DICK SEDDONS TESTIMONIALS.

Observer, Volume XVIII, Issue 1093, 9 December 1899, Page 4

DICK SEDDONS TESTIMONIALS.

And a Few Missing Words

The immense audience which filled the Opera House on Tuesday night to hear the Premier was by no means warm in its reception of him, although that faithful Government claquer, the Star, would fain perßuade its readers it was. On the contrary, Digger Diek — as he prefers to style himself at election timeB — had to roar bis very hardest for the first quarter of an honr to make himself audible even to those on the stage. The wonder is that he did not roar the buttons off his vest, or burst his shirt collar by the effort. He therefore deemed it prudent to make a start by attempting to bring evidence aB to character on behalf of himself and his Government. For thiß purpose he called as witnesses four of the moat uncompromising and plain-spoken Liberals in the House, viz., Mr Rolleston, Mr John Hutcheson, Mr Fred Pirani, and Mr T. E, Taylor. He judged that their testimony would carry far more weight than the opinions of any of his own slavish and abjectly submissive followers. Now, let ns examine these credentials. In the first place, Richard, the diplomatic, pat Mr John Hatcheson in the box and quoted him saying , ' For boldness of conception and execution, the jobbery of the present Government is not on a par with what has gone on in the past. The magnitude of the operations in the past was quite on a par with the Yanderbilts and the Hooleys.' Those words were spoken three years ago in warm-hearted partisanship, before Mr John Hutcheson had entered Parliament, and before he had gained any experience of the party tactics and political methods of Dick and his friends Bat he was speedily disillusionised and disgusted. In Mr Hutcheson's second session, he began to assert his independence Last session, he rose in open revolt, resigned his eeat as a follower of Seddon, and was reelected as an Independent Liberal. At the present time, he is fighting his election aB the sworn and relentless foe of Seddonism and all its works. And this is now the mature conviction of Mr John Hutcheson, founded upon three years' experience in the E ouse, and expressed to the electors a few days ago : ' Parliament was gagged, and the Premier made his influence bo felt that his hirelings, in his absence, were there with the dagger and the knife to kill important measures introduced by private members. . . . There is a better time coming ; a change of Government is coming. There is new blood coming into our Parliament. We are not going to have the Old Toryism at all. We will have a new Democracy. All over the colony, there are young and vigorous men who are determined to have straight business, and they are going into Parliament. There will be a leavening influence iv the new Parliament that will tolerate neither the maladministration of the Government nor the legislation of the pist ' That is Mr John Hutcheson on the stump/ And here is Mr John Hutcheson from hie seat in the House last session — words that make one amazed at the Premier's effrontery in calling Mr Hutcheson to witness in his favour. Just listen to this : — ' We have watched the degeneracy of the Liberal Ministry to a point that no one — even their best supporters — can honestly say that there is any but one man ruling the destiny of New Zealand. The degeneracy has gone so far, and we are fast reaching the deldcle ; the writing is on the wall, and the defeat of the Reid Ministry is something that ought to cause the Premier very serious concern. It has arisen largely from the same cause, and from the pursuit of the same masterful, over-bearing, domineering policy of our own Premier. . . . He has become more and more isolated and autocratic, no longer bulwarked round by colleagues who, in their various departments are at least his co-equals, but staggering under the load of degeneracy too heavy for any one pair of shoulders to bear. It is impossible longer to delude one's self that we have a real live Liberal Executive in the present attenuated remains of what was once a strong, powerful, and democratic Ministry.' Then, the Premiei asked his audience to believe that Mr Rolleston'a opinion of him and his party was fairly expressed by this bald passage: — 'There are two or three kinds of Li berals. The great Liberal party at the present time is Seddonism and Seddonites. They form one class that follow Mr Seddon, who is a resolute man, with a great deal of intelligence and a great deal of ability.' The Premier said it caused him to blush, and he had every need to blush for trading off these few disjointed words aB Mr Rolleaton'a estimate

of him and his party. Here is Mr Rolleston's deliberate opinion of them as told to their faceß in the House just five weeks ago :—

' I say all that the Liberals— as those gentlemen on that side call themselves— ought to bold most dear, has been neglected and thrown aside for party purposes — simply for party purposes of their own to keep one man in power. Their object was to ÜBe the people as a stalking-horse to enslave them for their own purposes, and to drag politics through the mire, leaving the people trembling with their necks under the feet of these so-called Liberals. I say that one of the worst things has been the determination on the part of the Government here to sabordinate every form of Parliamentary procedure, every Parliamentary institution to the maintenance in power of one inscrutable politician. They have up to this time misled the public ; they have led them to believe that which is not at all correct as to their true interests. But I believe that the Bham and nonsense and humbug perpetrated is going to be set right at the elections that come on next month.'

The Premier ako quoted Mr T. E. Taylor aB saying to the Leader of the Opposition, ' The Government are bad, but you and your Party are a thousand times worse. 1 That waß when he was young and verdant. But the things he has said since of Mr Seddon and some of his colleagues are simply scathing in their caustic severity. It was, however, more in sorrow than in anger that he told the House last session :

' We are stationary as a Labour party, and whereas in 1891 we had ideals that inspired the party and the country, our policy is now in fragments in the country, and we are as a party striving principally to continue the existence of an Executive that dare not boast of their administration . • . What I and others with whom I

have the honour to work with in this House complain of is this : We complain that tne administration of the Government is Bach that we cannot defend it, and that very little progressive legislation is proposed by the Government. ... It is the last of power that is the principal concern of the Ministry of today.' However, Tommy Taylor's latest comparison between the Conservatives and Seddonian Liberals was made at Chriatohurch the other day, and is as follows : — ' I believe that, if in power, the Conservatives would be almost (mark the word) as bad as the Liberals.' Finally, the Premier quoted Mr Pirani as asserting ' he had never been pressed to vote for any measures to which he was opposed; he was never coerced.' Doubtless that was in his first session, before he had withdrawn in disgust from the Seddonian party. Bat hear him now — and this is one of his mildest charges : — ' Every Committee appointed at present to investigate any charge" against Ministers has a certain majority on it of members who will vote as the Government chooses. . ... As long as party tribunals are set up it is impossible to expect any other result than we get at present.' Or take this : ' What party iB being nsed for nowadays is to shelter the Ministry from their own peccadilloes, to protect them from the results of their own wrongful acts of administration.' . These quotations could be added to indefinitely, but the above-will suffice. They expose the bluffing tactics of the Premier. He calls Messrs Rolleston, Pirani, Hutche-

son and Taylor to give evidence. Well' we assist him to complete the testimony by giving their up.-to-date opinions. The electors can now appraise his lop aided quotations at their real value.