ELECTION NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19149, 15 October 1925, Page 13

ELECTION NOTES.

ABLE, BUT DANGEROUS. A» apt definition of the Labour leader, Mr. H. E. Holland, was given by Sir James Parr at Avondale last evening iri answering accusations that he was making personal attacks on Mr. Holland. "Personally,'' said Sir James, "I am quite friendly with Mr. Holland. He is an able man, whose politics would ruin ihe country." LIBERAL PARTY'S DEATH. "We have come to the point where the Liberal Party is dead and everyone knows it," said Mr. Huie, chairman of one of the Prime Minister's meetings in Christehurch yesterday. " All the sane and sensible Liberals realise that the future of .New Zealand is in the hands of Mr. Coates and those behind him." JUDGE Alfß BASIC WAGE. " While the Arbitration Court was fixing a basic wage at Jess than .£4 a week." said Mr. W. E, Parry, last evening, " the Law SoeieTy was suggesting a rise of £IOOO a year for Judges. That works out at about eight "bob" an hour. The engineers at the same time got a rise of one farthing an hour." WHY HE WITHDREW. li Why did you withdraw last election ?" asked a questioner of Mr, E. Piggot, at Ngaruawahia. "An explanation can be ' gave,' " said the. candidate, who went on to state that the Hamilton Labour Party had circulated his withdrawal without his consent. " I was ' shoved out by the Hamilton Labour Party," he said, "'nob by the Auckland Labour Party, which has supported me tooth and nail." TAXING THE BACHELOR. "Are you in favour of a tax on bachelors ?" was a question addressed to Miss Melville at Kingsland last evening by a young woman in the audience,. The question caused some amusement, but Miss Melville was anything but embarrassed. "I have never considered it." she said, "but if being a bachelor is considered a luxury, then as with other luxuries we should be prepared to pay for it. This should also apply to old maids." (Laughter.) " VERY FINE OFFICERS." " I have heard people say," remarked ihe Prime Minister at T&it-apu, Canterbury, " that the Civil servant has a v«sy soft* job. Well the fact is the Civil Service is composed of very fine officer's. I have had a good deal to do with them, and all I ask is that they pull their weight. If everyone does that we can bring efficiency about immediately. That can only be done by the personal influence of the head of the department. After all we mostly follow the leader, and if we find a leader keen and willing we find it hard to stop following him." CHARACTER AND INDUSTRY. " Nothing can be got for nothing, and all social service has to be paid for. Any policy or scheme of society, to be a lasting success, must, and can s only ue built up through the work of a self-reliant and industrious people. Character is to-day the most important asset i.a the individual, just as it has ever been, since the beginning of human society. There is no short cut to the social milennium, and any plan of society which tends to subvert the principle of self-dependence in a people, is sooner or later doomed to failure." —Mr. J. A. Young, at Rukuhia. LABOUR AND HOUSING. A good reply to Labour's complaints about the Government's alleged neglect of housing was made by Mr. S. Oldfield at his meeting in Auckland West last night. Labour, he said, had done.nothing to provide houses. It had its hands on all the workmen required—sawmillers, bricklayers, carpenters and the rest. If it had wished it could have bought suburban land and set them to work building houses for the workers. There was plenty of money. The returns showed that 700,000 people had £54.000,000 in the Post Office Savings Bank. If Labour supporters would pool their funds, form a co-operative building organisation and get to work they could do a great deal to provide homes for themselves. LABOUR VIEW OF MR. COATES. The Prime Minister, according to Mr. W T . E. Parry, is a man of no ideas,, nor in the opinion of the member for Auckland Central has he any capacity whatsoever. In his speech last evening, Mr. Parry endeavoured with some success to keep above the soap-box tone, but before he had finished he was declaring that while the late Mr. Massey had capacity and ideas of his own, his successor was absolutely dependent on the advice of the "'shell-backed Tories" of the Upper House. Mr. Coates was no more fitted to fill the position than was a boy to wear his father's gumboots. Mr. Parry, however, assured his hearers that there was" nothing of a personal nature in his remarks. A PATRIOTIC RECORD. The Labour candidate for Auckland. East, Mr. J. A. Lee, and the Reform candidate for Auckland West, Mr. S. Oldfield, are continuing their little controversy. Mr. Lee on Tuesday night declared that Mr. Oldfield was growing hysterical, and that if their respective records nt the past few years were compared, he would be found to have been as British as Mr. Oldfield. Last night Mr.' Oldfield told a very noisy meeting fnat if anyone was hysterica! it was the people at the back of the hall. Amid a running fire of interruptions from the Labour section he said he had volunteered in the first fortnight, of the war. had been rejected for an old dislocation of the ankle, had volunteered thr.-e times in all and had spent three months in Trentham camp—all before conscription was brought in. COUNTRY PARTY'S TRIALS. " The fact that the four candidates standing for the Raglan seat are farmers, and that all represent different parties, goes to show trie difficulties confronting the Country Party in its efforts to coordinate the farmers' political interests," said Mr. H. J. Sampson, chairman of Mr. E. Piggott's meeting, at Ngaruawahia. The tribulations of the party are impressing themselves upon Mr. F. Coibeck, the candidate for Rotorua. Speaking at Tirau, he said the nearer the election approached the more unpopular the party became. Between elections it was the simplest thing in the world to get a vote, of confidence passed in the Country Party, but as soon as the election was near some fear seemed to creep in that toe Country Party was likely to harm the Reform Party, and the electors seemee'., for that reason, to regard it askance. A CANDIDATE'S " SWELLED HEAD," Mr. R. McCallum, formerly Liberal M.P. for Wairau—who was defeated in 1922 by Mr. W. J. Girling, the Reform candidate —is again- in the field. In an address last week he indulged in an unusual burst of self-censure. He said that he did not intend to descend to personalities, but there was one candidate toward whom he would be personal—and that was himself. He was disgrsted with himself over last ejection and the way in which he had lost it. He was afraid that he must have been suffering from swelled head, believing that he had been so long in Parliament that he would have no difficulty in being again returned. If anyone hdd asked him prior to last election how many votes he thought he wouei have got he would have answered: Oil. about 3600. and the other fellow can have the rest." ' As a matter of fact he polled the 3600 and a couple of hundred more, but he had made the mistake nt not allowing for the enlargement of the district, though it had been brought about b\ his own representations to the Boundary Commissi oners.