The Power of the Platform.

I regard the Platform as a mighty power, a power under certain circumstances of greater usefulness and effective force than the Press, and I hail it as a good omen for the future in this country that the education of the people, politically, by means of the Platform is being more generally coming into use and adoption. (Hear, hear.) In a recent number of the "Nineteenth Century" magazine Mr. Gladstone shewed how the great uprising of Liberal opinion in England during the past Five years was almost wholly due to platform oratory in the teeth of a powerful hostile Press. The Platform and the Press are twin sisters, and each should aid the other. But where there is an estrangement or antagonism between the two we may rely upon it from the experience of the past that the Platform will prevail. (Cheers.) I trust, notwithstanding that we Liberals in Auckland are not unrepresented by the newspaper Press, yet that public meetings of this character under the auspices of the Liberal Association will henceforth be more frequently held. Now in speaking to you of the task which I think the Democracy of New Zealand ought to undertake to perform I shall confine myself to the mention of those projects which I am persuaded are well within the region of practical politics.