POLITICAL NOTES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6660, 5 December 1899, Page 2

POLITICAL NOTES.

Mr C. H. Mills, the Liberal candidate for Wairau, is making what is practically * atriumphal march through his electorate. The Conservative organs have, taken to calling a section of the electors in the North Island "yahoos." And yet they are constantly preaching tliat politeness and gentlej manly language are monopolised by Captain ! Russell and his followers. The Opposition journals, having exhausted abuse and misrepresentation, are now resorting to superstition to turn the electors against the Liberal Government. " All the Australian Premiers, with the exception of one, who attended the Queen's Diamond Jubilee," the^r are saying, " have fallen from their high estate," and they infer from that that Mr Seddon's turn has come. Did the Conservatives never hear of the exception which proves the rule? Mr W. W. Tanner has represented Avon in the House of Representatives for nine years, and during that time he has set an example to his fellow-members in honesty of purpose and conscientious attention to the business of the country. The electors of the district may be trusbed to know that a tried and experienced servant like Mr Tanner will be of more use to them than a man whose capitalistic instincts prevent him from knowing anything of their lives'and thoughts. The principal issue to be decided at the election to-morrow is whether the colony is to have its old age pensions system or not. Every vote cast for 'Messrs Lewis, Donnelly and Greig in Christchurcb, will be given against the pensions. Electors who think of voting for the harmless politicians should remember this. This is the kind of thing the Opposition journals perpetrate when they wish to discredit a political opponent: — "Mr Taylor said if he had used those words — and lie very much doubted if he had — it was not to be construed into meaning that he would support Captain Russell in a deliberate attempt to oust the Government." Whatever Mr T. E. Taylor's faults may be, he is at least coherent and intelligible when he speaks. Speaking of the New Zealand elections, the Australasian "Review of Reviews" says : Many shrewd observers, by no means votaries of Seddonism, are inclined to the opinion that instead of losing power, the Ministry will recruit its diminished majority by the gain of some half-dozen seats. This reasoning rests mainly upon the belief that the Government has bound the mass of the electors to it by the bonds of gratitude for favours past, and expectancy of favours to come. The women voters, who owe their suffrage to Mr Seddon, are pronounced to be still solidly Ministerial ; those who have received, and those who hope for, old-age pensions, are on his side. In a constituency composed chiefly of small farmers, as the Franklin electorate is, it will probably occur to the voters that something like a, generous support is due % o a Government which has assiduously promoted the interests of settlers of their class, not oruly by exempting improvements from taxation and cheapening money, but by lowering railway freights, fostering the dairy industry through the appointment of experts,, under whose guidance the factory system became established, and offering a bonus in the f orm of free freezing and grading facilities for butter exported. — Auckland "Star;" : • More facts fot, farmers. The present Liberal" Government has done more for farmers than all the Conservative Administrations put together. It carried an Act authorising an advance up to £2000 to any co-operative dairy company. It passed the" Manure Adulteration Actf, to prevent frauds in the sale of adulterated manures, the Stock Act, to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and arranged for the introduction of several first-class veterinary surgeons, whose services will be at the disposal of settlers in extirpating diseases in stock, compensation being provided for animals which are destroyed. The Land Drainage Act of the Liberal Government provides for the creation of Drainage Boards, the Unclaimed Lands Act furnishes a necessary means of dealing with those unoccupied lands, which have been a oar to settlement in many districts, the Fencing Acts have been amended and consolidated, the Margarine Act prevents the sale of margarine as butter, the Government Valuation of Land Act greatly facilitates the work of land valuation for local bodies, which are also assisted by the Government Loans to Local Bodies Act, which has been amended so as to include advances for such purposes as water-supply and bridges;, the Land Acts have been repeatedly amended in the direction of aiding the small settler, and this principle has also been earned out in adjusting the taxation of the colony. By modifications made in the Land Tax Assessment Act by the present Government, while an exemption of 500 is maintained on all holdings of an unimproved value up to £1500, the exemption is reducible according to a graduated scale upon land holdings in exces of £1500 until it is abolished altogether upon holdings of £2500 and upwards unimproved value, after mortgages due have been deducted. The large amount of nearly two million pounds which the Government has advanced to settlers operated not only as a direct relief to the borrowers, but also brought down the interest upon all loans on farm property. And, both from these advances and the money spent in acquiring and cutting up big estates, the Government has made, a surplus far in excess of any possible margin of loss, so that the work has been carried; out •■without a fraction of cost to the taxpayers of the colony. . A correspondent, writing from Pigeon Bay, says: — A large majority of the people in the Bays are in favour of Mr Montgomery. Mr Rhodes seems to lave the same politics as the old member, but doesn't know how to express them. . That's the only difference.