SIR JOSEPH WARD'S POSITION

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 50, 27 February 1918, Page 3

SIR JOSEPH WARD'S POSITION

THE NATIONAL COMPACT Sir Joseph Ward, who was greeted with prolonged applause, told the members of his audience that one of the greatest things they could do was to preserve for all time liberty and freedom of speech. (Applause.) "I am here," he continued, "for the purpose of declaring publicly what is my position and what I think .the friends of tho Liberal Party throughout, this country should do. I don't believe that the rank and file of the Liberal Party in Wellington North want to be a party to breaking an honourable agreement. As far as I am concerned, I want to make it clear that, I will be no party to doing anything, while I am in the National Cabinet,-that will discredit a truce that can only be broken by being dishonourable to tho party ami the leader of the party." It had been said that he had brought .out an independent Liberal candidate' to' split the votes. , That was a deliberate fabrication. He asked members of the party to remember its fine traditions and stand by the Cabinet. There would be plenty" of time for party fighting after the war. ISSUES OF THE FUTUB.E. Did the working men oi the country realise what was to be faced in the future' By thp end of the financial year 92 millions would have been borrowed— ,(A voice : "We didn't want it."—of which' 85 millions would have been expended i:i war purposes and for preserving' this portion of the Empire. It required the active and disinterested cooperation of mon in every walk of life I to help it through. They had heard j many shafts of criticism directed against j the Government fov its treatment of the j public servants, but the. Government, m I the face of great anxieties, had not held back one increment that waa duo to the service. In les? than two years the Public Service had received one million in war bonuses and £500,000 in increases. At the end- of the financial year they would have received £2.300.000 "in bonuses and over £800,000 in increases. THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE. "I have been asked by- an^interjector, 'When are you "oing" Home ?' I don't care 'that' whether I go Home or not, neither does Mr. Massey. The people who should be more concerned to bo represented at the conference are. the workers and their families. I will tell you why I say that." A voice : Because you want their vote 3. Sir Joseph Ward": "You're wrong. I am not standing." The issues that were to bo discussed were of the greatest moment to workers and the generations to come after them. What about coloured and indentured labour? Was that iiot of importance- to the mass of the people of this country? Did they realise that tho world was in the melting-pot, and that things they stood for would be submitted to the arbitrament of that conference? Were the people of this country to see the other Dominions represented and not their own? What about the disposition of tho Fiji Islands? There had been a, strong contention that Fiji should be handed over to Australia. They would oppose that to the very utmost—• (applause)—and if it could not be attach, ed to New Zealand it should be retained as a Crown colony. Were the men who took Samoa not to have a voico in its disposition? Lot ihe House of Representa-

tives, which was responsible to the whole of the people of the Dominion, decide to send somebody else and they could send them. UNION COMPANY STEAMERS. Many misrepresentations had been made during this campaign. It had been put to them that the Government had paid an enormous sum for the charter of the Union Company's steamers, and it should have purchased them. Of the whole of the steamers chartered from 1 the Union Company there was not one. that, afc the end of the war, could be used for deep-sea traffic 'of any kind. The Union Company had paid the wuges of everybody except the men on the two hospital ships, and it had, moreover, already paid into the Treasury the sum of nearly £600.000. Some of the steamers were over 35 years of age. If the Government that'was in power when the war began had known that there would be over three years war, no doubt steamers would have been purchased—of 10,000 and 12,000 tons. He believed that they would have to deal with the matter afterwards, but -would any sane man say that they should add to the 90 millions already borrowed a further 16 millions, which would be the cost of the steamers at present prices? Their first duty was to win the war, then they could tackle other problems. SIGNIFICANCE'OF.THE ELECTION. They all wanted to help the soldiers, but some persons were trying to use the soldiers for. their own political purposes. ■> After the war there, was going to be a terrible readjustment. Was it tbo nzht thing to stop the war before they had a superior peace? At'the present moment in the Old World things had never been at such a point of anxiety. The Germans were depending upon the upheaval in Russia'to gain supplies and release men to enable them to gain domination. Within the last few days they had stated : "We will be.able to hold out longer than England." That means that if nny portion of the British Empire during the last struggle for supremacy, the last, struggle for who shall hold out longest, shows any quivering— at whatever point of the Empire it may be—it is going to be exaggerated, dt is going to be used to beat you into submission by the foe that'wants to beat you and every other country." (Applause.) The National Government had been formed out of two contending parties, and during its term of office no party political policy questions had been raised inCabinet or submitted to the House. The country now had all to gain and nothing to lose by helping Ac Motherland and the Allies, so that the peace terms should make it impossible for any of the belligerents to go to war again. "My last appeal is to Mi\ Brandon and Mr. Poison. I want to ask them to realise that there should be a straightout issue between those who a,re trying to smash the National Government "and those who are not. Then let them come forward at the General Election when the war is done with, and have the opportunity of winning on their merits. This mixing-up process is not satisfactory. I make no bones of the fact—l don't agree with Mr. Luke politically. lam not asking the Liberal section to stand by him on the score of politics, lam standing by Mr. Luke and behind him because we have party politicsl dropped, and ifi we have, a, weakening of the position it would leave us in ■ the hands of our enemies before we knew where we'were." (Applause.) .