WELLINGTON CENTRAL

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 139, 10 December 1919, Page 9

WELLINGTON CENTRAL

MR. FRASER AT ARO-STREET

There was an attendance of about 50 people at the Arc-street Mission Hall last night, when Mr. P. Fraser, Labour candidate for Wellington Central, again addressed the electors. Mr. I. Silverstone presided, and attributed the "thin" audience to the fact that Labour supporters were over-confident as to the result of the election. However, he thought that the campaign should be fought right up to the last.

Mr. Fraser said he found somo difficulty in placing his opponent, but there were two charges he had made which called for reply. One was in regard to the Labour members' attitude towards the question of the salaries of the railway servants. The candidate explained that lie was absent from the House when the question was under discussion—he had tho good excuse that he was being married—and tho Labour Party voted against Sir Joseph Ward's proposal to reduce the salaries of higher-grade officials by £T, because they regarded it as nothing more -ban a piece of political camouflage to which they refused to become a party. Tho other point was the deliberate attempt by Mr. Pirani and the press to ?__.-t, that the interest shown by the f/ibour Party in returned soldiers was newly-found. Mt. Fraser went back to 1915, when the secret Defence Committee of the House recommended ■ a pension of 25s for disabled soldiers. It wa3 only through the efforts of the members of thn Labour Party that the matter was referred back, and then the recommendation was for 353 per week, but a proposed! allowance of 8s 4d per week was deleted. If it had not been for the Labour Pan. the pensions now paid would have been considerably less than they actually were. It was Mr. -P. C. Webb who asserted! that the House was ruled by gold, and not by the interests of tho men. When the question of the amount of the gratuity was before the House, the members of" the Labour Party never doubted what their attitude should be. Bearing in mind the Labour manifesto of 1916, which declared that soldiers should receive the highest trade union rates, th_y decided to go for the highest demand1, namely, 4s. After dealing with various other "matters, Mr. Fraser refuted allegations against the Queensland Government, but emphasised tho fact that the Queensland Government w,is not on trial in Nov/ Zealand. It was not for the people to consider tho cost of living in a country some thousands of miles away,

but the cost of living in New Zealand, added to that, the political crimes of the Massey party. It was a fact that prior to 1916 the cost of living in Queensland w__ cheaper than elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Since then the power to fix hours had been taken from the State by the Commonwealth Government.

A vote of thanks and confidence was carried unanimously by a show of hands.