Hi—22

22

considerable time yet to recover from the paralysis of volition by which it seemed at one time strangely affected. (4.) and (5.) It is not material to discuss these points at this particular time. (6.) I ought to have said that I differed with you on the subject of the property-tax, and I ought to have explained that neither at your Auckland meeting nor at your Napier meeting was any reference made by you either to the Bill which you now say is being prepared, or to the modifications in the Act which were suggested by the Hon. Mr. Stevens and myself at the Cabinet meeting to which you refer. It is true that when I joined your Cabinet I said nothing specially to you on the subject of the property-tax. There was little time to discuss particular questions then; but you are in error in saying that you and I have never discussed the subject since. It is impossible you can fail to remember that I addressed a large deputation of Auckland citizens in April, 1888, on the question of the property-tax, and that on. my return to Wellington we shortly discussed our respective views upon the question. (7.) I blame you and the responsible Ministers —for there were at the time three Ministers in Auckland—for having allowed the country to drift into the ridiculous position and the large and needless expenditure into which it was forced by the movements of Te Kooti. Any man of firm character, having : regard to the interests of the colony, and especially to the interests of the people of the East Coast districts, would have prevented Te Kooti leaving Auckland for the purpose of visiting those districts. I do take some credit, as you say, for having subsequently influenced the Cabinet in passing a resolution to prevent the further advance of Te Kooti upon the East Coast settlements, and to arrest him if necessary—a step which I considered essential in preservation of the interests of a large and valuable body of colonists, whose peaceful pursuits ought never to have been allowed to be disturbed by the appearance amongst them of such a man as Te Kooti. The chief Eopata, in his place in the Legislative Council last session, drew the attention of the Government to the objectionable character of these visits of Te Kooti, and to the dangers that were sure to result from them. (8.) Your defence of your views upon the question of land-nationalisation and pauper farms does not interest me. I have little sympathy with the doctrines of the Socialist and the Communist. I have written and spoken strongly upon the views held upon the subject of land-nationalisation by some other prominent politicians in this country, and to view with favour in your case what I viewed with disfavour in their case would be to lay myself open to a charge of inconsistency of a very undesirable kind. My creed is short and simple. It is this : I regard the Government as a league of men combined for the benefit of the country as a whole, not for the protection of the individual—to advance the interests of the country and of its people by the better development of its wealth, the better reward of its industry, and the better promotion of its welfare. I believe in the private ownership of land*, as I believe in the private ownership of any other description of property. I also agree with Professor Fawcett and Professor Pollock that private property of every description has its responsibilities to the State. You are mistaken in supposing that I did not discuss these matters with any of my colleagues. I did talk the matter over with one of your colleagues, who dissented from your view and agreed thoroughly with mine. If I were permitted to make a passing remark in regard to your professed anxiety for the welfare of the people, I should say that if you were to read, study, and act upon the teachings of such works as Besant's " Children of Gibeon," and such speeches as Sir Charles Dilke's speech at the Forest of Dean, and the Marquis of Eipon's recent speech at Limehouse, you would understand more of the sufferings of the masses, and the means of alleviating those sufferings, than you appear to understand at present. This short observation is called forth by your feeble utterances upon the subject of the sweating system in your recent Napier speech. (H.) Eeferred to in paragraph (S). (I.) (J.) (K.) These paragraphs, evidently compiled with the aid and assistance of some lawyer, describe with great subtlety the minutiae and the complexities of the brewery cases, and with equal unfairness they strain every detail in any desired direction. lam sure we must all feel that we now know infinitely more about these cases than we ever knew before. I think it extremely probable that if I possessed as much knowledge of the principles of law as is attributed to me in these paragraphs I should have occupied my time much more profitably than in filling the thankless office of a Minister of the Crown of the Colony of New Zealand at £800 per year. The object of the paragraphs is well defined and palpable, but the facts happily are capable of a very different construction to that placed upon them here. To clear the ground as speedily as possible, let me deal with the simplest of these facts. Throughout, with tedious and painful iteration, you dwell upon the fact of " two perfectly clear cases " against the Junction Brewery being lost through my action in delaying the proceedings proposed to be taken against that brewery. You are aware, of course—for you cannot yourself be ignorant of the fact —that the " two perfectly clear cases " consist of one case of non-entry of fifty sacks malt on the sth September. The merits of this one doubtful case were not gone into in the Court; but I am informed that it was exactly on all-fours with another case, which was dismissed by the Magistrate because it was discovered that, although the material was not entered on the day upon which it arrived at the wharf, it was entered upon another, a subsequent day, the day upon which it arrived from the wharf at the brewery. Surely a mistake so simple as to render unnecessary any proceedings at Court. So the Magistrate thought, for he dismissed the case without an instant's hesitation. In this, the one doubtful case which you persistently magnify into " two perfectly clear cases," the charge was laid one way against the Junction Brewery, and one way against the secretary of the Junction Brewery Company, to avoid all possible escape on any technical point that might be raised. You know full well that the charges were doubled in this way, for, when you afterwards wish to excuse your own extraordinary conduct in mitigating the penalties inflicted by the Magistrate upon the Junction Brewery, you speak of the charges being mitigated because they had been " doubled."