SPEECH BY MR. JAMES ALLEN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 329, 16 October 1908, Page 8

SPEECH BY MR. JAMES ALLEN.

LABOUR LEGISLATION. FINANCE AND LAND POLICY. (BV TELEGRAPH—PBES3 ASSOCIATION.) Milton, October 15 ,Mr.-James Allen, . M.P. ; opened his campaign for the Bruce seat in the forthcoming general election to-night at Milton, when the Coronation Hall was filled with an attentive audience. . The Mayor of Milton (Mr. J. A. Duthie) ' occupied the chair. The can- ' didate, who had a favourable reception, inopening his address dealt with the work of last session, and drew certain conclusions ' from that regarding the policy of the Government and the policy of the Opposition. • It had to be admitted that as the Industrial Conciliation, and Arbitration Act stood, on ,the Statute' Book it was comparatively speaking a failure. At any rate it had to be amended, . and the changing of the old . Conciliation Boards, which had really developed into preliminary : courts of arbitration, into _ boards that •would be more likely to bring about real conciliation, was a step in the right direction; but to his mind it did not go far enough. To a very largo extent the ills "of the old system remained—that was to Eay, behind, conciliation there, was still the compulsory Court, of Arbitration, a sort of second refuge for either party if not satisfied with the first. To his mind, it would have been better; to have made a real and earnest endeavour to have provided for conciliation, taking away from . the. law all that has hampered it in the past, and that which is likely to hamper it still in the futurjj. If they could pay. the fine and would not, then it became evident from the debate .inthe._ Legislative Council that they might be imprisoned for contempt of court; but in such cases he did not like even this. " . , . Second Ballot. The Second ' Ballot,.- Act had been ionsistently opposed by himself and every member of the Opposition, and if the Opposition could'they would remove the measure from the Statute Book entirely. It embodied absolutely no principle, and he. , could only regard it as a poor device on the part of the Government to meet the possibilities of this coming election; or if not this one, then certainly the one three years hence. Personally, he felt that the real reason of the Bill was the possibility of a Labour or a Socialist candidate standing as a third man. The number who went, to the poll at the second ballot /would be smaller; than the number ..who came to'the first ballot, and then chances were that-a .man ' might'be .elected, he secured fewer were .polled for the .top t tbe first ballot.' Some kind of proportionate representation must come some day if we were tp • get', the. true voice; of the people.'' Education., It-was the wish of both sides.of the House to place the education system on as sound a basis as possible. -He could say for Mr. Massey and himself, and other members of the Opposition, that they' to the fullest extent the value .of education. ■ The Opposition had helped to put through the ' Bill of last session. ' \ • ' Public Works. It came as a. surprise: to many .that a quarter of a million, making, a million and a quarter of money, should be, asked for for public works this year, in view of the fact' that the North Island Mkin' Trunk was finished, and they might have expected a decrease rather than an increase in public works expenditure. Ministers were, however, flaying to the gallery. Any man who realised how the debt was increasing and how the amount raised by taxation was increasing, must'view with alarm the cortinued growth of borrowed money. : It had always been the policy of the Opposition to utilise the;loans to local bodies much more largely than the Government had ever ventured to do, to assist the finances. of the Iccal • bodies. The Opposition had consistently "advocated a reduction of interest to local bodies. , . Finance. On the subject of finance Mr. Allen said that we were but a million people, and we had a debt of 65 million pounds. The selfreliant Government of 1891 asked for appropriations f<}r Parliament of a little' over three-quarters of a million. The spendthrift Government of 1908 had increased that apr propriation by £2,128,000. In:that same period they had increased the appropriations on the consolidated fund and sundry other accounts' from £4,401,000 to £6,382,000, not including interest on advances to settlers, lands for settlement, advances ,to workers, State coal mines, dairy industry, and State, fire insurance. It was quite time, as" the Prime Minister had stated, that the revenue also increased. An Extraordinary Fact. . He desired to call attention, to a most, extraordinary fact. The appropriations for 1908-9, not including special funds, amounted to £2,597,506, and means were. £2,594,363, showing a deficiency of £3143, and to this deficiency . had to be added large liability for the Midland Railway and considerable liabilities on account of authorisations ■ for roads, etc., which wero on the Estimates, but not included in the actual votes. They Lad,- therefore, entered into liabilities for. which they had not ways and means to provide at present. The case, he thought, was unique, and ho asked what any business man would say upon such an undertaking. ' The Land Question. Dealing with the land question, Mr. Allen reaffirmed himself a freeholder with limitation of area, and pointed to tho Government's insincerity with regard to tho Land Settlements Finance Bill, which had been merely introduced. He quoted the anti-free-hold utterances of Messrs. Fowlds, Millar, M'Nab, M'Gowan, and Hall-Jones, as giving a possible explanation for the Government making no effort to put the proposal in tho Statute Book. Tho tourist and health expenditure, in -his.' opinion, was getting out of hand, whilst the .expenditure on roads and bridges every year was not what it ought to be. The samo remarks applied to the development of goldfields and lands improvements.. On the motion of two leading farmers a vote of thanks and confidence was carried, with but one dissentient.