The Evening Star

Wednesday, November 18, 1885.

Mr Buckland's Speech.

Mr J. C. Buckland was elected, it may be remembered, as a determined opponent of the then Government, and having assisted in placing the unfortunate coalition in office, afforded them, although with evident misgivings, a general support in 1884. We are not at all surprised that, as a reasonable man with some amount of political conscience, the member for Waikouaiti felt himself forced into opposition last session, although realising that the Premier was very popular in Otago on the grounds of an honorable past, whilst the Ministry were presumed by the constituencies in these parts to be representative in a greater degree of the South Island than any Ministry in recent years. In his speech on Friday evening at Waikouaiti, Mr Buckland owned up to having been, in the initial state of his parliamentary career, influenced by such considerations; but he was obliged, he says, to throw these to the wind when the Government not only disclosed a mischievous policy, but demonstrated that they had not the courage of their opinions, and swallowed their principles wholesale ill order to the retention of office. He makes, it must be admitted, a completely satisfactory explanation of his change of front; but he must, we should imagine, feel to some extent humiliated in having to make the avowal that the position he took up as a candidate was based altogether on a set of delusions. He has since discovered that Major Atkinson is not fairly to be stigmatised as a political bugbear; that he has, in fact, served the Colony well for many years, and is that rara avis in these days of pseudo-Liberals and trading politicians, an "honest man! This does credit to Mr Buckland's discernment; but is hardly by implication complimentary to his former friends, for whose existence as a Ministry he is in degree responsible. The honorable gentleman is yet young in parliamentary life, and has already learnt by the teachings of experience a very useful lesson as to the necessity of thinking for himself. Had he done so when he came forward for Waikouaiti at the general election, he page break would never have talked the nonsense he did, retailing as indisputable statements of fact the calumnious misrepresentations of an unprincipled party, determined to grasp place and power by fair means or foul.

"It is never too late to mend," and the member for Waikouaiti has certainly mended his political ways in good time, and we must fain give him credit for an address in which sound principles are expressed in an effective manner and with practical application. Mr Buckland has the business sagacity to see that the financial policy of Sir Julius Vogel is bringing the Colony to grief, and that his ideas of unlimited borrowing and indefinite taxation cannot with either prudence or safety be entertained. He hits Ministers very hard when he compares their professions with the measures actually proposed, and taunts Mr Stout with having declared at one of his election meetings that if he could not reduce taxation by at least £80,000 a-year he would consider that he was not fit to hold his place in Parliament. Calmly, however, as Premier, he became accomplice to the devices of the Treasurer, and is equally responsible with his colleague for the grinding tariff which was submitted to, and wisely rejected by, the House of Representatives; for the more than doubling the property tax, which he had denounced as altogether iniquitous; and for the enormous increase in the stamp duties, which are beginning to be felt as a 'grievous burden by the community. Mr Buckland expresses the conviction, from which we have never wavered, that the way to make ends meet is not by raising additional revenue from taxation, but by real stern retrenchment—not the mere pretence at economy by which the earnest desire' of the House of Representatives has been again and again from time to time diverted. The ordinary public expenditure has, without doubt, outgrown the means, of the Colony, whilst the taxation, even previous to last session, was about as heavy as could-well be borne. The Government, however, insisted on "piling on the agony." Borrow, tax, and spend are the solo principles on which their financial policy is based.

Mr Buckland was extremely happy in his treatment of the question of Freetrade and Protection, which we believe him to be correct in asserting will have to be fought out at the next general election—at all events, in the town constituencies, where the manufacturing interest makes up by noise and agitation for the preponderance it lacks in numerical importance. The argument of the hon. gentleman displays breadth of view and logical acumen, and should, we think, be distinctly intelligible to the popular mind. New Zealand, he says in effect, requires, above all things, to be peopled, but people such as are wanted will not come if the Colony is not to be a land of cheapness and plenty. Whatever may speciously be; maintained to the contrary, it is demonstrable with almost the exactness of a mathematical truth that Protection raises prices all round, the working classes being necessarily the most direct and heaviest sufferers. The fact, which it seems so difficult to drive into some persons' heads, is well put by Mr Buckland, namely, that imports are paid for by what is produced in the country and exported. Diminish the imports, and as a necessary consequence the exports will be proportionately less. This is a law of economics as certain in operation and apparently about as little generally understood as the precession of the equinoxes. The member for Waikouaiti has undoubtedly given the local advocates of Protection several hard nuts to crack, and we especially commend his remarks on the subject, which we published in our issue of Monday, to general attention.