MR ISITT UP.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10876, 20 September 1911, Page 3

MR ISITT UP.

SWEEPING SPEECH IN THE HOUSE. i';, - BEST EFFORT OF THE SESSION. By Telegraph: i (From Our Own Correspondent.) September 19. , Mr L. M. Isitt, member for Christchurch North,, caused the House to sit up and listen, to-night when he took the floor on the Financial debate. It was really his maiden speech, because his first effort was made with a tenminutes' limit in Committee of the

whole. To-night Mr Isitt exceeded the most sanguine expectations of his friends. For three weeks they had been listening to debates that had left the Press gallery limp in despair. Mr Nosworthy's attempt to deal with, monopolies in trade gave Mr Isitt inspiration for his first point. A few weeks ago, he said, the leader of the Opposition had actually stated that'the drapers of the country were making one hundred per cent, on their goods. Was he prepared to repeat it? " Mr Hardy: I will, and lam a draper. Mr Isitt: I venture to say there;aire few drapers who are fleecing the public to the extent of the honorable member. He is the solitary exception that proves the rule, because I state absolutely that, as far as the majority are concerned, the net profit is six or seven per, cent. Mr Isitt added that it was exceptional to make twelve per cent. The member for Ashburton had informed the House in graceful language that the large drapers should be "burst up" in the interest of the small man. Mr Nosworthy: In the cities. Mr Isitt said that Mr Nosworthy had cited two retail firms and one wholesale firm, Messrs Kirkcaldie and Stains, Messrs Strange and Co., and Messrs Sargood, Son, and Ewen. Did he .not know that Messrs Sargood, Son, arid Ewen depended entirely on the small firms that could not indent for themselves P The Farmers' Co-operative As--sociation was the only retail concern that was in the nature of a monopoly, because it had a lien on the property of its customers and forced them to deal with the firm. .

Mr Mander: What about the brewers? Mr Isitt: I am not on the brewers; They are right outside the ranks of-. decent trade. The brewing business is. not trade. It is a, pirate ship on the sea of commerce. I am not going to insult honest drapers by mixing them up in a breath with Mr Isitt?' added that the large drapers'were concerned to serve the interests of the people better than the small drapers 1 , could hope to do. The Radical did not seek to dispossess the 20,p00-acre landholder of- Ms land because of the money he made out of it, but because of the fact that he was occupying land that, cut up, would support perhaps sixty families. (Hear, hear.) -. Mr Isitt went on .to say that for three weeks he had listened to one constant stream'of innuendo, insinuation, vague charges of bribery, maladministration and political graft directed' against the men in power. Many of the Opposition did not-recognise the significance attaching to those asper-. sion or that thousands of people outside the House believed that the Ministry received huge monetary bribes and were guilty of most reprehensible and dishonest practices to stay in office. It. was deplorable, and the more so because there was not a shadow of truth or one iota of evidence to support it. Mr Isitt remarked that for twentyeight years he had travelled thrqaghout New Zealand and had made thousands of friends who, although they might not think much of him as a politician, yet believed in his fearless love for the truth. "I want to tell them," he added, "that I believe this Administration is a clean Administration.' I believe the Cabinet Ministers are libelled, in a very shameful manner. : I believe there is no corruption, no bribery, •no maladministration, no political graft." The Opposition had not offered Half an inch of definite evidence in support, of their vague charges. They had not . given a single instance. The measure . of the Government's corruption was in exact proportion to the. feebleness and ineptitude of the Opposition. Mr Isitt put r Mr Mander on the rack for-five minutes by declaring that as. the mouthpiece of the Opposition He, had advocated the. single tax and free trade. _ Mr-Mander hotly denied* the. charge, and Mr Isitt thereupon quoted him as saying that' the Opposition were the true successors to Cobden, Bright, and Gladstone, who had advocated the re-, forms he had named.

Mr Mander replied that he was a follower of their Liberal ideas, but he declined ,to name any of the Liberal ideas he deferred to. Mr Isitt' went on to twit the Opposition with their twenty years' sojourn in the wilderness, and scathingly criticised the Opposition platform erected, in Christchurch prior to the Christchurch North bye-election. He remarked that the Conservatives did not now T : oppose old-age pensions,' ' advances to Workers, advances to settlers, and so on; but they-were in their, present position because they had been dragged there. The Opposition had condemned' the Budget collectively, but they had justified it individually out of their own mouths. They approved of items ,in the Budget. Why had they not thought of them themselves and put them into what was the most beggarly wallet that ever politician had travelled the country with? It was extraordinary how the Opposition seized on any criticism of, the Government, and when Mr Arnold, a Liberal, had condemned the Government, for not going Far enough in the direction the Opposition most hated, the Oppoistion said "There's a fine thing." 'Miff, my dear man," said Mr Isitt, "it proves that you are dead and buried." Mr Isitt's speech closed with continued applause, and several lesser lights who had speeches prepared fore-, bore to deliver them. - ,j; The result was that the Prime Minister was called on to reply and the do-: bate closed.