Grey River Argus SATURDAY, NOVEMBER, 3, 1928. MR, SEDDON AT HOKITIKA.

Grey River Argus, 3 November 1928, Page 4

Grey River Argus SATURDAY, NOVEMBER, 3, 1928. MR, SEDDON AT HOKITIKA.

In his Hokitika. speech on Thursday, Air 'l'. IG. Y. Seddon seems to have been more concerneel about the “Argus” than about any other matter with which he dealt, and especially the record which we recently published from the pages of “Hansard,” showing vote after vote of his has in the late Parliament been cast against the interests of the wage-

earners. His reason for so voting, so he indicated, was that for him it was more a question of voting against the Labour Party than against the working class upon such questions as the 9s and 12s per day wages. AVhile reiterating the assertion that he stood as a United nominee, and denying that he has given the Reform Party any undertaking in order to gain its neutrality in Westland, he claimed that his altitude at this election is exactly what it was at last election. Now. while open to correction on the point, we do not recollect Air Seddon saying on any platform in 1925 that, he would vote against the Party which he claims to belong, if it' was a case of that Party either gaining or retaining office with the aid of any Labour votes in the House. He at the same time is reported as having “asked from the electors the right to follow his leader, Sir Joseph AVard.’ but, while “he wanted the full right to follow him, iT Sir Joseph Ward came back at this election with a majority, and he could only get on the Government benches with the support of the

Labour Party, then he would no' support Sir Joseph to enable that to be done.” Seeing that the Uni ted Party Ims as good a chanct as Buckley of becoming the offlei al Opposition, not to mention th( Government, as the outcome ol this ('lection, it might seem tha! Air Seddon has gone as far to wards guaranteeing Reform lib vote whenever they want it, as is humanly possible, short of slip ping off the rail and owning abso lute allegiance to ihe I’arty al

i rosenl in oUiec, Iml lie still claims that lie is a I niteil nominee. Ais a matter of obvious truth, the only thing that is resilly eei tairt.. abonl him is that he is the sworn foe of the Labour Party. Yet, whilst brushing aside as naught the votes of his which ve (looted from Hansard, be made Quite a song about a division from which his vote on a Labour Party proposal was in this paper stated to have been missing, and wrote a’ considerable length to show that he had paired in favour of the Labour Party pro posal. This is only one of many inconsistencies in Air Seildon s present attitude. At Hokitika he alluded to the growth ot debt from £66,000,000 to £-251,000,000. under I’et'orm, or from 167 to £172 per head, also to the fact that while Customs taxation lias been more than doubled, and dirce't taxation, especially that on the very wealthy, has been reduced two or three-fold proportionately to the whole, he nevertheless defended the proposal of Sir Joseph Ward to raise a loan of seventy millions, which the Reform leader calls a policy of “Borrow, boom and burst!’’ So far as Air Seddon is concerned, the vote he gave for the 9s and 12s daily wages on Government works was not altogether motived by his desire to be against the Labour Parly in Parliament, as it was to be against labour on the job, because he defended the lowwage policy at Hokitika as the best one that could be conceived for the country. It was, he said, the best that the Government could offer, and he had advised men to take those rates, and made no apology for the stand that he had taken. We trust, therefore, that every West Coast worker will remember Air Seddon’s concern is far more to keep the Government from spending beyond a certain thing in this direction, be the millions Sir Joseph AVard may borrow for other purposes ever so ir any ! Thus it was complained that this year the Government. had spent £600,000 on works, and last year £lOO,OOO less. Surely, if it is a fair proposition to find millions to the number of sixty, at a stroke, for other sections of the community, the. many thousands of New Zealanders who are out of work might not to be put through the financial guillotine in the most niggardly fashion! We note tha 1 Air Seddon at Hokitika declared his opposition to the pay of public servants being fixed by the same tribunal as decides the pay of the other wage-earners of the country, the Court of Arbitration, and while this might conceivably be due to a desire to pievent any reduction, we are at a loss to understand why he hesitated to give a straight-out answer to a question as to whether he stood for a minimum wage for those members of the Post and Telegraph service who have attained the age of manhood. Reference Io the timber industry by the candidate prompts the query as to wba! steps he would take to restoie its prosperity. So far as the coal industry is concerned, although it vitally affects this district, Air Seddon is silent, but he does recognise that the (ioverninent which has the assurance of his vote, in any no-confidence division that, is conceivable in the next Parliament, stands guilty of utterl.v neglecting the gold mining industry. His boast that his criticism of the Government is

designedly very fair suggests 1 lie wish that il would be far better critieisin if il only were effective! One thing which even the Government heads do admit, not to say dislike, is the fact that the criticism levelled at it in J’arliainenl by Mr Seddon’s opponent was always levelled with real effect. There is such a thing as what the Americans call “sand.” and others call “grit” in a Parliamentary representative, and the more of il that a candidate possesses, the better is that candidate adapted to tight the battles of a district like Westland. Tn short, what is wanted is not the representative whose pledges are limited only to what he is not going to do, but whose guarantees are rather as to what he is going to do.