledge—namely, the subdivision of land titles. He proposes that the lands should be “inspected ” by the Government; roads made, and a Commissioner appointed to decide what portions are fitted for settlement. But Mr. Locke did enunciate something new in his proposal to introduce the tenantfarmer principle into New Zealand, by making occupiers of the soil perpetual lessees of the Government, and taking from them, for ever, the hope of becoming possessors in fee simple. Mr. Locke deprecates the law of entail, which practically dispossess multitudes, and locks up areas large enough for a kingdom ; but with an apparent inconsistency, he advocates another law which will shut out the masses of the people from becoming independent freeholders, by placing the lauds, in perpetuity, in the hands of the Government. 999 years may, certainly, be held to be a period lengthy enough to grant a lease to any one man ; but even a long lease like that would have its terminable period ; and, as with short ones, the property would decrease in value as the end approached. . Mr. Locke put another thorn in the flesh of what is called the “ New Zealand Land Company,” and is evidently, in accord with the other candidates, except Mr. A McDonald, that the foundation on which it is based is not trustworthy ; and, as a consequence, the superstructure will some, day, topple over and crush its victims in the ruins it will make. Mr. Locke explained his connection with the Company, in a plain straightforward manner’; and, accepting that explanation, the electors will watch his actions pretty

closely when the time shall arrive for him to ratify the promises he has made to check the evils, and avert the stigma which he considers is being cast upon the district. Mr. Locke is against a revival of Provincialism ; and he is satisfied with the County system; but he is the first person in the colony, to our knowledge, who has avowed that the “ system of “ Counties and Road Boards acting “ together, works well.” This is a bold°and somewhat reckless assertion, and one which we shall be glad to hear Mr. Locke explain or modify. Mr. Locke favors the Property Tax. He will support a Harbor Bill on different lines to those proposed by Mr. McDonald ; and agrees that “ those who live at home at ease ” on incomes derived from property in New Zealand should be made to pay their quota of taxes. There are many other items of interest in Mr. Locke’s address, but space warns us to withold ftrther comment. It is a pity Mr. Locke “ broke down ” so to speak, in his discourse ; and his confession of it was more candid than politic, for it drew attention to his previous allusion to Captain Pobteb, and suggested the probability —to use his own simile in regard to that candidate—that if he, the speaker, broke down in one place he would of a certainty do so in another. Mr. Locke has furnished us with the argument, or we should not have noticed it.