MR F. MANDER

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8481, 16 July 1913, Page 8

MR F. MANDER

"SAYING MUCH AND DOING LITTLE." Mr F. Marnier (Mareden) stated a great deal had been said about the lack of material in the Governor's Speech, but he was of opinion that it was better to do much and say little, than to do little and say much. He thought that if the present Government were in power seven or eight years there would be no further Liberal measures to be introduced. An Opposition member: The millennium. Mr Mander considered it could not bo said that the country had gone back since the present Government had come into power. "When they were in opposition they always beard stories that a great calamity would happen if they came into power. Mr Russell: The rate of interest has gone up. Mr Mander: No administration can bo made responsible for that. (Cries from Opposition: No, No.) Continuing, Mr Mander' said the Government were pushing on land settlement, and he did not think any complaint could be made them in that direction. A UNIVERSAL PENSION.

Ho was a strong believer in a universal old age pension. It was no good patching at it. Ho thought that if they taxed theatre tickets, picture tickets, and race tickets they would get enough money to give a pension to all. The Opposition did not, in the old days, oppose the Old Age Pensions; they were in favour of a contributory system, and ho hoped that this would yet come into force, Mr J. Vigor Brown: Put a little more on the graduated land tax. That will pay it all right. Mr Mander said the spirit of the age was to look to the State for everything. At the present t.ime, said Air Hander, they were not doing justice to the at-ives.

Air T. Parata (Southern Maori): tear, hear. Air Alander said the natives were 'icing treated like children, but most f them were quite capable of translating their own business and looking ifter their own affairs. ELECTORAL REFORM.

He was in favour of doing away with the present second ballot system. With regard to the election of the Upper House, he thought the electorates would be too unweildy, and that voting would be a good deal on chance. The second ballot system had proved very expensive and irritating. Mr Mander said he was against the ballot system in land settlement. It

,vas most unsatisfactory, for one man might enter twenty times and bo unsuccessful, and then he would feel like getting out of tho country. Referring to railways, Air Alander said that there was an insufficiency of roll-ing-stock, and what there was of it was obsolete. There had been a great deal of dissatisfaction in tho north through tho second Alain Trunk express being taken off. He himself thought that it was unfair that tho South Island should have two expresses daily, while the North had only one. Mr G. Witty (Riccarton): But they use them in the South.

Mr Marnier said that the northern railways were paying Matter than those iu the South, and ho thought the extra express should bo put on the Main Trunk line at least three days a week. Mr Mander said he was opposed to the co-operative system in railway construction. Eight-and-six-pence a day was not sufficient for a married labourer. The Otira tunnel was one of the most wasteful pieces of expenditure in the history of the country. If all the money that had been spent on railway construction had been spent properly the country would have had all the railways it required by now.