THE PREMIER AT DUNEDIN.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1250, 9 March 1878, Page 2

THE PREMIER AT DUNEDIN.

[Bx Teiegbafh.] [FBOM THE COBBESPONDENT OF THE PBEBS.] Dunedin, March 8. The Theatre was packed long before the meeting hour from floor to ceiling. Many were unable to gain admission. Fully two-thirds of the occupants of the circle were ladies. On the platform were Messrs Rees, J. C. Bi-own, Macandrew, Fisher, Delatour, and Thomson, M.H.R.'s. Messrs Bradshaw, J. H. Harris, Houghton, Stout, Reeves, Cargill, Reed, Ollivier, and about fifty gentlemen. On the curtain rising Sir G. Grey was received with much cheering, which was long continued, when he rose to speak. The early part of his address mainly dealt with the subject of the franchise, in respect to which he repeated a great deal of his former speeches. On the subject of taxation and the land laws, he spoke as follows : - " If you do not allow every individual to assent to the laws under which he lives, through his representative, or at least to have a voice in dissenting from them —if you compel him to live under the laws you have imposed upon him, and in rendering which he has no voice whatever, I tell youyon must educate your population in ignorance in a course which I believe will lead to vice, to a want of love for home, to a want of self-respect, and to the idea that people so shut out from civil rights are inferior to those people who enjoy them; that he is incapable of noble feelings of the same kind —that is, a desire to have a voice in the affairs of his country. I believe it will lead to vice, to careless men, to indolence, and to helplessness on his part. All of these reasons satisfy me in my own mind that you have the best chance of educating free populations, the_ best chance of educating moral populations, the ' best chance of creating happy times. The best chince of raising honest statesmen, and of giving to all a free and fair race in the battle of life is, if you provide by legislation that henceforth and from tuis very next session of Parliament every adult male within the limits of New Zealand, who has the wish, but who has so far attached himself to to have resided, I shall say, for a period of twelve months within an electoral district, shall have a vote in' returning the representatives for that district. [Cheers. ] J could adduce you many arguments upon this subject, but I will only add one more. 1 say this boldly. Perhaps this will be said to be a novel doctrine, but it is one I honestly feel—that r;o honest'man ought to have the wish to deprive; his fellow-citizens of a vote for a representative. tie ought to say to himself, " I will not put my hand into his pocket and take money without his consent. I Will not spend his money without his consent, or without the consent of a majority of the people of New Zealand. [Applause.] ' I will 110$ apply the funds taken from the poor to promote schemes and designs of my own, unlets the great majority of {be people of iTcw JZealawl have consented to give up that money, and allow it to be spent m that way." Applause.] Let those who desfaa to spend tba public money take it only fyoni those who care id give it up. Let voters take it out of their own pockets. But you all ktqw they will never do lhat. Yon know the truth of this, that'it is those who would deprive you of your rights to vote who 'too often have to do wit (, these matters, and who desire to extract money from you whether you like it or not, to expend it upon objects which meet their own ends. It is not" those people who pay the'money. Further 1 say- next session'let us insist upon this :—le.t the' number of representatives for ev.'ry electoral district bear a fair proportion to' the population. v [Cheers.] I heard today some geutleman in the. crowd which cheered me when I came here cry out "Cheer!, for the Queen and the Constitution." He imagined that I was opposing the Queen and the Constitution, and that my viev.s were not those of the Queen, anil not those promulgated in the Constitution. V ry, I am not now askiug you to do anything new. This very ii'uestiou,' that the nnniber of representatives for any electoral district ehtuld Deny, a fair proportion to the inhabitants of that district, received the Queen's assent in our constj-. tution. It is part of the law of the land. It is a ri°-ht. which you have been deprived of by your own Legislature, and which the ImpennJ Parliament mver intended you to lose. i Aprlau^a 1 Bear in mind this, I <my V Epekk to those whom y»w ""<^L

believed would grow up to aid me in any struggle of this kind from the way in •which they were raised here. I say that land those who are acting with me have had nothing to do with destroying the Constitution. It is those who are opposed to us who have broken the Constitution. (Cheers.] It is those who are opposed to us who have deprived the people of New Zealand of self-government. It is those who are opposed to us who have made these electoral districts with 15,000 people return two or three members—districts easily managed by a Government—while districts with a population of two or three times that amount, as was the case a few years ago, and even when I came into the Assembly, only returned one. Was that just or right, when the Constitution said that such a law should never have existed ? I therefore argue that we must revert to that rule of the Constitution. Again, upon that subject I have Mr Gladstone's absolute declaration that he agrees thoroughly with this view, and will do his utmost to get it adjusted in England. I ask you to join with me in claiming again this right, which your Sovereign gave you, and which, in asking for again, you show yourselves to be a loyal population, whilst those who cry out to the contrary are themselves disloyal in defying the Sovereign who conferred on you the right jl speak of. [Cheers.] Reflect for one moment on what really has occurred. As I have told you. the old Constitution has been shattered to pieces anc a new Constitution has been set up, which satisfies nobody. Now how was that done ? A friend of my own, an able man, has recently made a careful calculation, by which he shows this, that on the whole of the electoral rolls there are now 61,000 persons apparently-with the right to vote. But when you come to make an analysis of these 61,000 persons, you find_ some names repeated four, five, or six times in different districts. I believe eight or nine in some. Then there are many persons who have left their districts, who live there no longer, and have no voto there, and a number have died. The result, as I believe, and believe justly, is this—There are at the present moment, and have been for the last two or three years, only 40,000 electors in the whole of New Zealand, whilst, upon the other hand, there have been 150,000 adult males. So that the persons who have made the great changes in our Constitution, and who have deprived us of many rights, such as I have pointed out to you, and led us into a most unfair system of taxation, which I shall presently allude to, are only 40,000, while 110,000 persons, adult males, have been allowed no voice at all upon this subject. I put it to every man of you. is that a right or just state of things?—[Cries of "No."]—What I argued throughout was this—lf you alter the Constitution, do what is done in the United States, or what would be done in every free country. Let the whole population of New Zealand, that is, the whole adult male population, choose a commission to frame a constitution, and submit that constitution to the voice of the people. Let them determine the Constitution under which they will live. [Loud cheers.] But do not let the majority of the 40,000 electors, force a Constitution upon 150,000 freemen. I say such a thing has never been done before. [The following portion of the report is furnished by the Press Agency.]:—A large amount had been spent in public works, and much of it was wasted. The bulk of this money had added immensely to the value of privateproperty, and enriched the few at the cost of the many. He considered every person should contribute to the State in exact proportion to the advantage he derived. Under the present system of taxation a pauper class, whose children would become the serfs of land-monopo-lists and speculators, would be created. To remedy and prevent this, he suggested that a new system of taxation should be devised and a land tax imposed. He proposed that the land should be taxed according to quality. Absentee landowners, who derived large revenues from New Zealand, had to pay an income tax in England, and, if they thought proper to reside there, he considered they should be made to contribute to the revenue of this colony. [Loud cheers.] This was not radicalism, but mere reciprocity. It was to alter the existing system of taxation, and to prevent the creation of one class rolling in wealth and another steeped in poverty, that he desired extension of the franchise. As long as a minority held the exclusive right to vote, they would legislate for themselves*. With the franchise extended their land laws would speedily be reformed in a way beneficial to the people. He stated that his reason for advising the Governor to disallow the Land Act was to prevent the Canterbury squatters obtaining an extension of their leases, for thirteen years, without the electors being consulted. In granting these leases Parliament have committed a fraud on the people, and he had threatened, when the Act was passed, that he should use every means in his power to prevent its passing into law. It should be the ambition of every man to take a part in the work of legislation, and try to bee me one of the statesmen of New Zealand. He had been told, during his tour, that he was once the Governor, and he was now only the Premier ; but be replied that he would rather be Premier than Governor. Every man had to-aid in the building up of a nation, which he believed would be one of the greatest the world had seen. They were laying the foundations upon which the happiness or misery of future millions would depend, and according as they acted would their memory be esteemed. Ho believed the people of Dunedin would not prove traitors to such a glorious cause. The following resolution was carried by acclamation : "That this meeting desires to express its thanks to Sir George Grey for his lucid and valuable address, and to express its entire confidence in hia Government." There were loud calls for Macandrew, but he only Baid a few words.