RANGITIKEI ELECTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 58, 6 September 1909, Page 3

RANGITIKEI ELECTION.

Mr. R. E. Hornblow, tha LiberalLabour candidate, was in rather a pessimistic mood at Wanganui East the other night. With regard to iii& depression, he said that a cry had gone round that tho present party in power was responsible for it, but this was not so. They had only to look back to the time of the Atkinson Government and the results brought about by that policy. Bad as the present Government was, it was not as bad as that. He thought that the depression would do some good, as it would teach the people of the Dominion to be more careful, and to lay up and put by for a rainy day. Though some of the leading papers asserted that the silver lining had already appeared, he- felt convinced that the depression was not over yet. The apparent brighter prospect was simply due to the great efforts being made by the Government, local bodies, and private individuals to assist the unemployed, by the spending of money on works which would not be reproductive. Tho following enthusiastic remarks about Mr. Hockly, the Opposition candidate, are taken from the Rangitikei Advocate : — "Taihapians are convinced, 1 if we are to judge by the reception acj corded Mr. Hockly, that in that gentleman they have a man whose J views savour strongly of solidity, common sense, and anti-Socialism. H© is a speaker of excellent address, his oratory is of a high order, and when listening to him one is inclined to wonder why his Parliamentary aspirations have not brought him on tho hustings long before the present. However, it is the present we have to deal with, and Mr. Hockly struck a fine note when he assured his hearers that the future should be more easily and prosperously dealt with when we look at the miserable past ; in 6hort, when we consider the results of bad government that for the past eighteen years has acted as a deterrent to progress and prosperity."