PARLIAMENT OUT OF SESSION.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6873, 7 June 1890, Page 4

PARLIAMENT OUT OF SESSION.

I ME W. B. PEECEVAL AT THE ODDFELLOWS' HALL. Last night Mr W. B. Perceval addressed ; his constituents at the Oddfellowß* Hall. I There waß a moderate attendance. The j chair was taken by the Mayor of Christ- ', church, who briefly introduced the speaker. Mr Perceval, who was received with applause, spoke to the following effect : — BOBBOWING; ! He admitted that it was questionable whether they had stopped further borrowing, but, as they knew, the next thing to being virtuous waß to get the reputation of being virtuous ; and the people at Home, at any rate, seemed to have the belief that we had come to the conclusion that further borrowing must cease. He, however, feared that we were drifting into more borrowing. As he had opposed borrowing in the past, so he would oppose it in the next session of Parliament ; and ; as he had voted for economical admiuis- ■ tration, bo he would continue to vote for it. PARTY GOVERNMENT. With regard to economical administra- ] tion, he had always assisted the Government whenever they proposed any vote in the direction of economy, and all the members of the United Canterbury party had done the same. They had considered that it was their first duty to keep their promises to the electors. He would not say that they had supported every proposal of the Government, because he recollected that some of the proposals were in the direction of economy in the education vote. He, with others, had opposed those. First, because they were pledged to do so ; and, secondly, because they thought there waß no true economy in them. (Applause.) He had told them before what his dews were upon party government. So long a3 he belonged to a party he would follow and fight for it. But he often asked himBelf whether in New Zealand party government was a success. New Zealand had copied the institutions of the Mother Country, but he very much doubted whether party government as it existed in this country, could be called a success. He had often asked why they could not elect an executive of the best men of the House to carry out the views of Parliament. (Applause). That was a reform, however, which would take a very long time to bring about, but the more he saw of party government and warfare, the more he was inclined to question whether it was suited to this Colony. He did not wish to be misunderstood. He claimed to be as staunch a party man aB any member of the House, and if they wanted a proof of that they could take the fact that he had been elected one of the Opposition whips. These were his views, nevertheless. They were held by a very small section of the House, and it would take time for public opinion to mature upon the point. THE SURPLUS. He proposed now to say a few words about the economies of the Government. - He was not going to follow the line i adopted by some Opposition speakers, and to question the accuracy of the Government's figures. He would gratefully accept the surplus, and congratulated the Colony upon it. It was most important that we should have these surpluses, and ' he did not think it was a generous thing to attack the Government, and » insinuate that they had been cooking 3 the accounts. He thought it better to say to the Government, "We are glad i you have it." (Applause.) He was not at ' all satisfied with the economies of the Government. He did not know whether ) they had heard of the Skinflints. That r was a term applied to certain members of the Opposition, and he rather took pride j in the fact that he was placed amongst 3 the Skinflints. He would do his utmost to 3 reduce the expenditure as far as possible. r His objection to the economies of the j Government was that they had not been e done on a system. He called them panic r economies. They knew what had happened in the past ; they had gone through this kind of thing before. There had been a panic when the Grey Government went out of office, and when Sir John Hall had brought in certain economies, notably the 10 per cent reduction. But as soon as the panic had passed, reckless expenditure began again. He very much doubted whether the economies of the present Government were based upon any firmer ,_ foundation. He would like to have seen * the Government reorganise the Civil r Service, set on foot a sound system of local _ government, and take away from Welling- „ ton that system of bureaucracy and ceaj. tralism which now existed. Until that B was done, he feared there would be very ._ little economy. (Applause.) He was ' quite ready to give the Government credit , for what they had done. They had faced * the mUßic with courage, and had not feared " to reduce salaries. But they had misßed ' their opportunity. They had had an ■. opportunity of placing the affairs of this j! Colony upon a basis which would not die--8 appear as soon as the wave of depression e had passed. (Applause.) He would tell e them a little more about the economies. j What the Government had done was this. 7 They had takeu the E3timates of 1887-8, I which were £4,038,000, and held them up as extravagant, and they Baid they would 1 reduce them by £233,000, and they had B done so. But these £4,038,000 contained , a very large amount for services which j would not occur again : which were a peculiar to that year 1887-8, so that, j- instead of the Government having given j us permanent savings of £233,000 a year, , they had done so only to the tune of b £150,000. Take the Estimates for this P last year, and what did they find? In 3 1887 the Estimates were £4,038,000. Bub r their own Estimates last year, after . knocking off everything they could, . came to £4,117,000, which was an inj crease of £167,000, so that the i burdens of the people were really more by £167,000 than in 1887-8. They were that ' and a good deal more than that, because ' there was additional taxation of over i £300,000, the extra Property tax being i £65,000, Customs duties £207,000, and the b Primage tax of £50,000. There was thereT fore an additional taxation to the amount ' of £322,000 as against savings of £150,000. | There waß ■ one thing to be said for the j Government. They have done one good r thing. They had said: "In the past you . have spent money out of loan which c ought to have come out of revenue. Your grants for school buildings and your sub- } sidies to local bodies, have come out } of loan. This is wrong." And he quite agreed with them. They have transferred these from the loan to the revenue account. They amount to j £124,000, and there is an additional l amount of interest, £67,000. However - the fact remains that we are taxed as . highly as before, and the amount of re- * trenchment.tohismind, was unsatisfactory. - The primage duty, as they knew, waß put ' upon the country for a special purpose—to 1 make up a portion of the deficit, which was i £528,000. Of that amonnt the Governl ment put aside £400,000 which they borrowed, and they imposed this primage : tax, £50,000, to make up the extra £128,000. It would be supposed that as soon as this deficit was paid off the primage duty would be abandoned, but not a bit of it. It was now proposed to retain it for a permanency, and so the burdens of the people were increased without any endeavour to reconstruct the system of , finance. He would give an example of what he called the > " unsatisfactory , manner in which the Government had l effected savings. They had cut down ' salaries as he had said. But there \ were whole services in Wellington ' which were conducted on the most ex--1 travagant principles. 'r LOCAL GOVERNMENT. 1 Another matter in which he had taken [ no little interest was local government. » When he went up to Wellington he had > felt that no true economy could be effected nntil the people took more lively interest in the expenditure which concerned them. He had felt that the best way to check 1 expenditure was 'to revert not to Provincialism as it formerly existed, but to 1 Provincialism in some modified form. He would like to see District Councils, perhaps

four or five in each island, which would do the work, a great deal of which waß now done in Wellington. Hospital and charitable aid work, and the work of education, might be handed over to these Councils, and would be a great deal better done than at present. me fergtjb. He saw that Mr Fergus in his speech seemed to think that a reform of local government was desirable. If he and his Government thought so, why had they not set about reforming our local government when they had had the opportunity ? I Why had they resisted giving him (Mr Perceval) what he asked for two sessions ago, a Committee to enquire into the subject ? Eeform of local government waß what he and the whole of the Opposition had demanded from the Government ever since they took office, and all they had got was a Committee appointed during the last days of the last session, when it was too late to do anything. As he had mentioned Mr Perguß, he must refer to one or two other suggestions of that gentleman. Mr Fergus had suggested that it would be a good thing to consolidate the loans of the Colony, in other words, to sweep all these loans, good and bad, into one common pot, and raise the money at a less rate of interest. It waß a very extraordinary thing that he should have mentioned in connection with this the New Plymouth Harbour loan. That Harbour Board had at last made default. ■ It was known that it must come. But Parliament had said they were not going to step in to save the Harbour Boards from repudiation. It would do more harm to the credit of New Zealand for Parliament to step in than to let them repudiate. Another mo3fc extraordinary passage in Mr Fergus' speech was his proposal to issue debentures for the purchase ■of Native lands. In one breath Mr Fergus said that the Government did not intend to borrow, and in the next breath he suggested that the Colony should issue these debentures. What was that but borrowing in the most pernicious manner ? OTTO BAILWATS. During the last few months attention had been drawn to the railways. The country had been asked to consider the expediency of selling the railways, and had been asked whether the railways were being worked in the way best calculated to promote the prosperity of the Colony. Both these considerations were based upon a conviction which seemed to be gaining ground steadily — that the present administration of the railways is defective. At the last election the people demanded a change, and an Act was passed handing over the management of the railways to a Board, which was to be free from Government control. Prior to this the Minister for Public Works, with Mr Maxwell as General Manager, had controlled the railways. One Minister for Public Works followed another, the Minister often having no qualifications for the position, and Mr Maxwell was practically the Minister ; so that it might be stated that it waß Mr Maxwell's management which was condemned by the country more than the fact of the railways being under Government control. When the Act was passed setting up the Board, it was pointed out that we wanted new men with experience of railway management, and it was understood that a man Bhould be got from England with the necessary qualifications. But what had happened f Three Commissioners were appointed. One of these was our old friend, Mr Maxwell, another was Mr Hannay, who had alsc been connected with the old management; and the third was Mr M'Kerrow, an able Civil Servant, but a man with no knowledge whatever of railway management. The Colony was aghast at the appointments, but waited for results. There were nc | results. The old management had been perpetuated, old ' grievances remained 1 grievances, and we were going on jußt as 1 we had been before. Mr Maxwell still 1 ruled the roost, and our last state was worse than our first, because we could not 1 now force the Board, as we forced the ■ Government, to make changes. He had nc '■ hesitation in saying the Board, as at • present constituted, had been weighed in L the balance and found wanting. When we l considered the increase in our exports and < consequent increased railway traffic, and I the extra passenger traffic, owing to the > Dunedin Exhibition, there was no wondei > the railway receipts had increased. This ' was not owing, however, to superioi I management, but to increased traffic. ( Ap- '' plause.) The Board had irritated th{ • employees, harassed the farmers, and used 1 the railways as a huge taxing machine ' The employees had been irritated by thj !• introduction of the Insurance Bill, th< • employment of boy labour, and an attempi to get overtime done for nothing. Th< '• poor Canterbury farmers, as usual, hav( ' been harassed to a degree beyond bearing 1 and had not the season been an exception' • ally fine one, the loss to Canterbury in ■ damaged grain would have been mp&i [ serious. This was such a serious questioi ■ that he must ask the attention of the ■ meeting for a moment to consider it. It 1 was true the rolling stock was insufficient; ' and the arrangements at country stations • were bad — very bad j but h e believed the root of the mischief was in the face that the railway was going outside its legitimate functions as a common carrier, and enter* ing into competition with the warehousemen. (Applause.) Owing to the policy of the Government, no facilities were given at country stations for the erection of granaries, and, worse still, the enormous grain stores at Addington were practically closed. This meant that everything was rushed through to Lyttelton, the grain could not be unloaded fast enough, and there was a block. The Commissioners having stores of their own in Lyttelton, concentrated all the traffic there, instead of allowing the Addington stores to be filled, and a certain number of trucks to be distributed from there. The history of the Addington and Harbour Board sheds was a splendid illustration of the greed of Mr Maxwell. Tears ago, the Harbour Board proposed to lease certain Bites for grain stores. Mr Maxwell, aB Manager, protested, on the ground that it was unadvisableto allow stores to be erected outside the control of the Government or Harbour Board. After negotiations it was arranged that as the Harbour Board had money and the Government had none, the Harbour Board should erect stores, and the Government should lease them at a rental eqnivalentto7percentonthecost. This was done, and reclamations made, and the shed erected at a cost of £28,000, the Government agreeing to pay .£2OOO per annum by way of rent. After a time the Government objected to the rent as excesssive, and the Harbour Board agreed to meet them by reducing the rent. Ultimately Mr Maxwell gave the Board notice that the Commissioners would give up the sheds after one month. They pointed out the shed was of no service to them, and the Public Accounts Committee in Wellington, thinking it unadvisable to permit the Bailway to acquire control over the grain stores, ' recommended that the Board should take back the shed after six months' notice. Now came the point. The Commissioners, who did not want the shed when it was a question of getting the rent reduced, suddenly resumed possession of the Bheds, 1 and notified their intention to take the sheds compulsorily, offering £10,000 for sheds costing £28,000. He wondered what the debenture-holders in London 1 would say to their security being grabbed in this way. (Hear, hear.) Now as to ; the Addington shedß, these were erected ; by private owners, at the request of the Government, special inducements being offered by the railway for their construction. These sheds proved in the past of ' great service to the farmer, as he had the chance of selling locally or shipping, whereas if grain goes to Lyttelton it must be shipped. The Commissioners now framed their tariff in such a way as to make it impossible to store in Addington. , Here were the charges. Ashburton to . Lyttelton, direct, 10s sd; Ashburton to . Addington, 8a lOd ; Addington to Lyttel- . ton, 4s 3d $ or 13s Id against 10s Sd, a i difference of 2s 8d per ton. It might be thought fair to charge more as the journey had to be broken, but the loading and unloading at Addington would be done iby the owners of the store and the I pressure at Lyttelton would be re>--1 duced, the railway losing nothing, as

when the grain was afterwards Bent on to Lyttelton they would collect the haulage from Lyttelton to Addington. These Btores had a capacity of 20,000 tons, and it was the shutting up of these stores which had inconvenienced the farmer; , moreover, the trucks could be distributed : from Addington much more expeditiously than from Lyttelton. (Applause.) Now as to the rates on merchandise in Canterbury. Why should we pay 5s a ton for our tea and sugar from Lyttelton, a distance of six miles and a half, when the Dunedin people got their tea and sugar carried eight miles for 4s 6d ? Why should the rates between Christchurch and Titnaru be nearly double per mile the rate between Dunedin and Oamaru ? Which piece of railway costs more to work, our flat railway or the Otago hilly railway ? Thiß high rate of 5s per ton had to be paid twice over by the I Christchurch merchant whenever he re- { shipped. The Harbour Board make no charge for wharfage on goods exported which have paid wharfage on importation, and the railway should make a concession also, instead of which they piled on both ways an excessive rate, which had the effect of preventing Christchurch doing any coast trade. Poor Canterbury! the milch cow once more ! (Applause.) To sum up, the Railway Commissioners, having rubbed up the employees, rubbed up the farmers, rubbed up the merchants, rubbed up the public, must be rubbed out themselves, and give place to men who will work the rail- . ways 83 a means of developing the industries of the Colony and not as a barrier to settlement and progress. He regarded the proposal to sell the railways as an absurd one. (Hear, bear.) If we were now chastised with whips, a Company would chastise us with scorpions, and there would be a grand scramble for the money we should receive. Did they believe it would go in reduction of our debt ? Not a bit of it. The North Trunk, Otago Central, North of Auckland railways, and a dozen other works which we did not want yet a while, would absorb the money, Canterbury getting none, as usual. (Hear, hear.) EXPORTS AND IMPORTS. He would not detain them any longer. There was, however, one little set of figures which he would ask them to listen to. It was a very agreeable one— the result of the last three years' export trade. The total exports for 1887 amounted to £6,886,169, in 1888 they were ,£7,7G7,325, and in 1889 That was not a bad record for a population of 600,000. The principal itemß were — Minerals, £803,880, £987,552, £885,304; fish, £14,961, £19,298, £19,889 ; timber, £508,764, £582,016, £527,091 ; animals and animal produce, £4,506,087, £4,506,436, £5,607,401; agricultural products, £558,022, £905,907, £1,424,297 ; manufactures (including flax), \ £124,382, £233,383, £569,880. These were very dry figures, but they Bhowed \ what this country could do. When ( they saw how little of the land was taken . up and how much remained to be settled, I they could imagine how much more the. ( Colony could do. He hoped to live to see , not only 600,000 people here but a population of ten millions. He hoped that in ; twenty-five years' time the population \ would have increased to an enormous [ extent, and that all the land would be [ occupied. (Applause.) He thanked them t for their patient hearing. He was afraid that his speeches were always somewhat [ dry, and he took it as a great compliment p that they should have given him so patient > a hearing. (Applause.) j THANKB AND CONFIDENCK. 1 Mr A. G. Howland proposed — " That Mr J Perceval be accorded a hearty vote of thanks for his instructive address that 5 evening, and that we have full confidence . in him as our representative." Mr Willmer seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously. > A vote of thanks to the Mayor for . presiding concluded the \neeting.