GENERAL ELECTION.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1438, 11 December 1919, Page 5

GENERAL ELECTION.

Air Massey spoke at Ngaruawahia to a large attendance, including many miners from Gleii Massey. The Premier was interrupted a good deal by hoots, and hissing, and cheers for Jordan, the Labour candidate. As the interruptions continued, Mr Massey ordered the police to take names, which evoked more hoots. The Premier declared that the tactics of the interruptionists in this campaign were the most cowardly and contemptible imaginable. Ho referred to the war, reading matters, finance and shipping, but a running fire of interruptions were kept up. Mr Massey read a telegram quoting Mr Holland as saying "bo was going to assist Ward to oust Massey and then dictate terms to Ward.” The Premier added: “They are not going to get me. I would sooner leave the Treasury benches and go back to the plough than be kept in power by these democrats.” In the course of his speech at Newmarket Mr Massey was asked how he was going to settle the coal difficulty. He said: “You are asking me to put all my cards on the table now, and I am not going to do it.” Mr Dunbar Sloauc at Wellington:— “It is beyond possible doubt that our primary produce is being manipulated by monopolistic companies, trusts, and combines, to the great detriment of our producers, and automatically to the great mass of the people of the Dominion.” In order to prevent this, he was firmly convinced that the State must have the power by license to investigate every pound’s worth of business done by the New Zealand freezers. The prosperity of Now Zealand depended almost entirely on the judicious handling of our primary produce, meat, wool, mutton, cheese and butter. The Operations of the trusts and combines were easily understood when they considered that the policies of the banks, shipping companies, and many other departments connected with the transport and sale of our primary produce wore dictated from London. From the moment the farmer sold his fat stock the fun began, and if one could trace the history'of a mutton chop from the drafting-yard of the producer to the table of the consumer in England one would be filled with amazement. The present shortage of refrigerator shipping space was, he said, the direct outcome of the ramifications of the shipping combines, and if a stroke of real statesmanship wore not forthcoming in the near future the producer might find himself “high and dry.” Says the Auckland "Star”; We cannot say (hat Mr Massey has made his position on the land question any better. There were generalities in bis speech at, Pukekohe about land settlement, and we admit it is something to the good when Mr Massey denounces land - speculators as an obstacle to necessary development, but the country wants more than this. It wants practical proposals, and a policy that will place the community’s interests above those of the large land-owner. But if Mr Massey is afraid to support that necessary increase in the land tax which Sir Joseph Ward lias promised, it is not surprising. Sir Walter Buchanan might hear him.