Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld. : 1866 - 1939), Saturday 19 February 1870, page 3


EAST MORETON NOMINATION.

THE nomination of candidates to fill the va-<*> cancy in the representation of the East Moreton electorate, caused by the resignation of Mr. A. M. Francis, took place at the Police-office

in Brisbane, on February 17. The RrnrurnraOrncsß, Mr. J. Petrie, having read the writ, Mr. O. Quins proposed, and Mr. Cranopkkb Pom* seconded, a resolution declaring Mr. R. T. Atkin to be a fit and proper person to represent the electorate. Mr. G. EDMOHiMXora, ILLI, proposed, and Mr. Jams* Jonrnora leeonded, the nomination of Mr. Robert Cribb. No other candidate being propoeed, Mr. Axznr, who was received with cheers, said that the present was not a contest on his part with Mr. Cribb. That gentleman was an old citizen, and one for whom personally he had the greatest respect. He (Mr. Oribb) was, however, been made use of by a certain party now, as he had been made use of on previous occasions. For the last few elections, he had been a sart of political nine-pin, put np at «ne time, and blocked down by the same persons when they got another man. Mr. Cribb would make a good representative, bat he (Mr. Atkin) naturally believed he would make a better. In the Courier, of a few days ago, it was stated that he was a man of some ability, bat a thoroughly unscrupulous politician. He denied that»» toto, and defied any man to say he had ever done one unscrupulous thing either in his private or public capacity. He might have made mistakes, but denied that he had ever been influenced by any motives but those for the public good. He owed no man a shilling. He had never gone through the Insolvent Court, paying half-a-crown in the pound. He had never gone into Parliament to get a billet as Chairman of Committees of £400 a year, and, on losing that, gone hunting Ministers through the streets for a billet; and, having failed to get that, taken employment under the same men. With regard to the present election, Mr.Cribb's great card was the A.B.N. Company. What had theoonduct of the present Government been ? They had been pledged to construct a railway to Brisbane, and it was expected they would do it last session. But Mr. Stephens, in his budget, showed them the colony was in a frightful financial position, and told them the railway could not be made. When that gentleman brought in a bill to raise money to pay off Treasury bills, Mr. Pring moved an amendment, the object of which was to raise £200,000 for the construction of the Brisbane railway. The time was favorable for suoh a work, and the money could have been advantageously borrowed. Mr. LUley opposed the amendment. He was reported in Eantard to have " called upon the House to support him in making a stand against incurring a responsibility the colony was not in a position to undertake. He pointed out that the debt of the country was £40 per head of the population, and the revenue not elastic and that no capitalists would lend ns money." He conoluded by saying "He was right in asking them to follow his colleagues advice, to • rest and be cautious. 4" A "few months after he went down to Sydney, and entered into all sorts of extravagant expenditure on the part of the colony. Since the railway debate, £80,000 had been added to the expenditure, and the revenue had fallen off £40,000. A contract had been entered into for subsidising foreign lines to the extent of upwards of £26,000, by which this colony would not benefit sixpence. This was the Government that oould not afford the Brisbane railway. They had kept their parasites on and h^^'

reduced the Civil Serrice, where there was tnch room for reduction. It had been currently re* ported that Mr. Lilley had been going to bring forward that day a member of the legal fraternity. How was it that the Crown prose* cutors did not attend to their duties? Why was Mr. M'Devitt sent np to Gladstone to prosecute Hilliard, when there was a Crown prosecutor there? Why was Mr. Pring engaged to prosecute in a recent case in. the Metropolitan i District Court, instead of the usual Crown prosecutor? Then, again, this economical j GoTerament had sold the dredge. That was one of their worst actions. The dredge left here was an old worm-eaten thing, worth nothing. The expenditure' they had let the colony in for was the result of their sprees and follies, of their actions when they did not know what they were doing. He should support a Redistribution Bill on a population basis; also, a Drainage Bill, by which the Government should lend money to farmers on their real property at a cheap rate of interest. Sneh a system had worked well in Ireland. He was also in favor of protection to native industries in a modified form. Cottongrowing, under the slight protection it had had here, had become an important interest. Sugargrowing had also received a great impetus from the small amount of protection i: had received. He would extend this protection to maize, and other articles of produce. It was a great shame to see so much fruit and other things they could grow themselves, imported here. Protection had done very much in Victoria. Mr. B. Cbibb, who was received with cheers and laughter, said he had stood before them on a number of occasions similar to the present for nearly 22 yean, and had taken a prominent part in public life during the whole of that time, and he challenged anyone to say that he had erer attacked another person who was i4»»»*irg on the hustings aa a rival rtwdiriate. He was certainly disgusted at the flippant nonsensical stuff, which Mr. Atkin had uttered. He did not know anything about the resignation of Mr. Francis, as the member for Kast Moreton, until he aaw it in the Courier on Saturday morning last, and almost the first person who •poke to him about the matter wu Mr. Atkin himself, who asked him if he meant to oppose him, and hit reply was, " Certainly I will oppose anyone who comes forward as an advocate of the A.B.N. Company."* Mr. Atkin had told them that Mr. Stephens hunted up Mr. Douglas to oppose him on the last occasion, and that he himself opposed Mr. Douglas, and supported him; but if they turned to the Expreu of that time, they would find that he praised up Mr. Douglas to the highest. He believed the gentlemen standing alongside Mr. Atkin then (Mr. John Cameron and Mr. Cairns) had very much more to do with the bringing forward of Mr. Douglas for East More* ton than either Mr. Stephens or anybody else. It so happened that in going home one night at that time he had aa accident, which laid him up for a week, and that was the reason he lost his election then, notwithstanding the influence of the auctioneer and the banker. But the question for the electors to consider was, whether they bettered themselves by electing Mr. Douglas instead of himself. Mr. Douglas made his seat for East Moreton a stepping stone for getting into office, into the Upper House, and a permanent appointment. Then, Mr. Atkin read some article from a paper which, at the time the article waa written, waa under a differ* ent editor to the one it was now under, as an instance of the manner in which the paper had treated him. WbJt an absurd thing it was for the editor and proprietor of a paper, M *•&• Atkin was, to do anything of the kind. He (Mr. Atkin) knew exactly what waa the value of such things. That man cane forward in public life aa the advocate and paid servant of ultrasquatters. (Mr. Atkin: "No, no.") But he said it wu so, and everybody knew it He came v the editor of the Queensland Guardian when it fell into the hands of the squatters. He wu retained by them to advocate their views, and he did so. Nobody would find fault with him for that He wu their paid servant, and he did the work he wu employed to do. Then he went up to Clermont in the interest of Mr. Maealister, and got elected for that town. Afterwards he resigned that position, and in his paper abused Mr. Maealister v the blackest of devils; and without any change at all in Mr. Maealister's position, he shortly afterwards painted him up v aa angel of light. Now he (Mr. Cribb) would never have said a word about that, and he never said anything about any candidate; but when accusation* were made against him, he wu bound to answer them. Then he had told them that the great card he (Mr. Cribb) would play would be opposition to the AJ9.N. Company. Any one who knew the colony for any length of time, knew the conduct of that company. Before separation, they sent what boats they liked and when they liked; and after separation, it wu in selfdefence that the Q.B.N. Company wu started. As soon v that took place, the A.B.N. Company devoted the whole of their large capital to crush the new company. There wu plenty of room for both companies to have obtained a fair amount of trade at fair and reasonable rates, and the public would have been the gainers by the competition; but this did not satisfy the A&N. Company. He believed if the shareholders of the QJLN. Company had been true to themselves, the other company would not have shut them np in spite of all their efforts, but they were not, and and the Q. S. N. Company wu broken up. Mr. Cribb then went on at considerable length to comment upon the course of conduct the directors Jof the A/.8. N. Company have pursued towards Queensland and the Queensland Go* vernment since they had had the monopoly of the trade, and concluded this part of his subject by saying: Of course the company had friends here in the colony. He saw there were some banker* in the Chamber of Cosmmeree, who in* aisted that they must have their wants attended to, no matter what the cost to the colony might be; but the Government had made a stand against the exorbitant demands of the company, and for this praise wu justly due to them. He wu in favor of the Brisbane and Ipswich Railway, and when in the House before brought in a bill which, if carried, would have given them the railway two years ago. Although he wu a Free Trader to the backbone, he had advocated the cotton bonus for years before it wu established, because he did not regard the giving of such a bonus in our case v a violation of the principle of Free Trade. We did not import cotton. He himself wu the first man who wu awarded a prise for growing cotton in Queens* land. The prize wu £3, and he did not take it. That wu fifteen years ago. He went down to Sydney v a representative of this district in the New South Wales Parliament before Separation, and his conduct wu so satisfactory to his constituents that when he returned a meeting wu held for the purpose of expressing their approval of it. He sat in the Queensland Parliament from 1868 to 1867, and he believed he always did his duty honestly and conscientiously. He wu perfectly ready, if challenged, to defend every vote he had given. In answer to questions put to him by persons in front of the hustings, Mr. Cbibb said he believed in the principle of payment of members. He wu a Chartist on all the points of the Charter. He would not oppose the introduction of Polynesian laborers under certain conditions, but he maintained that no one ought to be allowed to come here v a hired laborer who could not go into the witness-box in a court of justice and give evidence. He did not know how the Civil Service could be reduced, but he wu quite satisfied that they were paying double what they ought for that service. He would support the present Ministry in every good measure and oppose them in every bad one, just v he would any other Ministry—he wu perfectly independent. He believed that the purchase of steamers > to carry their mails was the most economical | thing they could do. He did not like free education, because he thought parents ought to be at the expense of educating their own children, and not make them paupers of the State. He concluded by saying that as he found Mr. Atkin thought he eouldrepresent them very well in Parliament, he (Mr. Cribb) thought the best thing they could do would be to let htm try, and he had no doubt that in six months he would either resign or be uked to resign. He would therefore withdraw. (Loud cheers.) The BcTU&Hisa onion said as Mr. Cribb I had withdrawn, and there .wu no other caadi- I

.date, it ni hit doty to deetere Mr. Robert Trmren Atkin duly elected, Mr. Atkiv briefly returned thanks for the honor «hich had been conferred VMs) him, and afterwards preMfeed a rote of thanks to the Returning-oflfcsT, which wu teoonded by Mr. Cribb, and carried with acclamation. The proceedings then terminated.