REFORM LEAGUE.

Feilding Star, Volume V, Issue 1287, 13 September 1910, Page 1

REFORM LEAGUE.

A RALLY OF LEADERS 'AT PALMERSTON. MR MASSEY SPEAKS GUT. There was a gathering of the Opposition Party's supporters at tlie Municipal Hall, Palmerston, last ni«ht when Messrs Massey. Herdnuui, Guthrie, Hme, Malcolm. Unick, and i\osworthy, M.'sP., gave addresses under the auspices of the Reform League. The meeting took the form of a social, and was intended as the iirst of many similar functions to be held here.

Mr Alassey spoke of nhat the Oppo- ■ sition had done since lie had last spo- ' ken at Palmerston. Since then they I had fought an election at which the'v • s t°o (l *°T honesty against ImmbiiK. Although they had been in opposition I For many years, only one man had ! left them to g<j to the Government, \ aud it took that man ten years to find out how to jump down off the fence on which he had been sitting. What the Opposition was fighting against ; was the abominable system of spoils \ to the victors. The only time lie had [ been ashamed of being a member of the House was last session, when an | Opposition member moved in connec- ! tion with the Government advertising that public money should always ■be spent for public purposes and iit the best interests of the country, and not 1 tor party purposes. On that occasion 35 followers of the Government followed the Prime Minister through the mud and voted against the motion, thus favouring spending public money for party purposes. At present Ministers encouraged the idea that if a man wanted to share in tbe privileges, he j must become a Government supporter. : That system was wrong, and had been deliberately built up to support the men who sat on the Government benches. That system was responsible for the present Bill, which was even more objectionable than that notori- I ous measure of Mr McNab. He pre- ! dieted that the Government would entirely fail to land either the leaseholders or freeholders with the new bait, and the Bill showed that tlie Government was utterly ignorant of political economy, and dead to political rectitude. It proved that the Government had not the slightest idea of what the country wanted in the way of land j legislation. The country wanted legislation that would open up idle lands, that would encourage enterprise and i energy on tbe part of the people. If it was the best Land Bill they could produce, the Government should retire into obscurity.' Mr Massey concluded by an appeal for support and said that they wanted other places to follow the example set by Palmerston in returning Mr Buick.Mr Hemes said the success of the gathering augured well for the success of next year's light. Regarding the Opposition, people thought that the Oppositon supported the -'fat man/ but there was no greater calumny than that. It was no part of their policy to encourage the mopping up of land, and as a matter of fact tney were more in touch with the working man than the Government. What the Opposition wanted was to have the country populated by an industrious yeomanry of small "holders. They wanted to put a party in power who would clean out the Native Department. They wanted to have the Upper House an elective House. These were three things on which the Government had no policy, and on which the Opposition had a definite one. Mr Guthrie, who was the last of the speakers, briefly referred to the need for closer organisation.