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Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17628, 4 December 1922, Page 8

An Auckland Labour candidate, defending his party's proposal of a levy on capital as a means of cancelling the war debt, said ho would start with the Governor-General. He was warned by an interjector to .leave the Governor alone—"Lord Jellicoe is a sailor like myself, and he is the right man in the right place." The candidate, remarking that he knew all about that, saidl the labour Party proposed, to start at the top. That is the Labour Party's idea of a oontract, we &esume —"a scrap of paper" that can be treated aa Germany dealt with a certain treaty she had signed. ,As a matter, of fact, which is fairly well known, Lord Jelliooe voluntarily offered to forego a portion of liis salary when the slump hit the Dominion. And the Labour candidate docs not seem to have known, or else ignored.the:fact, that every member of the Ministry experienced a "cut" in his salary.

The fact that the Reform candidates in the present eloction inolude two sons of the late Hon. William Eolleston, fifth and List Superintendent of Canterbury, and' Minister for Lands in the Hall, Whitalker, and Atkinson Ministries, gives interest to the following description by Mr Alfred Saunders, one of the historians of New Zealand, of the late statesman. "He was," says Mr Saunders, "the most profound thinker, the most highly educated, the best read, .and the most experienced and well-informed Minister upon practical political questions." He held the strongest convictions, adds a contemporary, as to the value and importance of local self-government, on the inalienable right of all to a share in the land upon which all must depend, and the most and lofty views on the subject of national education. He held the portfolio of Education in the Hall Ministry in 1879. He was also Minister of Native Affairs in 1881. But he was best known by his aJminiitraiion of Crown land. He was ohiefly responsible for the deferred payment system. If heredity counts for anything in politics we may, in a few years, see Rdlestons of tlie second generation treading in the steps of their distinguished father.

Teachers have been telling a Wellington Labour candidate that "there is a very grave danger of the Government making a serious cut in the education vote. - " On the other hand, have the emphatic assertion by the Prime Minister :

"I am not going to stint education." People can, of course, choose which tbey will believe —some disgruntled, unnamed teacher or a Prime Minister unden whose administration the national expenditure on education has risen to practically three times the amount granted for the same purpose in the

lar-t rear of the last Liberal Administration.