POLITICAL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 439, 24 October 1908, Page 3

POLITICAL.

Mr Byron Brown at Moutoa.

[By Special Reporter.] Mr Byron Brown addressed an enthusiastic audience at Moutoa, last Wednesday evening, but owing to the inclemency of the weather, the attendance was poor. Mr Carter occupied the chair. Upon rising Mr Brown was greeted with applause ; he spoke strongly of the evils of the Party system that had enslaved the people, and even enslaved the people's representatives in Parliament. The speaker advocated a Public Works Board that would be non-political, and would allocate the Public , Works Fund over the electorates in proportion to their needs, not in accoi dance with the colour of the member who represented them. These monies should be given to the local bodies to spend on needful public works. The local bodies were generlaly composed of good, hard-headed men who saw that they got a good shilling’s worth tor every shilling spent, and this was more than the Government ever did. A Civil Service Board would be another good departure to improve the present system of giving billets to duffers whose only claim was their support to a Government candidate. A Civil Service Board would advertise for aoplicants for all vacancies, and appoint those men who were most suited and able for the position, and any applicant coming along with a reference from an M.P. should be immediately disqualified from any position in the Public Service. He (the speaker) had received numerous letters from various electors of the district, promising him support in return lor billets. This went to show how the system had been encouraged by members, and now the electors had come to consider that Government supporters were a sort of Government labour agents, whose sole duty was to deal out the billets to docile voters. The Government Advances to Settlers office should also be under nonpolitical control, and it was considered quite the thing to work the member for a loan, and ne (the speaker) had seen a letter from the Advances office, in which an applicant for a loan had been advised to speak to his member. This was done, and the loan obtained. One could imagine the electors wanting loans about election time, and the Government candidate, when button-holed, telling the applicants to wait until the election was over, and the loan would be alright. What more degrading to the honour of electors than to buy them in this manner like goods and chattels ? The defence of our Dominion was an urgent matter that required facing by a patriotic House, but patriotism was only a name to a Government whose only consideraton was how to retain power. Mr Brown advocated the sweeping away of the frills and feathers of our city volunteers, and spending the money in ammunition for our country rifle clubs. He contended rifle shooting should be a part of our compulsory system of education, and every boy taught the use of the rifle. The Boers had defied the flower of the> British army for years, not by trills and feathers and smart uniforms, but by knowing how to use the mauser and a liberal supply of cartridges. When the “lesser breeds’’ of the Fast came down upon us, we should be at their mercy unless our boys and men knew how to shoot. Mr. Brown dealt with the banking trust that was cornering our money and bringing bad times upon us in consequence. In 1900 the gold reserve in the banks doing business in New Zealand was only 2 Yz millions; to-day it was nearly five millions. Then in the same year the excess of liabilities over assets in the banks was five millions; and to-day assets exceeded the liabilities by six millions. This showed a tremendously improved position on the part of the banks, yet they were closing down on their customers and making out that money is scarce. The real reason of the trouble was the fact that our excess of exports over imports had declined until the margin last year was only 2 y 2 millions, and considering that our annual interest on the public debt was 3 millions, the banks were afraid of a depletion of our cut rency and bad put on the screw in time. The banks bad seen this coming for years, and had been improving their position so as to stand the storm when a reversal of our prosperity came. This reversal owing to the'wild cat finance of Sir Joseph Ward was upon us, and it is now that we will find out that we have the heaviest national debt per head of population of any country in the world; and now that we are not able to pay the interest by the excess of our exports over imports, it must follow that our currency is going to suffer and bad times are upon us. Mr. Brown earnestly appealed for a self reliant policy, and a strong opposition that would enable the people to take a pull on the Dominion and to save it in its coming time of stress. Sir Joseph Ward was not the man for the workers; he had proved that by his Second Ballot Bill which had been brought forward because labour had resolved to put up independent labour candidates. Any labour candidate that was elected on the first ballot would be thrown out on the second vote, and Sir Joseph would be freed from the trenchant criticism of labour. The Convention of Labour that had sat in Wellington last winter had made it quite clear that the worker had nothing to exp. t from the Premier. ,< Mr, Brown addressed very large meetings at Jackeytown and Motu JliniOj. and answered a number of

questions. At eacli meeting he received enthusiastic votes of thanks and confidence. Mr Newman at Mount View. Mr Newman had a very good meeting at Mount View on Thursday night last, his hearers being greatly impressed with the sound logic of his speech. It was a very welcome change from the usual political clap trap one so often hears. Mr W. J. Birch was in the chairs and in introducing the speaker made reference to the valuable work Mr Newman had already done on the various local bodies ir. Rangilikei. Several questions were asked at the close and the answers gave every satisfaction. Mr S. Thomas proposed a vote of thanks and, confidence, which was seconded by Mr Bryant and carried unanimously. Mr Gardner, Indepmdent candidate for Manawatu, will address the electors in the Masonic Hall this evening. In all parts of the Dominion at present the air is thick with politics and No-License. Mr Massey is bille 1 to reply to speeches recently delivered by Sir Joseph Ward at Palmerston an 1 Feilding, . j

Mr. Stevens at Rongatea. By Telegraph—Special Reporter. Bulls, This Day. Mr. Stevens addressed a meeting of the electors at Rongotea last night, and, despite the heavy rain, the attendance was good. Mr. Penny, chairman of the Town Board, occupied the chair. Mr. Stevens said that while he had been in Parliament he had always done what he believed to be right in the best interests of the Dominion ; that he had done what was required by everybody was not true—no representative could do so; there would always be opposition except when a candidate c ime forward and announced himself to be a shandygaff of lemonade and sodawater, and neither fowl, fish, flesh nor good red herring. The accusations as to the land nationalisation were calumnies uttered against men who had no such desire as a ministry. No member of the Ministry held advanced ideas on land laws, but in any association of men there must be give and take, and the present Government were determined not to have any radical alteration with respect to our land laws, such as single tax or land nationalisation. They were not in favour of them as a Ministry ; and if they were, he would not be supporting them. It had been said that the Opposition party would not miud supporting him if he were not opposed to the freehold. That was a misrepresentation and contrary to the facts, as in 1882 he had first moved the inclusion of the right to purchase clause in Crown leases, and it was only defeated by the present Opposition which was then in power, and every member of which voted against his clause, giving the right to purchase. Mr. Stevens then dealt with the land question generally, the dairy regulations, and defence, A vote of thanks and continued confidence in Mr. Stevens as member for Manawatu, was moved by Mr. S. Ehrhorn, seconded by Mr. R. Beattie and carried unanimously. A vote of thanks to the chairman concluded the meeting. Mr Frankland al Bulls. (Special Reporter). Despite the inclem.-ut weather and muddy roads, Mr F.aukland had an excellent attendance at his political meeting in the Bulls Public Hall, on Thursday, the 22nd instant, and was accorded a splendid hearing. Mr Walker, Chairman of the Town Board, presided and briefly introduced Mr Frauklaud as a Government supporter and No-License candidate. Mr Frankland (who was greeted with loud applause), after paying a tribute to Mr Stevens, M.P., said that his chief reason for contesting the seat against that gentleman, though they were both Government supporters, was that he (the speaker) was the only candidate who realised that an organic change in our licensing laws was urgently necessary in order to bring the open-bar evil rapidly to an end. He reminded his hearers how he had urged this point on that same platform a month ago. He then made a powerful and impassioned appeal for support of his candidature on this ground to all who agreed with him that the bar-trade was an evil and that new measures were required in reference to it. He made a great point of the fact that under the provision of the new Second Ballot Law his supporters could now vote for him without splitting the Party vote, as they would have done had he gone to the poll in 1905, when the oli, il logical method of election still obtained. The Second Ballot Act emancipated the voters from the excessively baneful trammels of party nominations. He had been disappointed to find that candidates throughout the Dominion generally had not said very much about the solid benefits derivable from the organic change just made in our electoral law.

His speech, which lasted about an hour, was mainly a defence of the Liberal Administration of the last seventeen years, as the most powerful and effective political friend the small settler had ever had in the world’s history.

Among minor defects of Liberal Party administration he instanced the undue stringency (especially as applying to small farmers) of recent dairying regulations,

though he was glad to notice that these had recently been somewhat relaxed. If elected, they could rely on him as above all to protest against anything unreasonable of this kind. Though not a farmer himself, he had married into a family of small farmers, and therefore it was emphatically the case that he was “ wedded ” to the small farmers’ interest (loud applause). He had been delighted to be able to answer with a most emphatic affirmative three out of the five lest questions presented to him at bis Sandon meeting by the Farmers’ Union, including those relating to the all-important subject of land-tenure. Mr Frankland concluded by urging that his long career in the Civil Service as head of one of our public departments, fitted him for dealing with Cabinet Ministers on the question of local wants and remedying the injustice which was thieatening the navigability of oar river and port. The candidate was asked his views on the Crown tenants (to whom he was i.i favour, as already stated, uf gi\i:ig the option of freehold ) on clelence, on labour legislation, on the gatnb-, ling law r . On these points his answers seemed to be generally satisfactory to his audience, as they were gieeted with applause. A hearty vole of thanks to Mr Frankland and to the chair concluded the meeting.