The Evening star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1928. MR C. R. SMITH’S ADDRESS.

Evening Star, Issue 20010, 30 October 1928, Page 4

The Evening star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1928. MR C. R. SMITH’S ADDRESS.

Not a lew of those who heard the opening address of Mr C. R. Smith, United Party candidate for Dunedin North, last evening must have felt regret that he did not begin his campaign at least a fortnight before. Mr. Smith may be called a “ find ” for the United Party. He is something different from the candidate who repeats a party platform and a set of supplied facts and figures as it those were the beginning and end, as they often are, of his political knowledge. His speech made it clear from the commencement that he has thought for himself on political subjects—thought long enough, and with sufficient experience, to have worked out a policy of his own which would bo the same to him if it did not happen, as it does, to agree with the policy of the United Party. Not many candidates in this election can have had a more allround training for the position of a parliamentary representative. Born in Dunedin, his first profession was that, of a school teacher, and lie was president of the Otago Educational .Institute. For years he was a farmer and an agricultural instructor. For years since ho has been a business man in Dunedin, and by common consent there are 100 few business men in Parliament, lu none of the roles in v/nich he has had experience has lie been a failure. If a certificate of competency were required for admission to Parliament .Mr Smith could show his with the least misgivings.

None the less the disadvantage is a serious one under which ho is a candidate in this election. Since he had the hardihood to oppose Sir James Alien fourteen years ago for Bruce, running within 600 votes of the then Minister’s score, Mr Smith lias committed the mistake which is most rare among political aspirants. He has thought much more than he has talked. His political principles have not changed. It is certain that ho has added to hia knowledge. Bub rho result; of his quietness has been that, after ten years’ continuous residence in this city, he is comparatively little known to Dunedin electors. It is only a small number of men on public bodies, Mr Smith stated in hia address last night, who are widely known. That may be so, but those have a great advantage in a political contest. His disability would be less for Mr Smith if there were not so many candidates in this campaign. Ho is standing against two men who have both been in Parliament before, and that makes the best advantage for popular knowledge. To make his name as familiar to the electors as theirs he should have been one of the brat of all candidates to take the held. His address last night was thoughtful, clear-headed, vigorous, showing unusual independence and knowledge. Its quality was a surprise to all those of his audience who did not know hiia. To show the effect which its earnestness, as well as its arguments produced, an hour and a-quarter passed without more than one interjection, and that was on a nicety of language. On the licensing issue,- which may move more votes than politics, Mr Smith avowed himself a supporter of the Prohibitionists’ ticket, but he declined to give written pledges on that or other issues. “I. am a reputable citizen of this land, an honest man; lam sincere. Whatever I have said on this platform I will do. I do not require a written pledge to fix me to it.” A sign was given of his integrity when, to win votes from city electors, he refused to support the full measure of daylight saving, in his conviction of its hardships for farmers. But he would vote to make the half-hour provision permanent.

Mr Smith has only approval for Sir Joseph Ward’s borrowing proposals, for the purposes for which those are designed. He found his programme not appreciably more lavish than the record of the Reformers who condemned it. It was a cogent argument which supplied the reasons why he is standing for the United Party, and not for Labour (whose soft-pedalling in this election does not conceal from him its real Socialistic aims) or Reform. His plea for closer settlement of the country, on a basis of the productive value of land over a reasonable period, ns the cure alike for unemployment and all other economic evils, was pressed with closely reasoned force and a rare knowledge of rural conditions. His illustrations in that connection were drawn directly from Otago’s experience, and he brought the same direct knowledge to bear on his vision of an educational system which should (it boys for trades, and more especially for farming, in a greater measure than obtains to-day. Pensions he would make contributory and universal, without the promise of any impossible benefits. On a no-oonfidence motion he would vote with any party to put out the present Government, which had shot its bolt, but he would never support putting Mr Holland in the Prime Minister’s chair. The two courses would be inseparable, judged by the last British precedent, and the only way to put out Mr Holland, once he had succeeded the Government, would he by another election with its confusion, Mr Smith would have been a strong candidate had he been better known to the elec-

tors. He has .the chance still at n doagn meetuigp of his .qugJi-

ties, but the meetings. hold in small halls during a frantic fortnight cannot bring him into touch with more than a comparatively small total of voters, and it is hard to see how his candidature can do more than reduce the chances of Mr Tapley, who is more known.