LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 11875, 23 April 1904, Page 8

LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION.

♦ • HEARTY RECF.PTTOX AT INVERCARGILL. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) INVERCARGILL, April 22. Mr Massey, leader of the Opposition, addressed the people here to-night, and had an audience which completely filled the -only liail available. His reception was extremely gratifying, and his remarks were punctuated with frequent applause. In opsning, Mr Massev made sympathetic reference to the Premier's indisposition, and expressed the hope that he would coon be restored to his normal health, and would he able to mset Parliament fit and well. Though he wan opposed to Mr Seddon politically, he did not desire to secure a party success which might follow on physical disability. Mr Massey's speech was entirely on the lines of those delivered further North with tht? exception that he replied to the statement published in ttw "New Zealand Times" and telegraphed by the Press Association controverting his remark at Lawnuice that the borrowing of most of the money for advances to settlers in England would exliauyfc our credit there and lead to the ownership of the colony's lands gradually passing to people outside. Mr Massey now «iid that by Ministers' own admission tliey had been going outside of the colony for* eight years of tho ten during which the Act liad been in force for money. He repeated his assertion that by th"c present system, the ownership of the land was passing from us in a manner which caused anxiety to those who had its welfare at heart." If a man was given the> right to acquire the freehold by instalments or otherwise as he had the money to pay into the Treasury, other estates could be purchased, as the necessities of settlement arose, and it would net be necessary to go to England for money, and the ownership would remain with us. The same remark applied to Crown land. Tho money from the sales of that now went to tho consolidated fund. It would be much better to pay it into the Public Works Fund and use it for specific purposes or into the Land for Settlement Fund to buy more land. Mr Massey was accorded a vote of thanks with pronounced and prolonged applause.