Political Associations.

I believe in political associations. (Cheers.) I do not know they are always the best people in the community that take an interest in politics. There are some people who think everything is going to the bad. There are some people who think we are worse then they were when they were young. Whenever I hear people talking like that, who are horrified at this and at that, and always drawing a blue picture of what is going to happen, I often think of a worthy and able man—a bishop too. What do you think he said? He said when he was old the fruit had not the same bloom and taste as when he was young. Why, the change was with the bishop, not the fruit. Some people say if you teach every person so well as this who is going to do our manual work. I say to those who raise this cry set your own sons to it. (Cheers.) They just have as much right to do it as the sons of the poor man.

(Cheers.) I do not believe there would be any less manual labour done. I believe people who are afraid of democracy have something wrong with their digestion. (Cheers.) I believe they suffer from some complaint, and the man who has a healthy physical life is a man full of hope, enthusiasm, and fully permeated with the idea that the world is getting better and not worse. (Cheers.) Now, I say in reference to political associations there is need of these. I do not know even the members of your political association in Auckland, but they have set a good example to you. (Hear, hear.) They have done something. They are looking after their own political education, and if you have different views from them it is your duty to band together and give expression to them—the world gets on by this continued clashing of opinion. I do not believe in a community in which all believe the one way, but in men of different views ready to argue and give them utterance, ready to speak about them, and ready to carry them out. Of course I admit that a man has other duties besides those of citizenship. I do not believe in a man who can get up and talk about political and social reform who docs not pay attention to his own family. (Cheers.) Isay that it is his first duty to strive to make his wife and children happy. (Cheers.) A man that cannot do that had better leave reforming the world alone. (Cheers. But I say there is need of political associations, because after all we are a democracy, and as a democracy we must have political life, and unless we have political life we will have political corruption. If you find in any community political life, the pulse beating strongly, there you will have more purity in Government than if people are careless how their representatives act. If you have even the ideals I have mentioned, not to mention others, you ought to be determined to carry them out, and you ought to spend some of your time in the duties of citizenship. What do you think the great Athenian I have mentioned, Pericles, said of those who were careless as citizens. The Greeks looked upon a person who did not trouble himself with political acts as a usleess man, he was no citizen at all. He did not perform his citizen duties; and so with you, and so with us all, wo ought to pay some attention to politics. What have we como here for? Do you think the earth is perfect? Take and read a chapter of the social life of London. Think of the degradation, and vice of our large cities. We came to this colony many of us, and those who are born here I hope are, inflamed with the same desire, to make this colony grander, better, and to have it free from the blots of social life of older lands. (Cheers). We can only accomplish that by having some idea of citizenship duties, by spending some of our time and trying to bring about proper social reform and proper political reform, and I often think if we were all inspired with this idea of looking forward to perfect man and trying to get rid of the evils of the world, trying to get rid of the social evils of the world, trying to get rid of the sins and vices of the world, each of us in our own way, however humble, so to act, what a different world we would have. I would like to see men going to the polling booth to take part in the highest duties and functions of citizenship, inspired with some of the citizenship feeling, to have some of that pulse-beating national life. I would like to see all go to the polling booth not inflamed with nobblers of whisky or beer, hut as if they were going to perform one of the most sacred duties of our lives, to vote for the man who would carry out our ideal, who is honest. If each of us wen; so to act we would have a different political life to any we have had in the past. (Cheers). We would have a purer Government to any we have had in the past. Why don't you, they say, carry out these ideals you have set before you? Why don't you get this and that done? When I was in one of your schools—a very splendid school, it is one of the best in the colony—I forget its name, but Mr. Worthington is the master—1 found little children had been doing what is culled Kindergarten work. They had little things made of clay, and so learned the first step perhaps in modelling, and perhaps will get a taste for that in after years. I noticed some of their little cups and fruit baskets were broken. What was the reason of that? It was not the fault of the moulder; it was the fault of the clay. And so, if you say to our politicians who are representing you, why don't you do this and that, you must remember the kind of clay. (Cheers). The kind of clay depends upon you. Don't you blame the representative. I believe that every representative is just as good as his constituency. (Cheers and laughter). I say if any representative is bad, his constituency is bad. (Cheers). You have not had enough of political life; you have not had enough of association to carry out any political ideas; and perhaps have not had sufficient—I say it to you plainly—political education to see that there must be an ideal in political life as well as in other life, and that you must work singlebanded for that ideal as in everything else. (Cheers).

I remember coming to this one passage in the life of Abraham Lincoln on this very question—(cheers)—one, I believe, of the grandest men of our race. He was twitted by some Northern men who were really in favour of Southern slavery. "Oh," they said, why did not Abraham Lincoln, if he was really sincere in abolition, at once publish a proclamation when he assumed office freeing the slaves? Why wait until many years after, when so much blood had been spilt, and when it was practically forced upon him?" Well, his biographer gives a reason for that, and he says this, and I say it has a practical application in New Zealand at the present. "Doubtless he had an ideal, but it was the ideal of a practical statesmen—to aim at the best, and to take the next best if he is lucky enough to get even that. (Laughter). It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them. It is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it—that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, a conscientious persistence in what is unpracticable. For the impracticable, however theoretically enticing, is always politically unwise, sound statesmanship being the application of that prudence to the public business which is the safest guide in that of private life. Well, then, that is a guide for you and for me. It is a maxim we have to keep in mind—that if we cannot get the ideally best we may get the next best, and if we cannot get the next best, we must strive to get as near it as possible. So I say you must remember this, that these statesmen, the politicians of our colony, are what you as constituents make them, and if they are not carrying out these high ideals, if they are not able to accomplish this end, who is to blame? If each elector would hold his high ideal before him, and so art by his vote, you would find your politicians and members of the Government so acting that you would have no fault to find with their action. If you send men to the House and do dot aid them and cheer them in their arduous work, and if you seem to pay no attention to them, and to think they have nothing of troubles and trials, if you do not give them your enthusiastic support, if you are not fired with enthusiasm to help them to carry out their work, do not grumble if they fail. Their failure is caused by you. If, however, as colonists, all of us were fired by this enthusiasm to carry out these political ideas, so that our nation would be grander than any nation in the past, so that our own children rising up amongst us should have cause to say that their parents acted nobly, and had a noble national life, and loved the State, then you would have no fault to find. I often think we are not half educated to love the State. I find all over the colony that people have an idea that the Government is a great dispenser of favours. I say that tends to destroy the State. You ought to look to the State as the representative of you. I would like to see you so fired with enthusiasm about your schools that in a district where there is no school you would say: We will give half a day to help to build it, and give some of our means to assist, because we know this school would benefit our race and our young people. And if anything should threaten the State—though I need hardly mention this to an Auckland audience, remembering how nobly you acted in the past—if war comes amongst us, instead of arguing with the Government for capitation allowances, I hope to see you act as your fathers did before you, and show a true national feeling and love of the State. I say if you are inspired with this national life and anthusiasm about politics, then you will be doing some of your duty in the world; and do not think because you may not even he electors, because you are not representatives, or because you are not members of the Government, that therefore you have not high duties and responsibilities. Why, it has been said—some scientific man has said—that each atom has an effect on all atoms around it; that if you throw a stone in a pool the eddies will be felt on the outer edges, however large the pool is. What do you think would be the effect of a sincere arid honest man in the midst of a dozen working with him. What is the effect of one single honest enthusiastic man in any cause? I say the effect is electrical, and is such as one cannot even define; and if you, as electors of this colony, having these ideals before you, were to act them out in your daily life, thinking it your duty to make the race and the State better than they have been, you would be doing, each in his own sphere, an incalculable benefit; at all events, it would be said about you when the time came when you will be no more that you had done your duty as a citizen. I do not know any grander epitaph that could be ascribed to any man's memory than this: He loved his family, be loved his children, and he was always helpful to those around him v/ith kindness, though he may not have had any money, and that as a citizen, carrying out a citizen's duty, he had a single eye to the page 11 future, a single ideal to see a more perfect type of humanity and of a State. I say I do not know any grander epitaph than that. If we were only all of us, I do not leave out myself, fired with this enthusiasm having before us this ideal, we would be doing our duty in the world, and when we leave it, we should leave it better than we found it. (Cheers.) Now, let me end by giving you one or two verses, which you perhaps may remember—I am sorry I cannot quote the whole poem—from a poet whom I do not think is half appreciated amongst us—a poet who has written many noble and many good things. I mean Robert Buchanan. Let we give you two or three verses from his poem what he pictured to be a perfect State:—

Where is the perfect State
Early most blest and late,
Perfect and bright?
'Tis where no palace stands
Trembling on shitting sands
Morning and night.
'Tis where the soil is free
Where, far as eye may see
Scattered o'er hill and lea
Homesteads abound.
Where clean and broad and sweet
Market-square, land and street
Belted by leagues of wheat
Cities are found.

Where is the perfect State,
Early, most blest and late,
Gentle and good?
Tis where no lives are seen
Huddling in lanes unseen,
Crying for food.
'Tis where the home is pure.
'Tis where the bread is sure,
'Tis where the wants are fewer
And each want fed.
Where plenty and peace abide,
Where health dwells heavenly-eyed,
Where in nooks beautified
Slumber the dead.

Where is the perfect State,
Unvexed by wrath and hate
Quiet and just?
Where to no form of creed
Fettered are thought and deed,
Reason and trust.
Tis where the great free mart
Broadens, while from its heart
Forth the great ships depart,
Blown by the wind.
'Tis where the wise men's eyes,
Fixed on the earth and skies,
Seeking for signs, devise
Good for mankind.

Mr. Stout resumed his seat amidst loud and prolonged cheers.

Mr. Shera proposed that a hearty vote of thanks be given to the Hon. the Premier for the admirable address which he had just delivered. He was sure that the Hon. Mr. Stout was not received by them that evening only as Premier of the colony but as a well-known member of the Liberal party, a front rank man. (Cheers.)

Captain D. H. McKenzie seconded the resolution, which was then put by the Mayor, and carried unanimously with acclamation.

The Hon. Mr. Stout, on rising, was received with renewed cheering. He thanked the audience not only for the vote of thanks, but for the patient, and considerate, and kindly hearing afforded him. His only regret was that he was unable to speak to them on many other subjects, but he assured them that he left Auckland with many pleasant recollections of the scenery and climate—he would like it a little colder though, and there, he thought, the South had the advantage of the a—(loud laughter and cheers)—and the exceedingly kind way in which he had been treated since he came amongst them. He hoped they would accept this expression of thanks, and if he did not write to all to thank them, it was owing to his inability to do so, his friends had been so numerous. He begged to propose a vote of thanks to His Worship the Mayor, Mr. Waddel, for the able manner in which he had presided over the meeting.

The vote was carried by acclamation, and His Worship having briefly returned thanks, the meeting dispersed.