"DAWN OF LIBERALISM."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19141, 6 October 1925, Page 11

"DAWN OF LIBERALISM."

| MR. HALL SKELTON'S VISION. HOPES OF A REVIVAL DIATRIBE AGAINST REFORM. Ihe first, shot in the Roskiil contest, and also in the election campaign, at least so far as Greater Auckland is concerned, was fired last night, when Mr. A. Hall Skelton, Liberal candidate, addressed a large meeting in the Capitol Iheatrc, Dominion Road. Mr. G. M. Fowlds presided. The candidate has often expressed his j views upon the present Government, and in the course of his spech he amplified them by declaring that he would vote with any party to put the Government out. He declared that a new dawn of Liberalism was breaking, and urged Labour to put nationalisation schemes into the background and join forces with the true Liberals, of whom, he said, Mi. [ Ramsay Mac Donald was typical. Most of the speech was a diatribe against the Reform Party and all its works. Mr. Hail Skelton said Liberalism was a matter of the heart, and only by that standard could ;t be judged, whether a man was a Liberal or not. Similarly, Toryism was a force. Its* early representatives in New Zealand had made a bee-line for the land, and by grabbing the ownership of all they could obtain, had enslaved and pauperised the rest of the population. " You, ladies and gentlemen, are paupers in your own country," he declared, " and you do not know it." " Ass-hold M Land Tenure. lhe candidate went on to delve into early New Zealand history, but broke off to say that he. intended to deal with all the various land tenures—freehold, leasehold, usehold and " ass-hold." "By ' ass-hold ' I mean the freehold of the j lory Party," he explained. " The I whole population is.the ass, and is carrying the entire burden." (Laughter.) A \ oice: lhat is the party you wanted to fuse with. Mr. Hall Skelton: Not at all. I would sooner shake hands with the Devil than ius6 with the Reform Party. The present Government, he continued, was made up largely of men who had no knowledge of political science. He was in favour of an examination for all political candidates, who should be at least on an equality with plumbers in that respect. "At present," he said, "we have a lot of tools who do not know the A.B.C. of the science of politics. Half of them go there for Bellamy's and a jolly good time with your money. They go in and out of the lobbies at the crack of the party •whip." Days ol Sir George Grey.' Mr. Hall Skelton had brought- his narrative of land legislation up to the 70 , s when someone in the hall advised him to "come up to the present day." " My friend, I can see that you have not come here to learn," remarked the candidate. "I am coming very rapidly to the present day. The only way to understand present-day difficulties is to study what led up to them." Ho went on to praise the efforts of Grey, Stafford and Richmond to gain for the people a share in the land. Grey's greatest effort had been spoiled because four Liberals "ratted." A Voice: They all "ratted" last session. The candidate undertook to show that trickery and chicanery had been persistently used to defeat Liberalism, when someone remarked: " You have got a big job in front of you." Mr. Hall Skelton replied that only research could show the true facts. "" Who would sit up till midnight studying this question?" he asked. "Only a lunatic like myself. " Liberalism died with Seddon," remarked someone in the audience a minute or two later, Mr. Hall Skelton denied the suggestion. Sir Joseph Ward, he said, had introduced at least two Liberal measures of first-rate importance, including his Land and Income Tax Bill of 1910. There was not a piank in the Reform Party's platform of 1911 that had not been* broken; not a promise that had not been ignored. In 1912 the national de.bt had been £82,000.000. The war debt had been added inevitably to that, but in the past five years the Reform Government, which had condemned excessive borrowing, had added £70,C00,000 to the country's debt—nearly as much as the entire debt before 1912. He knew that much of it was being used tor public works. Opinion of Mr. Coates. He agreed that Mr. Coates was a good Minister for Public Works and personally be was " one of the nicest fellows you could ever meet," but he could not have j known what he was doing when he joined ; the Reform Party in 1912. He knew j nothing of finance or he would not have adhered to a party which had brought j the country tc its knees, as it was to--day. I Speaking of his own attitude toward Labour, Mr. Hall Skelton said that he sympathised with Labour's aims, but j every man who had championed them j had* been crucified. Supposing that j Labour had a good policy, and he went j over to it, he would be one of the first | to suffer. He- did not favour the Labour ' use- j hold" tenure, which could not be en- j forced without issuing revolution. Fusion j should be, not between the Liberals and Reform, but between the and j Labour. The Communists should form a j nartv of their own. The sooner Labour j jettisoned "usehold" and the nationalisa j tiori of industry (he better it would be j for everybody. His platform was designed j to undo'the harm Reform had done. He j could see a new dawn breaking in the j east, and a revival of true Liberalism was . at hand. A Change of Names. When question-time arrived, a man at j the back remarked that 12 months ago j at a meeting Mr. Hall Skelton had described himself as "Liberal-Labour," now he called himself a Liberal. Meanwhile <he Liberal Party had changed its name to "National." He wanted an explana- ' Mr. Hall Skelton repllld that a Liberal was a Liberal, no matter how party names were changed. A Voice: Are you on your own . Mr. Hal) Skelton: Nothing of the sort. I am a Liberal, and after this election vou will find all the Liberals under one roof. The parties have made fools of themselves. There is a row going on in the Reform camp, in the Liberal camp and the Labour camp. A Voice: No, there is not. If Labour introduced a no-confidence motion, how would you vote . asked another questioner. Mi. Hall Skelton: I will vote with any, party to put out the Reform Party, because I believe it is the most unscrupulous party that has monopolised Government since Sir Harry Atkinson's time. He went on to say that there would be no real reform of the country's affairs until Labour came over to Liberalism, A Voice: What about the Liberals coming over to Labour? Mr. Hall Skelton: That is foolish talk. They need a common platform, leaving disputed questions in the background. The leaders should have met long ago—except one Liberal leader, whom I would not meet myself. If they had,_ the Reform Party could never have worked so much harm. . After answering more questions and exchanging some good-humoured banter with Labour supporters, the candidate received a vote of thanks and confidence, couched in very laudatory terms. j