MR. JOHN GEORGE MILES AT WAIMEA EAST.

Colonist, Volume IX, Issue 845, 5 December 1865, Page 3

MR. JOHN GEORGE MILES AT WAIMEA EAST.

Ok Saturday evening evening, Mr. J. G. Miles, Member of the House of Representatives for the Waimea district, delivered a farewell address prior to his leaving for England. The meeting was convened in Silcock's Bridge Hotel, and about five-and-twenty persons were present, the number of electors being about sixteen.

Mr. Hastelow, being appointed chairman, announced that the object of the meeting was that Mr. Miles might have an opportunity of giving an account of his political career during the time he had represented the district in Parliament.

Mr. Miles then addressed the meeting. He said that as the electors had done him the honor of elect* ing him to represent them in the General Assembly for a period extending over two very important ses* sions of Parliament, he thought it right to meet them before going to England, in order to explain his course of action in their service. After paying a tribute of respect to the memory of Mr. Sellon, who was chairman at the first public meeting he (Mr. Miles) ever held in the province, he spoke of the hard-task and arduous duties a member of the House had to perform, if he set himself to work honestly and earnestly to do his best for the welfare of his constituents. The member might have been accustomed to spend most of bis time in the open air, and this he must at once give up for three months or more yearly, and submit to sit from twelve to eighteen hours a day in a hall draughty and cold in the winter, and stifling in summer, and at all times unpleasant at night; and give his attention to affairs of vital importance to the country, and frequently nearly touching the interest* of his constituents themselves, and that attention must not be a divided one, but be the engrossing one of his thoughts; careful lest by a careless vote he may do what he may afterwards come to consider an incalculable deal of mischief to the very cause he had at heart. After referring to his first session at Auckland, at a time when the eyes of all Southern members were directed to Mr. Weld and his newly formed Ministry, he alluded to the injury which was inflicted both at home and in the colony by the frequent changes of Ministry, which caused the English people to lose faith in ou* ever changing lines of policy, and we lost our prestige as a self-governing people, while another result was confusion in the minds of the natives, and their ultimate derision and defiance of our race. All the members except those for Auckland had hopes in Mr. Weld ; that a stable Ministry would be formed, led by an honorable and upright man, who bad served a full apprenticeship to the political life of the country he had helped to settle, even if he did not possess the brilliant talents of some his predecessors. All felt faith in Mr. Weld as in a man who had always stuck to his colors, and never once deceived where he had given his word. Another thing that gave faith in Mr. Weld was that he came forward also to take office when others hung back. Then began that factious opposition to his Government. The policy of Auckland was to bring about the destruction of the self-reliant policy which Mr. Weld had introduced; and he repeated that this was a factious opposition on the part of the Auckland members, who though they opposed certain parts of the Weld policy in public, yet admittel in private that the policy was really for the good of the country. They opposed him because he had been instrumental in removing the Seat of Government to Wellington, and wished to remove the troops, on whose retention a large part of the seeming prosperity of Auckland depended. He mentioned that this session was a short one for the purpose of voting supplies, and lasted only three weeks. But the session which had been of real importance to New Zealand was the one from which he had recently returned, which commenced on 26th July, and lasted till 30th October, and during which it was computed by the Clerk of the House that it had sat for more hours than any previous session. Considering this fact, he felt considerable regret that the position of the country was much altered for the worse since the commencement ef that session. It was commenced with hope on almost every side. The Wereroa pa had just fallen before our own brave forces, without the assistance of the Imperial troops ; and that great stumbling block, General Cameron, who prevented the Imperial forces from fighting, was superseded and under orders to leave the colony. We had hoped soon to see the Hauhaus yield as they had since done; that the Maori difficulty would rapidly be closed; that the Weld policy would be appreciated by the Home authorities as it had been, as Mr. Cardwell's despatches showed ; and that the increased confidence in the Belf-reliance of the colony, would enable us to raise the balance of the loan at a highly advantageous rate; which, in fact, wjs could never hope to do now. It had been hoped that.we had seen: the last of that ponderous and inactive body of men that had battened upou us, doing no good, but rather harm to all New Zealand —exceptingAuckland—hemeant the Imperial troops ; and thus stop that disgrace which the utter folly and gross mismanagement of its commander had entailed upon the British soldier here, and given to sfew Zealand a bad name —the unjust reputation in tin service of being the worst station of all the British colonies. (Hear, hear.) Parliament did not cry out madly for separation of the two islands, which he (Mr. MHes) considered would be disastrous for both, but we had trusted to a modification of the existing system of taxation, to be brought about by means of the new stamp duties so as to adjust the burden to the shoulders best able to support it, and so to work our way surely and steadily out of our present difficulties. For, they might depend upon it that a country, and especially when engaged in a very expensive war for life and property itself, could no more exist without taxation than a man could exist without food; and those who might come to the electors after he (Mr. Miles) had gone, with such specious hustings-cries as diminished-taxation at such a critical time as the present, and tell the electors that they could do it by cheese-paring would be insulting the common sense of the electors. He then proceeded to refer to what he termed the objects of the baffled Aucklander*, which he said were to avenge the wrongs of Auckland, to make a protracted session by their factious opposition, and to trample in the dust the audacious Ministry which had robbed them of the Seat of Government. The Auckland faction thus acted in the small parochial way, like ill-tempered men in a vestry meeting as was spoken of by Mr. Domett. They wished to overturn Mr. Weld, and entered upou an alliance with Otago for that purpose. To this factious opposition, and this unholy alliance, and Mr. Weld's bad health, was due the failure of his policy, and not to any fault in the policy itself. The Auckland members gained seven votes from Otago by supporting.Otago'B demand on Maori reserves in the City of Dunedin. The Auckland members voted for handing this land over to the Province of Otago, the Ministry opposed it, and this carried the' Otago men over to the opposition. This factious opposition was backed in a sneaking sort of way by Mr. Stafford, who until the last two or three weeks of the session, made a very very sorry exhibition in the House. Mr. Weld's health broke down too at a critical moment, and when all this news would come to be known in England our credit would be ruined, and the confidence of the English public in New Zealand would be completely lost. Unless the present state of things were checked by turning Mr. Stafford out of office immediately on the beginning of the next session of Parliament, Mr. Stafford would throw the country back ten years in taxation. ' Mr. Silcook : Would it not be a good thing to be thrown back in taxation ten years ? We would be all very glad to be thrown back twenty years in that direction. (Hear, hear, and applause.) Mr. Miles continued, and he asked his hearers to mark his word they would find that the last state of taxation would be worse than the first. If Weld chastised the people with whips, Stafford would chastise them with scorpions. (A laugh.) He had heard a great deal of Mr. Weld's extravagance but he had seen nothing of it, and he had read the papers on the subject. \

Mr. Cox: I wish another Mr. Miles would come here amongst us and spend £10,000 in the district. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) Mr. Miles thought that subject was rather irrelevant at present, and proceeded with his speech; going on to defend the appointment of Mr. James C. Richmond to the office of Colonial Secretary, which had been objected to, but which he said was rendered necessary. by the failing health of Mr. Weld, who could take only a general supervision, and had to provide himself with a substitute to do his office work. He would defy any Ministry to do with fewer than four or five of a cabinet. Mr. Stafford had undertaken three different offices, and a pretty mess he would make of it before he was done with it. After alluding to Mr. Stafford's firs years tenure of office

in a time of peace when, he said Judge Richmond and Mr. Weld .advised him, while he took the credit of the work done, he said that Mr. Stafford was a man of great patience, considerable memory, and great powers of work, but he was not a man of originating mind, if we might judge by the facility with which upon taking his seat on the Treasury benches, and professing to tell the House his programme and lay before it his policy, he coolly put on, one after another, the old clothes of the Weld Ministry; and he showed his cleverness chiefly by eluding instead of answering the questions put to him regarding his intentions as to the removal of the troops. As for the character of his present Ministry, he had not got men now like Whittaker or Judge Richmond. One .man was Mr. Patterson, of Dunedin, who when appointed was not gazetted. He scarcely ever spoke in the House. He had been a saddler in Dunedin, and though an honest man, and while no doubt he might make a very good saddle, that did not fit him to assume the reins of Government. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) He was understood to be only a stop-gap. Mr. Hill : He did not take a quiet rest to himself in the House like some members, did he ?

Mr Miles then said that Mr. Patterson's honors nearly killed him, for whether overpowered by the honor or from whatever cause, he was forced to return to hie home in the South before the end of the session, fie next touched on Colonel Haultain, whom he declared to be a very unlikely gentleman to manage the Defence Force, and who, though a brave soldier and a gentleman, was only at the head of the Auckland land jobbers and army contractors. Mr. Miles next alluded to the strong opposition of the Upper House to Mr. Stafford's policy. On this sub* ject he said that one of the straws which showed how little chance Mr Stafford had of maintaining his position was to be found in that opposition. Mr Stafford had seen with great chagrin that the Jjegis* lative Council had opposed him and his measures, and would throughout oppose every measure he brought in, even although he might succeed in gaining a majority in the Lower House, and this would bring about a dead lock between the two houses, which he could not overcome. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Miles then spoke of Mr Stafford having stated that the Governor had pledged himself todissolve Parliament evenbefore the granting of supplies, if he failed in securing a majority. He (Mr. Miles) did not believe that any such pledge ever was given; and he strongly censured Mr. Stafford for making a threat to the House of what, he alleged, would have taken away our liberties. He then referred to a statement in a speech of Mr. Weld's at Canterbury in which the late Premier con* trodicted a statement in The Colonist, which announced that the Weld Ministry had failed to provide £200,000, which it was stated had to be sent away by the November mail. It was also stated by the same paper, as Mr Weld had said, that the Bank of New Zealand had refused to supply the necessary funds to the Weld Government, but that they would give it to the Stafford Ministry, and it was declared also that in consequence of this the Ministry had to go out of office. This he (Mr Miles) knew himself to be quite false, for he bad gone with Mr. Fitxherbert, and saw the money provided ; £56,000 was all that was necessary. So they would see what trust deserved to be placed in the statements of that veracious paper. Becurring again to what he called Mr Stafford's pretended economy, Mr. Miles ridiculed the idea of such a thing and declared that the dismissing of some servants of the Government could not effect that purpose; and Mr Stafford he said had already dismissed about seventy unfortunate clerks.

Mr. Hill—Mr. Stafford won't spend more than the Weld Ministry, will he P

Mr Milks then, touched on the work of the session, mentioning that seventy-four bills had been introduced and measures carried, referring to several of these, the Dog Act, which he opposed, as it gave any one a chance of getting valuable dogs destroyed if they merely ran at them and put them in bodily terror; the Representation Act, the Parliamentary Privileges Act, which-gave members a privilege of arrest from debt during the sitting of the House, and for forty days before, and forty days after the session of Parliament; and several other measures. He next alluded to Mr. Oliver's offering himself as a candidate for the Waimeas. He thought Mr. Oliver'f address to the electors an insult to any enlightened constituency. It was as shallow as Mr. Oliver himself; he literally said nothing at all of his ideas or politics, except that he ran away with the rigid economy notion, which was right enough in its way. He did not know how Mr. Oliver conducted his own household or business affairs (Laughter) ; but he feared that rigid economy in the hands of an economist like Mr. Oliver, was likely to be the penny wise and pound foolish system. Mr. Oliver said that " self-reliance, the battle cry of the late Ministry, was a specious phrase." Was itf Possibly, from his long of New Zealand politics, Mr Oliver might be better able to judge of the effects of self-reliance than Mr. Weld or Mr. Card well himself; but he (Mr. Miles) feared that the man who had no" eelf-relisnce of his own> cigiild have little faith in the : self-reliance of the colony; and would find the people of this district place y«ry little reliance on him; (Hear, hear, laughter^ and applause.) Mr. Miles next alluded to a paragraph which appeared in The Colonist, descriptive of hiahaving been asleep in the House, and voting the wrong., way ; and which paragraph he said, if totally uncontradicted, might: lead to the supposition that he (Mr. Miles) chiefly spent his time in Wellington in eating, drinking, smoking, and sleeping on the benches in the House, to the total exclusion of his Parliamentary duties. He admitted'having been asleep on the particular occasion, like many more of the members, for it was far on in the morning : and though, hitherto, he had treated this silly production with the contempt it deserved, he felt it necessary, now, to explain the cause of its insertion. He proceeded to say that the Editor of the Coloniit had intruded himself into the library of the House of Assembly, which was only for members, and had been told by him (Mr Miles) that he should confine himself to the Reporter's Gallery, and of course he had never forgiven him for doing so. The paragraph in question was the petty revenge of a small mind. • Mr Miles then took leave of the electors. He would be absent in England about two years. On hia return, if spared, he would agaiu solicit their votes, and try as he had done in these two sessions, to do his duty himself to the country, to his consti* tuents, and consequently to himself. Mr. Robebtson moved a vote of thanks to Mr. Miles for his attendance that evening, which was seconded by Mr Babkb, and unanimously passed. Mr. Milks shortly returned thanks ; a vote of thanks was given to the Chairman, and the meeting separated. *It may be necessary here to state that Mr. Miles never did tell the Editor of the Colonist to -" confine himself to the Reporters' Gallery." He merely stated that some members of the House Committee' had " expressed surprise " to see him in the Library, and was told in reply that the Speaker of the House of Representatives had given the Editor permission, through the Clerk of the House, to visit the Library to consult certain works which he could not find elsewhere. Other equally good answers could be given to this averment, but really the subject is too contemptible; and Mr Miles' " revenge" idea, in such a case, widens into broad farce.—Ed.]

Postal Appointments is Nbmon Pbovince.— The following appointments are announced in th* General Goutmment Gazette of 25th ult. Fox Sill —Francis Holden to be Postmaster at Fox Hill, from Ist October, 1865. Motueka —James M'Donald to be Postmaster at Metueka from Ist October, 1865. Cobden— James Wilkie Jun., to be Postmaster at Cobden. Pbofbssob Stevens' Tboupe.—Last night this Tcry clever company performed in the Odd Fellows' Hall to a much smaller audience than we predict for their second representation, which takes place tonight. The exceedingly clever performance of the Masters Stevens was loudly applauded, and Pablo Fanque of course received an appreciation equal to his celebrity. The juggling of Professor Stevens was most clever, and should be witnessed by all who admire the surpassing and peculiar dexterity required in his portion of the entertainment. Messrs, Bay nor and Briggs ably assisted to make the evening a thoroughly successful one, and we have no hesitation in saying that in. this species of entertainment no equal has yet been seen here. An entire change of performance is advertised for this evening. The Stvbt.—This steamer is to come back to Nelson, having been purchased by Messrs. Paul, Askew, and Leech, for the West Coast trade.

Shrove or a Mail Stiakib at Mnaovun.— On the 19th ult the eteamer City of Uonceston Ml Melbourne with the Ingluh Mail for Tasmania. When leaving Hobson's Bay the steamer was run into by the s.s. Coorong, and from the injuries received by the collision sank to rapidly that there was only time to save the passengers by the boats. The English Mails were afterwards recovered by divert,, and some cases of goods, the latter much damaged. The Launceston was not insured, she was a new vessel only a year ago, and was worth from £17,000 to £20,000. It is said that some of the shareholders had insured their interests.

Savitaxy Matties at Hokitika.—The eojrree* pondent of the Xytttlton Times writes :—Th« " beak* slums "of Hokitika are in* frightfulstats)offilth. It the back of Bevell street shanties and ten* are crowded together without the •lightest refard to health or convenience. Here and there is close proximity to dwelling hooaea are pigsties, slaughterhouses, and stables, the (tench from which is1 indescribably disgusting, and is wafted over the whole of Hokitika. There v doubt about what oin be done to remedy the eril, aa Hokitika ia not a town in the New Zealand acceptation of the term. One thing ia certain, if a raid ia not very quickly made on these hot-beds of disease, a dreadful mortality will overtake us. The only wonder is that we hare escaped so lone. Tki Titakiinous Sato o* Niw Zkalaxd.—The Melbourne .^r^Kf has the following paragraph res* pecting the gold-bearing character of the iron-sand of New Zealand:—"Borne samples of black sand, brought from Jackson's Bay, west coast of New Zealand, taken from the sea beach, by Captain M'Lean of the Alhambra, have been analysed by Mr. Patenon, of the Bank of Australasia. Bevoa pounds weight avoirdupois of the sand yielded 1.615gr. of gold, or at the rate of loa. Idwt. Ugr. of gold to the ton. The sand was the oommoa sand of the beach, obtainable ia very large quantities. The gold was of the very finest description, being literally gold-dust." In a later number of the same paper appear the following remarks by • eorrespon* dent:—" I read with interest your short note regard* ing the analysis of the black sand from the watt coast of New Zealand. It confirms an opinion I have long held, that the titaniferous sands of New Zea* land contain the precious metals, besides in their ordinary character capable of being rendered of immense importance to the mercantile world. It is found in greater or lesser quantities in almost erery proTince, but it v supposed by many thai the great source of this ore is Mount Igmont. .Without oommitting myself to any theory on this subject, the foot is patent that in Taranaki, on the west coast, tad especially in front of the town of New Plymouth, and within a few miles of the mouth, the largest quantity of this black sand is to be found. I Jknow, from personal observation and surrey, that the quantity is inexhaustible. Samples of this ore. have been sent home to every important town in Europe where iron and steel form the staple of their manufactories. A report from the Artillery Department, Boytl Foundry, Berlin, states that the Taranaki sand possesses a quality which renders it very valuable. A report from the foundry of the Royal Artillery College of Paris states that the black sand contains in itself the essentials of crude or cast iron, steel, and malleable iron, combined with charcoal, lithium, and a portion of oxide, which render it invaluable for every purpose of machinery, and without limits for commercial industry. It adds further, that the crystals of oxide and lithium which this «and contain* produce m nietal capable of the highest polish, and convertible into the finest instruments. Nothing hat yet been done effectually toward* the development of this great field of wealth."

Kißosnra ix Niw South Walm.—We tee by late Sydney papen, that preparation! for extraction the Keroeino from the mineral are now all completed and in good working order, and already there hare been large exportation* to both lfelboorae and Adelaide.