CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 7 May 1914, Page 3

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR WILFORD'S SPEECH

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The HWera citizens' unanimous vote of confidence to Mr Wilford and Sir Joseph Ward must have convinced the former that it was too sweet to be wholesome. Many will remember Sir Joseph had a like meeting just a few days before ythe last election, when the Reform candidate, Mr Pearce, downed both other candidates in the town of Hawera by a majority of 75, and the official Wardist candidate by 250. According to Mr Wilford, he is a second George Washington, could not tell a lie, and never makes a statement exI cept he can prove same; but this gentleman, lawyer like, tells half the truth, acted the rest, and let his hearers draw wrong conclusions. Mr Wilford stated that the Reform Party preached economy, and last year spent £191,----000 more money than was authorised but he purposely did not mention I'^ii money had to l>e found between Parliaments for smallpox scare; he knew better, but he coiild not have made his point had he told the whole truth. Mr Wilford accused the Reform party of stuffing the Legislative Council with appointments, but it did not suit him to mention that the number appointed during two years to this Council was five, two of them being Liberal anj Labor supporters in the past, one Sir William Hall-Jones, and the other Mr Earnshaw, at one time Labor member for Dunedii'.. Neither did he Lay that in the past the Liberal party had appointed nearly 50 members on the Legislative Council, and not one of them a Reform supporter. Mr Wilford state! that Mr Masssy is going to put his owri supporters on the Land Boards. Well, Mr Massey would be child-like if he allowed the Liberal and Red Fed past leabehold nominees on the Land Board to administer Mr Maseey's freehold land laws, whieb. would be something like the publicans appointing all prohibition members to look after their ir. terests on the Licensing Bench. Mr Wilford accused the Reform party of nominating their own supporters to the various boards in the colony and disrating the Liberals. This he knows is contrary to fact. The Hon..T. Mackenzie was appointed Rio:h Commissioner. Messrs Dockrill (New Plymouth), Christensen (Patea), Hogan (Wanganui), and Veitch (Wanga-iui), all Liberal supporters, were all noninated in our local districts alone to Harbor Board positions. This is Mr Hogan's reply to his appointment: "Mr George Allport,' Wel-lington.--Please convey my thanks to His Exceilency for the honor conferred, on me, but regret to inform him that 1 cannot see my way to accept any favor at the hands of present Government. —Jas. T. Hogan." W rhat could Mr Massey expect from this Liberal gentleman but a grunt. Mr Wilford told his audience Mr Allen wae on the side { of the big insurance companies, because i whereas borrow >rs from the State originally had to insure their dwelling with the State office, Mr Allen had altered I this so that a State borrower could insure anywhere he liked, to the detriment of the State. Again, Mr Wiiford, who could prove anything and everything, knew better. Because in Taranaki the small farmers have their own. insurance company insuring, called the Farmers' Mutual Fire Company, quoting less rates than the Government office. Mr Wilford wants Mr Allen to compel our email farmer to insure with the State, even though they- can do better amongst themselves. He must know better, because the Farmers' Insurance Company published their bal-ance-sheet in the Star last night. The Farmers" Mutual balar.ce-sheet showed that they had £159,633 worth of risks with only £200 loss during the year, had made a net profit of £540 13s for the year, and Had accumulated profits invested amounting to over £5623. At the Farmers' Mutual meeting a resolution was' carried that it be a recommendation to the incoming directorate to consider the advisability of reducing premiums. Yet Mr Wilford wants' to compel all our small farmers borrowing from the State to insure with the State and break down our own Farming Co-iOperative Fire Insurance. No, Mr Wilford, we are not caught in Taranaki with your chaff! You should have told the whole truth and admitted that the State Fire Insurance had the best year just past in the history of the company, but this did not suit your purpose. Mr Wilford asserted "That figures proved anything." If so they are very like this M.P.'s statements, for he snid "That Mr Allen favored the rich because he decreased the incometax on a man who had £700 «, year if he had four children." To show how tricky our Liberal visitor was, let us turn to Hansard, page 656, Volume 6, third session, 1913: "Mr Allen, in introducing the Amended Income Tax Bill, said: "As the law now stands we can only sive an exemption under the Income Tax up to £300, and no exemption is allowed at present to the man or woman with a family. This Bill proposes to give further exemption. We have to place some limit on the exemption and what we propose is that we should allow for each child up to the number of four a,n exemption of £25 each, so that the maximum exemption for the individual with four children would be £400 with certain limitations. One of the limitations is this: The father or mother may have an income derived from other sources than earnings such aa an income from land, in which case the income added to their earnings rrp.y amount to £700. We put the limitation at that figure so that no one with an income beyond that would be entitled to this exemption. The total V>^ in taxation Avill be from £15,000 to £20,000 a year." Almost every man in the House, on both sides, supported MV Allen on the second reading, as the division shows. Yet Mr Wilford endeavored to show the Reform party favored the rich man instead of ad Twitting he was helping the needy family. In the same Hansard, page 662, it is shown that the following fifteen Liberals voted for Mr Allen's measure, which Mr Wilford condemns: Cnlvin. Davey, Dickie, Forbes, Glover, Hanan. Isitt, Laurenson, McCallum, MacDonaVl. Poland, Robertson, R. W. Smith. Veiton Sidey. And these are tTie only Liberals who voted against the Bill: Brown. Ell, Hindmarsh, Payne. Thompvson, Atmore, Seddon, Craigie. These are f^me- ~f tho men who sooner than vote for Mr Allen's Bill, shirked voting: Wilford, Ward; Russell, McOallum, Buddo. and Buxton. Under the circumstances, is the word "Flying Brigade" not a misnomer. REFORM.