THE ELECTIONS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 203, 1 October 1914, Page 11

THE ELECTIONS.

CANDIDATE FOR HURUNUI. MR W. A. BANKS FIRES FIRST SHOT. Mr W. A. Banks, who is standing in the Government interests as a candidate for Parliament at the forthcoming elections, delivered his first address to a well-attended meeting in the schoolroom at South Loburn last evening. Mr J. Hodges, who presided, in introducing the candidate, said Mr Banks was well known in the Ashley County, and had arrived in the district when quite a child. Mr Banks was not an untried man, having been one of the district's representatives on all the most important councils in North Canterbury. He was certain he would make a worthy Parliamentary representative. (Applause.) Mr Banks r who w r as w T armly received, said he was surprised to. find that he w r as so important that he had been already adversely criticised. THE LAND. After giving a short history of settlement in New Zealand, and relating the hardships which the pioneers had gone through, Mr Banks said that for the man who really wanted to get on the land there were more ways of doing it in New Zealand than probably in any .country under the sun. "The large land-owner," said MiBanks, '' was doomed to land on the day that one-man-one-vote became law, but let the land be taken from him without raising rancour and hatred on both sides. Bitterness is engendered by the politicians and stump orators who are everlastingly running down the man with the land for no reason whatever except to covet popular sentiment. Mr Massey, while not doing away with the leasehold, has given to those who are thrift} 7, and saving the right to acquire the freehold. That the right to acquire the freehold is popular was shown by the division in the House, when only 19 out of 80 voted to retain the leasehold only. Mr Forbes was one of the. 19,''. PUSHING LAND SETTLEMENT. The bursting up and , purchasingpolicy of the Liberal Government, said Mr Banks, played right into the hands of the present Government. It had and was making a host of small farmers, whose interests were in the land and not in the towns. This was seen at the last election, the farmers, for the first time asserted themselves and ousted the Liberal Government. The Massey Government was hardly likely to change a system which had brought them into' power, even though it was initiated by the Opposition. Indeed they were still further pushing the land settlement schemes, as they knew perfectly well that Tn" further division lay more voting power on their side. Not only had land values been raised by the valuers (in spite of assertions to the contrary by the Opposition), but the graduated tax had been increased. The right of the freehold had been granted. He thought it would be a good policy on the part of ,the Government to spend, say, £50,000 a year in putting men with the knowledge and willing to work, but who had no means, on the land, and at the same time to debar those who were well able to buy privately from going into the ballot. At the ballot, too, the ai>plicant who had been in four times should get tw T o chances in each succeeding ballot, until the eighth time, when his chances should be increased to three against the newcomer, and single men should get a chance. For the two years ending March 31, 1914, the Government acquired 193,160 of land for closer settlement, at "a cost of £988,752, also 75,000 acres of Native land at £176,149, making a total of 268,160 acres, and a great deal of it w r as especially suitable for small holdings. The Ward Government during their last two years of office only acquired 58,846 acres for closer settlement. So there was a balance of over 200,000 acres of settlement on the side of the Massey Government. LEASEHOLD. After criticising the leasehold policy of the Ward Government, Mr Banks said the charitable aid rate was fast becoming a very heavy burden on the country districts, probably averaging nearly id in the £ already, and anything that would tend to better the existing conditions should receive the heartiest Support. To further this, there was no better way than to encourage people to acquire the freehold. A freeholder never needed charitable aid. The deferred payment system was good as far as it went, but he thought it might be improved-by allowing a person to pay in at any time any amount he might be able —say, anything over £lO. BENEFICENT LEGISLATION. Mr Massey had always taken a keen interest in the "Advances to Workers Act, and had furthered it to his utmost powers. This was shown, by the fact that for the year ending March 31, 1913, he advanced £449,260, while the average for the Liberals for the previous five years was only £363,223 per . annum. The land settlement schemes of the present Government aimed at giving the poorest a chaneeto make homes of their own, not only in name, but in realitya freehold home which had some degree of private ownership. No other Government could lay claim to such an amount of settlement as had taken place under the Massey Government. The bitter pill to the present Opposition was that the present Government had gone far ahead of any idea of settlement ever entertained by the Liberal Government. FINANCE. Dealing with finance, Mr Banks condemned the principle, of short-dated loans. If, he said, the haphazard shortdated loan method of the Liberal Government had been still going on, the Dominion would now have been face to face with financial ruin. It was a lucky thing for the Dominion that Sir Joseph Ward had not been treasurer for the last three years. Times of stress like the present proved the man, and' Mr Allen was proving himself a man in every sense of the word. As regarded the price of loans, again Mr Allen was well in front. HELP FOR WORKERS. The Massey Government had helped the w T age-earners in many ways, and to say that the Government was the enemy of the workers was ludicrous. Rates of pay .had been increased, the Workers' Compensation Act had been made more liberal, the workers' homes scheme had been vigorously .prosecuted, there was the Advances to Workers Act, the raising of the interest on savings in the Post Office Bank, an improved pensions scheme, and the provision that poor people requiring the services of a lawyer could obtain same free of charge. EDUCATION. Speaking of education, Mr Banks said they had added and added to the

syllabus, until, in the estimation of many, good educationists, it had become overloaded with unnecessary frills to the detriment of the essentials. The number of subjects undertaken tended to give a smattering of many_ things, while real efficiency was gained in none. The secondary schools were going,on the same track; the pupils' -energies were wasted on a multiplicity of subjects. A child leaving the primary school should have partly made up its mind what was to be its life work, and vocational teaching should at once begin. The new Education Act brought in by the present Government had been everywhere received with marked favour. It had certainly made the teachers' lot much better, both in re•gard to pay and service. There certainly was a tendency in the Bill to centralise, but the proposed Educational Council would probably be a check on that. TAXATION. "The Opposition," said Mr Banks, "took much credit to themselves- for the penal taxation placed on large estates for the purpose of their owners to sell. This was supposed to be in the interests of settlement, and perhaps in some eases it achieved its object; in others it simply meant the owners selling in the open market, and this tended to place the land at a high value, and gave it very often to men already well off. If there was much good in the scheme, then the present Government have extended its usefulness by increasing the graduated tax on large holdings to a considerable extent. "The present Government have not only carried on the taxation policy of the Liberals, but have actually extended it. In fact, the man on the land is beginning to wonder when the increases are to cease. As sure as the present Opposition gets into power, so will your taxation go up by leaps and bounds. You may pooh-pooh the proposition as much as you iike, but the Labour leaders are all out for this, and you will find out when it is too late that you have helped to put a halter round your own necks, and, what strikes the farmer strikes the country worker." PUBLIC TEUST. The Opposition, said Mr Banks, had tried to make much capital out of the Public Trust Administration of Mr Herdman, perhaps more especially by Mr Forbes. The best refutation of the calumnies hurled at the Minister was the fact that last year a tremendous increase took place in the amount of estates placed under the control of the Public Trustee. DEFENCE. The Government had been probably more bitterly and unjustly condemned in connection with Mr Allen's Expeditionary Force and his proposed purchase of a Bristol cruiser than in any other act of their administration, and Mr Forbes was one of. the most persistent critics. What of their criticisms to-day? The present war had shown the statesmanlike view and action of the Government. The details arranged by Mr Allen during his visit Home had been of inestimable value to the nation .during the present struggle. "We had had the first Expeditionary Force afloat from oversea Dominions, and Samoa was our first prize. Sir Joseph Ward had criticised adversely the Australian .Fleet and the Government proposals, yet to-day we realised that the Australian Fleet had been of incalculable service in the Pacific, both for the protection of commerce and the defence of our forces on the high seas. What a sorry plight was Canada's, with not even an armoured cruiser, and forced into the humiliating position of having to recall her regiments, because of the reported presence of a German ■cruiser. The whole question of naval defence would require ,to be recast after the war. If we were triumphant, and could disable* - the Germans, Britain might give us cruisers sufficient, but if not we must be prepared to shoulder Our responsibilities. We had over 45 millions of frade at stake, and the interests of the Dominion were inseparably bound up with the command of the sea. Defence had never been a party question, and it is a matter of great regret that the Opposition had dragged it into party politics. Probably if it had not been for the Australian Fleet the seaport towns of New Zealand might have been bombarded. It was because of Australia's big battleship that New Zealand was immune to-day. • OTHER MATTERS. Mr Banks urged preferential trading among the British Dominions, and said if it had not been for the money accruing from British trade, Germany would not have been the strong nation that she i was to-day. j A Government which was doing such important work as was the present^Gov-

eminent, especially at this most critical time in the nation's history, should be left in charge of the Treasury and legislation of the Dominion, to make good the balance of their projected work. Mr Banks characterised Mr Russell as the greatest New- Zealand had ever produced. He could rot call him anything else but that. The Government, he thought, should undertake the work of grinding up limestone. There was limestone from one end of Hunmui to the other, and no use was being made of it. On the licensing question Mr Banks said he was a 55-45 man. He made this statement because he did not want to go under any false colours. As for the workers in the cities, he would see that they got fair play, but not more than fair play. In reply to questions Mr Banks said lie would favour opposition being brought in against the Union Steam Ship Company. He was quite sure the Government would tackle the question, and he would certainly help them. He favoured roads being pushed through with all speed to open up unoccupied country. An elective- executive, ho thought, could not exist while there were parties in politics. VOTE OF THANKS. Mr R. Mcintosh moved a vote of thanks. Mr C. H. Ensor, in seconding, the motion, said the farmers should elect a man to go to Parliament who represented the. country interests. Mr Banks had been trained in.the very best school to recognise the needs of all classes. He was a man who, by reason of his practical experience, was eminently fitted to represent the small farmer and to voice his needs in Parliament. Hitherto the district had not been represented by a small farmer, and in Mr Banks they had a man whom the constituency particularly needed. The motion was carried unanimously amid acclamation. THE RICCARTON SEAT. - . \ SELECTING A REFORM CANDIDATE. A meeting of the Riccarton Reform League was called for last evening, in the Parish Hall, Clyde Road, to select a candidate to contest the Riccarton seat in the Reform interests. Mr Gordon Harper, who was previously selected, has joined the Expeditionary Force and retired from the contest for the seat. There was a representative gathering, presided over by Mr, J. J. Dougall, but finality was not reached, the meeting deciding, by a majority vote, to defer the- selection until next Tuesday, evening. A committee was appointed to interview possible candidates and secure their; attendance next Tuesday. -