TRIBUTE TO MR MASSEY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 283, 3 November 1925, Page 4

TRIBUTE TO MR MASSEY

TWO CHARACTERISTIC INCIDENTS. In the course of a notable tribute to bis late chief, Air Massey, tho Hon. W. D. Stewart, speaking ill Dunedin, recalled two pleasing incidents showing the humane and kindly nature of All- Alassey in private life. Air Stowart sought to correct the popular impression that a man so immersed in grave public affairs as Mr Alassey was tended to lose the personal and human touch. On one occasion, said Air Stewart, Air Alassey suddenly rose and left an important Cabinet meeting without explanation. Air Stewart learned the reason later. That morning Air Alassey had met in tho street an old man, poor and very thinly clad. In the course of tho Cabinet meeting Air Alassey suddenly remembered that he had told the old man to call at his office at 3 o’clock to got a warm overcoat. So lie hurried from the Cabinet meeting to fulfill the promise. On another occasion Mr Alassey found a man with his wife and six children homeless in Wellington. Air Alassey sent them out to one of the Government houses at Miramar. “Who will look after the rent?” a Government official asked later. Air Alassey thumped the table as lie retorted that be would look after the rent if nobody else did. In any case he was not going to have a mail and his family left out on the street. (Applause).

PROHIBITED ACTS. PENALTIES FOR BREACHES. The Legislature Amendment Act, 19US, provides that every person is liable 10 a fine of £2O who, at an election :—- (a) In any way interferes with an elector, either in the polling booth or while on his way thereto, with the intention of influencing him or advising him as to his vote; or (b) Prints or distributes or delivers to any person on the day of the poll, or at any time during the three days immediately preceding the poll, anything being or purporting to be, in imitation of any ballot paper to be used at the poll, and having thereoil the names of the candidates, together with any direction or indication as to how any person should vote, or in any way containing any such direction or indication, or having thereon any matter likely to influence any vote; or

(e) During the hours in which the poll is being taken makes any public demonstration having reference to the poll by means of living figures,, effigies, painting, placards, or other like means. Every person is liable to a fine not exceeding £SO, or to imprisonment for any period not exceeding three months, who, at any time between tho issue of the writ and the close of the poll, publishes or exposes, or causes to be pulbished or exposed, to public view, any document or writing or printed matter containing any untrue statement defamatory of any candidate and calculated to influence the vote of any elector. The prohibition of imitation ballot papers for three days prior to the election applies to the licensing poll. Naturally, any act by an electoral official or other person calculated to prejudice the accuracy or secrecy of the poll is punishable by heavy fine or imprisonment. Other corrupt and illegal practices are very fully covered by the Legislature Act, 1903, and its inanv amendments.

Among the illegal practices specified in the 1908 Act are some which create a mental picture of elections as they used to be conducted many years ago. It is provided that, with specified exceptions, no person shall be engaged for payment or promise of payment for the purpose of promoting or procuring the election of a candidate “as committee man, canvasser, watcher, guard, detective, or torehbearer.” No payment is to be made, inter alia, “for bands, torches, flags, banners, cockades, ribbons, or other marks of distinction.” it h worthy of note that the law requires election day to bo a public holiday from noon, and it may be taken in substitution for the weekly half-holiday when the latter falls on another day of the week. Occupiers of factories are not required to close their premises, but they must give their employees reasonable opportunity to vote without deduction from wages if an employee’s absence does not exceed one hour. CAAIPAIGN NOTES. “I have been a worker all my life,” declared Air Nash to tho Terrace End electors last evening. “When I started 1 got os a week and worked for that for two years, and at the end of four years I was receiving 10s. However, that didn’t matter. I worked on and after some years you realised that you had a worker and a man for the people and elected mo Mayor and subsequently member for Parliament.” The Country Party’s candidate for the Waikato seat, Mr P. ,C. S. Lawson, continues to meet with discouragement. At the close of his address at Paterangi a vote of thanks was accorded, coupled with an unanimous resolution indicating that the best interests of the farmers would be served by his withdrawal from the contest.

“On my travels in Bombay,” said Air Dunbar Sloane, Reform nominee for Wellington Central, at his meeting in Cambridge Terrace, “I visited a place called the Towers of Silence, where tho Parsee Indians bury their dead. Tho sileneo is appalling, just like the silence displayed by tho Labour leaders when' the late strike was on, and whenever one discusses their land or defejice policy. To call it the soft pedal is a joke.” (Laughter). MrW. H. Field, speaking at Pahautanui, referred to what lie called “fancy flights in the realm of banking” made by his opponent, Air Harkness. “Air. Harkness,” he said, “knows as much about banking as a bull knows about botany. He has probably a banking account, and that, perhaps, entitles him to believe that ho knows something about banking. On tho same line of argument, a bull must know something of botany, tor it crops grass.”