MR. ARTHUR COLLINS AND HIS CONSTITUENTS.

Colonist, Issue 1165, 4 December 1868, Page 2

MR. ARTHUR COLLINS AND HIS CONSTITUENTS.

0$ Saturday evening, November 14, Mr. Arthur S. Collins, Member of the House of Bepresentatives for Golden Bay, held a meeting of his constituency at the Shamrock Hotel, Takaka, for the purpose of giving an account of his " Votes and Proceedings " during the late session. Although the weather was very unfavorable, there was a large attendance of electors. Mr. Fellowes was called to the chair, and in a few words explained the object of the meeting. Mr. Collins then rose, and said : Mi-. Chairman and gentlemen, actuated by a sincere desire to promote the utmost confidence between myself and my constituents—a confidence without the existence of which the task which I have undertaken would be a hopeless, and to me utterly distasteful one—l havo taken the very earliest opportunity in my power of coming amongst you again, to give you an opportunity of telling me to my face whether my conduct in the House has been such as you expected from your representative; and to give you some account of what occurred dining the past session, and of my personal share therein. lam aware, sir, that the past session is generally thought to have been an unsatisfactory one, and am quite willing to admit that the real useful work of the session might have been done in half the time, if it had not been for the time passed in party fighting, and at the long and acrimonious debates consequent thereon. Much blame has been thrown on the leaders of the Opposition for this alleged waste of time; but I shall endeavour to show you that without that Opposition things would be in a much . more unsatisfactory state than they are. And I hope to convince you that I, as a Nelson , member, was right to join the Opposition. I joined it, sir, at an early period of the session, as soon indeed as I perceived that Ministers, without coming down with any clearly denned policy of their own, without; offering us any reasonable substitute I

for what they proposed to do away with, were en- ' deavouring to alter the Constitution of New Zealand. I had not that blind confidence in those honourable gentlemen that would induce me to follow them blindly in unknown and oven undeveloped policies. Sir, in joining the Opposition Iby no means surrendered my independence or my right of private judgment on any question, and on one or two occasions I felt it my duty to express my disapprobation of certain parts of the policy of that party without however in any degree separating myself from the party or causing, I believe, the slightest rupture between myself and our leader, Mr. Pox, for whom I had and have tho highest esteem. One of theso occasions was when the party, having fully carried their point of forcing Ministers to declare their policy, of entirely preventing them from carrying the political measures which they proposed, and of vetoing their financial propositions, were yet not strong enough to carry their own financialpr native policy, but were endoavouring to prevent the carrying on of the useful work of tho session by speaking against time. I felt it my duty to object to such a course of proceeding!, as being a useless and mischievous waste of public time. Having performed this unpleasant duty, I afterwards found that several other members of the party had taken the same view as myself of the matter, and by our united weight tho obstructive policy was withdrawn. And I am inclined to think that our leader, Mr. Fox, was in his heart glad of an excuse to withdraw from a policy into which he had possibly been hurried against his better judgment. I also felt it my duty to vote against a bill brought in by Mr.Vogel to enable Otago to borrow £15,000 to complete her waterworks. I felt that if Otago were allowed to borrow even so small a sum as .■615,000. there would be no possibility of refusing loans to other provinces, all of which loans would bo added on to the colonial liabilities, already too heavy. The bill was, however, passed, but thrown out in the Upper House. I will now briefly allude (o the various votes of want of confidence in the Ministry—party fights—in all of which I held with the Opposition. Tbe first was a. motion of Mr. Fox's demanding that Ministers should let us know ■what their policy was. This, surely, was a reasonable enough demand, nnd as such I voted for it. The second was on the financial propositions of the Treasurer. His proposal was to grant a 7s capita- | tion grant to the provinces, and charge their interest and sinking-fund colonially. By such an arrangement Nelson would have been the loser of fully £250,000 ; that is to say, that it would require that sum to equalize her indebtedness with that of the other provinces. £90,000 was offered to Nelson as amends, but I for one was unwilling to accept ninepence for half-a-crown. Mr. Fox's proposal was that the provinces should each be answerable for the interest and sinking-fund of its own debt, and should receive a capitationgrant of 303, This, though possibly not the best form of financial arrangement under which the country might exist, was at all events fair in principle, and received my support. The next party-fight was on a motion of Mr. M'Lean's, about native affairs and the conduct of tho war. His policy was, that the conduct of the war should be left in the hands of the North Island Superintendents ; that the South Island should subsidize the Northlsland to the amount, of £100,000 the first year, and £75,000 )'<-,■ the three next years, and that should be the limit to the South Island's responsibility. It was also stated by the Northern men who had then the management of native affairs, that these would to a great extent pacify the natives, by giving them employment, rather than by arms, Therefore, on grounds of humanity, as well as in the interests of the South Island, I voted with Mr. M'Lcan. Mr. M'Lean's well-known success as a Maori administrator was of course a great inducement for voting with him. We were beaten on that occasion by the Speaker's casting vote ; and on tho next division which occurred during the same session, on a motion of Major Brown's, " That the conducting of the war should not be entrusted to the present Ministry," we were defeated by a majority of one, one honourable member having mysteriously disappeared. The last party struggle was on the occasion of a demand by Mr. Fox for a dissolution. For this I cordially voted, thinking that an appeal to tho people—which would probably settle the vexed questions one way or the other—was preferable to so much waste of time and party-fighting in the House. We also were of opinion that no fundamental change should be made in the constitution of the country until tho wislicsof the people could beclearly expressed thereon. All the political bills of tho Ministry were, by the action of the Opposition, caused to bo withdrawn, excepting the Road Boards Bill and the Westland Bill. The former, as being merely a permissive measure, and somowhat in favour with the Ofnjro members as useful to that province, was allowed to pass, but was afterwards, I am happy to say, thrown out in the Upper House. The Westland Bill thereby constituted Westland into a province in everything but nanie, and I suppose it was hardly worth while to fight about a name. Tho other political bills which were withdrawn in consequence of the opposition of our party, were the Police Offences Bill, Disqualification Bill, Provincial Governments Bill, and Provincial Legislation Bill. [Mr. Collins gave a short account of the objects of these several bills, and his reasons for opposing them.] I therefore hope, sir, that this meeting will give the Opposition credit for having made a successful stand against these unconstitutional measures, as well as against the most unfair financial proposals. I must also claim credit to that party for having constantly forced upon the notice of the House the necessity of great reformation in the conduct of the war. It was not possible to reduce the taxation of the country this session, but I must give Ministers tho credit of having prepared the Estimates on the most economical scale possible. Were it not for this M"nori war, wo might look forward to a reduction of taxation next year. It is my opinion that, in order to effect any further reduction in tho expenses of government, wo must begin at home with our Provincial Institutions, as the General Government services are cut down to the lowest figure possible. Before I leave this branch of my speech I must refer to my vote on the Panama Service question. When I was here last we all agreed that that servico was an unnecessary burden on tho country, and I went to tho Assembly fully intending to vote against it. I have since seen reason to change my mind on the meeting, and I hope that I shall be able to give this subject, cause to think that I acted rightly and for the best interest of the country in voting as I did for it. The facts are these: That the Panama Service subsidy is £55,000, of which about £3,000 is returned at the other end. Now were we dependant upon the Suez lino our share of expenso thereof would bo at least £30,000 per annum, and it would cost another £10,000 to bring the letters on here, so that the total actual expense of the service to us is about £12,000 per annum, a sum which is quite inconsiderable when compared with the immense advantages likely to accrue to New Zealand from a direct communication with America. Mr. Collins then referred to the most important Acts which were passed during the session, briefly giving a description of the tendency of his votes on the several occasions ; and also spoke of the Ballot and Libel Bills, both of which he had supported, but these had been thrown out—the former in the Uppr--and the latter in the Lower House. He then thanke.: j the meeting for listening quietly to him so long, and jocularly alluding to their habit of making members pledge themselves to all sorts of things before sending them to the House, said he hoped that in future honourable members would come to the House pledged to remain until the end of the session, and not (as was too much the habit) go away as soon as tho fun was over and leave the hardest of the work to be done by the few who remained.

Mr. Haldane said he should like to ask Mr. Collins' opinion regarding the conduct of the Maori war.

Mr. Collins said he was very sorry that he could state nothing satisfactory. The great cause of our defeats has been defective discipline, but he trusted that under the powers now given to commanding officers a change for the better would soon take place.

Mr. Haldane: Upon whom does the responsr bility for the conduct of the war rest ?

Mr. Collins ; The whole thing is in the hands of the Ministry,

Mr. Robinson : It having been currently reported that Mr. Collins voted for the Road Boards Bill, I would like to ask him if he did so ?

Mr. Collins explained the nature of the bill, and denied having voted for it. • A unanimous vole of thanks was then given to Mr. Collins for the exposition he had given of his political conduct, and expressing full confidence in his future course.