MR ROLLESTON AT ASHBURTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5993, 30 July 1887, Page 2

MR ROLLESTON AT ASHBURTON.

At present the only candidate for the suffrages of the electors in the new electorate of Rangitata is Mr W. Rolleaton. The names of one or two other gentlemen have been mentioned as probable candidates, but the only one really expected to come out is Mr Joseph Ivess, and he, it is understood, is simply lying perdu until it can be fairly ascertained how Mr Rolleston has been received throughout the electorate, which, by the way, is one of the largest, geographically speaking, in the Canterbury Province. Some idea of it can be ascertained by the fact that Mr Rolleston has to speak at different places all the way from Temuka, taking in Geraldiue, right down to the Rakaia river. He began his campaign, bo far as the old Wakanui electoral district is concerned, on Thursday, July 21, at Ashburton. As there is bat only one hall of any size in the town, there is no difficulty in making a choice of speaking places, and the public can make no mistake about where a public meeting is to bo held. In spite of a slight muddle made in advertising the meeting on Thursday, Mr Roileston faced quite 200 people, and this number was very largely increased before he had gone well into the marrow of his speech. He was, on the whole, very favourably received, though evidence was not wanting that he had not the complete goodwill of every one in the audience.

Mr T. Sealt, Mayor of Ashburton, took the chair, and bespoke a fair hearing for

Mr Rolleston, who was received with, applause, after thanking his hearers for their numerous attendance, said he was in rather a strange position standing on an ABhburton platform, asking the electors of Rangitata district to give him their support. Notwithstanding the strange appearance of the map of the district, the electorate was one of which any representative may well he prond. It was strange that it should have to take its name from the Rangitata, and the peculiar way in which the electorate had been laid off, placed it in a position that was not all that could be desired. He thought Parliament had abdicated its proper function in handing over to Commissioners the duty of delineating the electoral boundaries. In his own opinion, the Representation Bill should have proceeded by defining the natural boundaries of the districts, and grouping their interests, but the Government had not behind it a party strong enough to see a properly defined Bill through. The country had been governed by experiments for some time, and this Bill was one of them. Parliament ought to have passed the Representation Bill long before now. In fact, it should have been in operation before last session, so that, instead of spending the winter in carrying on an. election, the members should have been in Wellington dealing with the financial position of the country. And what waa that position ? Simply that the country was going to the bad a quarter of a million per annum. Were the people to submit to fresh taxation to meet this deficit, or were they to demand retrenchment ? It was all very well to beat about the bush with cries of Protection ; but the great matter was retrenchment. The present Government was itself realising thiß, and we now heard from them a deathbed repentance in connection with retrenchment, for they had recently discovered that they could effect a saving of .£IOO,OOO a year. This was he took it, an indication that if they were put again on the Ministerial Benches, and with the proper c Tew put on, they would be able to find oui a way to save another .£IOO,OOO. We had been borrowing to a great extent in past years, and a certain proportion of the money we sent out of the Colony had been coming back into it. Now, however, we had refched the position at which the money ws had to pay at Home was greater than what we are borrowing. The country was awakening to the fact that its taxation was oppressive, and that something was rotten. The representatives take their cue from the people, and if localism would persist in demanding public money for local purposes, then the representatives would strive to supply that demand, and Government would be no better than the people. But when the people waked up to this sort of thing, there was hope for the Colony, snd that the practice would obtain of that economy he had preached for years. For years he had been ridiculed and derided as a man who would put the brake on overmuch ; but he did not regret thiß now, as the time had come when everyone saw that retrenchment was necessary. The present Government came into office with astatementthatthe resources of the Colony were elastic, and that we would go on to prosperity with leaps and bounds. The first year of the Government's tenure of office might be called the year of elasticity. That was the year in which the people were told there was no necessity for extra taxation, the year in which the Sinking Fund was confiscated, and the finances of the Colony showed a deficit. The next year the promised leaps and bounds did not eventuate, and Government brought down proposals for an increased Customs Tariff. The House declined to receive them. That year also came the celebrated Meiggs proposals, by which the Colony would have had to pay .£97,000 per annum for twenty yeare, and that other proposal by which .£300,000 per annum was to be pledged to Local Bodies. The Opposition of the day negatived all these proposals/and further succeeded in curtailing the expenditure to a large extent. Time has justified the proceedings of the then Opposition. In 1886-7 Government were divided in their councils, and further borrowing was asked for. The last two years may be called the vapouring and tapering policy of the Government. We had the Blenheim Railway, the Inangahua and Westport line, the ThamesAroha line, the Helensville northwards line. Of all these not one could be hoped to turn out a paying speculation, and of the last mentioned it could with justice be said that whatever its prospects, it could very well wait, seeing that the district had plenty of deep water carriage service. He would say nothing just then about the district railways, and would only add that what he had indicated was the " tapering " part of the policy. The " vapouring " part came in with an outcry about Women's Suffrage, the Supreme Court, Protection, and the Civil Service. Government were the apostles of retrenchment, but what about the .£3OOO given to a gentleman in the North Island for negotiations that the House had forbidden ? What about Mr I Lundon? What about the Ministerial travelling expenses ? In regard to the latter, in 1881 the amount spent by Ministers in this way was £10,516. In 1887 it had risen to .£14,712. In 1881 the Upper House figures had been .£4928 j in 1887, £6381. For defence, 1881 had shown .£14.1,000 ; 1887, .£182,000, and that independent of the .£25,000 for harbour defence. The speaker at some length went on to show that many of the savin ga claimed by Government had only been simply unexpended votes. No gold had been discovered, so that the money voted for this purpose had not been paid ; the children at school had not reached the capitation number, and the voted capitatioa had not been paid. Surely it >va3 cot expected that £6000 was to be expanded every year on the Hinemoa's boilers, nor £11,000 every year on a census that cost tiat sum only once in five, nor £10,000 every year for a Colonial Exhibition. These were not recurrent expenses, and he believed that when figures were properly gone into it would be found that the Colony's finances were worse even than they had feared. After a reference to the progressive Property-tax, which he said the Opposition did right to oppose until there had been retrenchment, he went on to say that no retrenchment would be effected until the electors sent to the House men who were pledged to do it. It was easy to preach retrenchment, but very difficult to put it into practice, for men preached economy with halters round their necks. He would begin at the Governor — £5000 a year was enorgh for his Bervicea. Ministers' per-

quisites, allowances, and residences should be done away with, and six or seven thousand thus saved. Legislative expenditure was far in excess of what it ought to be, and it was only when the members of the Legislature began with themselves that they could, with a boldface, deal fearlessly in other departments. He would reduce the honorarium to £150, and the Upper House honorarium to £100. Making a reference to public indebtedness, he eaid that the interest on that amounted annually to £1,764,793, while from Customs revenue, Property-tax, beer duty, registration duty, and Marine Department fees, it was possible to procure annually only £1,744,493. Per head of Dopulation, an annual taxation of over £3 had to be paid to carry on the Colony's public works and meet the interest on an indebtedness per head of £68. To put the Colony right, three things were necessary — lßt. No more borrowing ; 2nd, reduction of expenditure; 3rd, increase of income. Government did not propose to do the first, for Sir Robert Stout wanted to give a bid for popularity in both North and South by proposing to borrow two millions to make the Ofcago Central Railway and the Helensville line. The Otago Central line was practically usele3s until it had thoroughly opened the Strath Taieri, and the Helensville could remain very well as it was until better times. Government had made a deathbed repentance, and thought it could retrench to the extent of £100,000, but more than that would be wanted. The proposals of Government were utterly untenable, and while the whole Colony was depressed it was proposed to further tax them through the Customs and the Pro-perty-tax. Who would be the sufferers? Why the bread winners of the Colony; and how was the pill of extra taVation to be gilded ?— by Protection ! He hoped the working men would not be gulled by any such trick. It was impossible to promote a people's interests by forbidding them to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. In speaking to the people he had met he had tried to ascertain what, was really wanted to be protected. One man wanted grain to be protected! Another desired machinery. In regard to this, we got as good stuff made in the Colony as had ever been brought into it. This Protection cry was all nonsense, and only meant increased taxation to pave the way for further borrowing. Protection had nothing to do with the question at all, and taxation would have to be gone in for to make both ends meet, apart altogether from the question of promoting manufacturing industries. Mr Rolleston adversely criticised the progressive Property-tax proposals, which he pointed out had this element of unfairness in it, that it unduly taxed those people who, by' their industry and thrift, had saved more than their neighbours, and the effect would be to drive away capital. Thepreßent Government hadno monopoly of liberal sentiments in the matter of land laws and education, and the speaker's side of the House was quite as liberal. On the matter of education he did not think that Mr Montgomery, Colonel Trimble, or himself would, allow that any man was more liberal than themselves. He was quite as much in earnest on this question a3 lie wa9 on that of retrenchment. The spaaker combated the proposals to reduce the education expense of the Colony by raising the school age and restricting the standards taught, and said that any interference there would cripple the country schools. He was sure the people would not care to have a lower standard of education in this Colony than they had in the parish schools of England and Scotland, and what they had here at present was equal to the standard taught up to at Home. In an eloquent reference to the value of cultivated intellect, the speaker spoke of the education vote, and pointed out that of the Bum roughly estimated at half a million that education cost the Colony annually, only a comparatively Bmall portion was spent on primary education and coming directly out of the taxation of the people. The speaker closed a speech of an hour and a halt's duration by advocating the establishment of Railway Boards similar to those existing in "Victoria, and sat down amid loud applause. Several unimportant questions were asked of Mr Rolleston, after which a hearty and unanimous vote of thanks was passed to him.

Mr Murdoch Bruce thought a vote of confidence should be passed, and proceeded to move one ; but as Mr Rolleston at previous meetings had said he did not desire such votes, the meeting showed unmistakeable si^ns of opposition to the motion.

Mr Rolleston having said that the expression. o£ confidence he coveted was that given at the ballot-box, he moved a vote of thanks to the Mayor for presiding. This was warmly passed, and the meeting adjourned.