MM. ASSET' AND THE PREMIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13170, 7 May 1906, Page 6

MM. ASSET' AND THE PREMIER.

Addressing a meeting at. Maramarua last Monday evening Mr. Massey referred to the readiness with which the Premier appropriated the ideas of other people. The very latest was the proposal to make a wife the legal partner of her husband in the family home. Mr. Massey said he himself was the first in the colony to put this proposal forward, and quoted the following paragraph from a speech which he delivered at Christchurch in May, 1905: —

"What he wanted was that a workman should be able to come along and say, 'I want to build a house costing; say, £300, and I want an advance on building society principles,' and such a man should be able to get an advance at a low rate of interest, and should be able by gradual repayment to become the owner of the house he and his family occupied: He would go further, and adopt an American law, which provides that a wife; is \ the legal partner with her husband if they own a house, and that the

house cannot be sold without the wirYs written consent. Such an Act was one they could copy with advantage, and he would be glad to see it on the Statute

Book of the colony. He had always held that the Advances to Settlers Act should lie used chiefly in the interests of the smaller men ; the bigger men could take caro of themselves. But this was not the policy of the Government. He knew of an instance which happened last year where one of the Government Department* lent £16,500 in one sum to a business firm in a certain centre of the colony. It would have been much better for the colony had that money been lent in thirtv-three sums of £500 each."

In speaking of finance Mr. Massey also pointed out that, from the figures supplied by the Premier at Raugiora a few weeks ago, though there was apparently a surplus, the increase of expenditure exceeded the increase of revenue for the year by about, £200,000, the figures being: Increase of revenue, £306,103: increase of expenditure £503,399. -. ,