CAMPAIGN SPARKS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 November 1925, Page 4

CAMPAIGN SPARKS.

POINTS FROM THE SPEECHES. •‘You are the coolest politician I ever listened to,” someone remarked at Mr. Coates’s meeting. Mr. Coates: You are so used to the politician that when you hear a practical man you don t understand it.

‘‘That witt‘.o is the kind of battle that we iu the Labour movement like to take part iu—a battle* ol intellect, a battle of ideas, and if we cannot win out on the intellectual plane, we have no hope of winning out by the adoption of any other method. Mr. 1\ C Webb at South Dunedin.

“I have spent a considerable time securing loans for building homes,” said Mr W. J. Jordan, Labour candidate for Mauukau. “I myself have a .oan on my home, and when that mortgage is paid I want the freehold—and T will quarrel with any man who says l shall not have it. 1 claim that every worker should be enabled to have the freehold of his own home, as such a position creates confidence and makes for good citizenship. - '

“Since 1921,” said Mr. Holland. Re_ form candidate lor Christchurch Not til, “the Governmjcml has borrowed £21,000,1103 without making a difference of a penny piece to the pockets ot the taxpayers. Sir Joseph Vi arc! himself was generous enough to admit this in Invercargill. 1 say that it wC can borrow money and thus provide comfortable homes for the people such a course is to be commended.”

“Labour’s scheme to increase pensions and give motherhood endowment would cost ten millions a year, and they advocate a rigorous income-tax to get this amount. But if all the large incomes over £'looo or £5090 a year were, completely confiscated they would yield only £3,000,000, and seven millions' would have to come from the ordinary people. A grinding incometax would have to be levied to get that amount, and grinding incometaxes bring unemployment.” —Mr. M. E. Lyons, at St. Martins.

I: “II seems to me that tlie Natiomilj ists have no home,” said the Prime I Minister at Bulls. “Their proper place I I is in behind us. They might call me ! a Tory or a Conservative. 1 don't i; care what they call me. All 1 want ;is to get something done, and the j name won’t matter. You know m hat ' Reiorm means. It means tlie eliminI utioii ot nil that is bad and the initii ation of all that- is good.”

“Does the Labour Party imagine that it could establish a New Zealand Govennent-owned line of steamers and avoid loss:-”’ asked Mr. A. B. Sievwright at a meeting at Brooklyn, “Do the members of the Labour Party imagine that they could make a success of such a State-owned shipping combine ? “These Labour leaders flatter themselves far too much. The losses in Australia, in Canada, and in America have fallen upon the whole of the people, and it is the wage-earners that suffer most and suffer longest. I am not in favour of New Zealand embarking upon a. State-owned line of ships.”

“In the House of Parliament there is to be seen a photograph of a division, showing the taking of the vote on the question of Imperial preference. Members of the Government are to be seen with their faces turned towards ‘preference.’ And the joke of it is that the photograph is encompassed in a frame made in. Japan.”—Mr. Y\. E. I'fii'i'y, M.P., at- Auckland.

“1 have just returned from some ol the country electorates and I find that nobody is* taking any notice of tlie Nationalists. Th«y cut no ice—almost like their leader, who, it seemed at one stage, had become lost in the Cheviot Hills. . . It is a straightout battle between .Labour and Reformers. —Mr. P. . Fraser, LabourSocialist candidate for Wellington Central.

Amongst the Maoris the Labour Partv is known as the Labour “Patiki.” “Patiki” is the Native etymological representation for the flounder, and, as Sir Maui Pomare has observed, the suggestion is that the Labour Party has been on a fishing expedition into the Maori electorates, and that the progress it has made resembles that of the fish so named.

A prediction was hazarded by Mr. C. H. Chapman, Labour candidate for Wellington Suburbs. “There is little doubt,” lie said, “that the Labour Party will increase its numerical strength in Parliament,' and there is every indication that the Liberal Party will' come back fleas 'strong. There does not seem to be much doubt that when that happens fusion between the Liberals and Reformers will take place.”

That the dole is responsible ior much idleness and a great shrinkage in production is the opinion of Mr. Tapley, Reform candidate for Dunedin North. Addressing a meeting he said that in England at the present time a man could work three days a. week, and by drawing the dole for the remainder could make more money than if he worked the full week. This was undoubtedly productive of laziness.

“No (■overnmenl, can be put out oJ power on the casting veto o(_ the Speaker oil a no-confidence motion, ’ said the lion. C. E. Statham at Dunedin “Such a procedure would not be right.”

When traversing the Awatere Valley lec-ently Mr. R. McCallum, the Liberal candidate for Wairau, bad to wade across Hie Hodder stream, which was swollen with icy snow-water from Tapaenuku. The candidate found it necessary to remove his trousers in order to" accomplish this' crossing. A week or >t\m agoi S' l traversing a stream in the Pelorus district, Mr. McCallum had to remove his hoots, and he afterwards claimed facetiously that even though some people might say that he was not going into Parliament with clean hands, he could promise the electors that lie was going in with clean feet." It is to be presumed that after his more drastic experience in the Hodder, the area ol liis cleanliness will have been considerably extended! —Marlborough Express.

An amusing incident occurred during the address of Mr. B. J. Cooke, the Labour candidate for Wairau, at Canvastown. Mr. Cooke was referring to interest charges. “What is it. ladies and gentlemen,” he asked, “that keeps you awake at night, hour after hour, while you toss and turn and ruck your brains?” “Crossword puzzles!” came the reply, and the meeting resolved into uproarious laugh, ter.

“To have proper fusion there must be complete unanimity of thought. To fuse any two things you must have them properly welded, as the blacksmith welds steel, and only alter the election cau any fusion take place " ith the National and Reform parties. ; Mr. A Hamilton at Mandeville.

“Your first dutv is to the State. Many people will ‘tell you that your first * duty is -self-preservation but m taxation and the upkeep of the State philosophers throughout Jewish, Roman or auv other history have always maintained that country comes first. Air V Hamilton at Mandeville.

“No Nationalist has ever been known to state that his party would be returned to power in sufficient numbers to form a stable Government.”—Mr. H. Holland, Reform candidate tor Christchurch North.

The Reform Parte has been blamed for a number of things, but apparently Mr- A E Hall Skelton, Independent Liberal ’ candidate for Roskill, blames it for every ill imaginable. At a ,-event meeting he remarked: ‘There was never a more dishonest Government than ours over the land policy. Populous asylums, many suicides, m- '• reuse in bankruptcy, and social unrest are attributable to tlie misapplication of tlm principles of land by the Government.”

“Put the Labour Party into office,” said Mr. J. \V. Yarnall (Labour), at Lpsom, Auckland, “as a bulwark against Bolshevism.” The workers ol tlie country, Jic added, intended to get a larger share of the wealth they produced” and might be driven to take extreme measures if an unsympathetic Government remained in office. A Laour Gobvernment would try to meet these ilist and reasonable demands, and so the equilibrium of the .State would be preserved.

“The Labour policy,” said Air. S. Oldfield at Auckland, “affects some people as do advertisements lor patent medicines. At the mere sight oi it they imagine all their troubles are cured To me it suggests barracouta fishing, a fish’that is caught by a piece of red rag on a hook. Ihe Labour colic*v is just the red rag by which the Labour party hopes to catch your votes.”