OPPOSITION CRITICISM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16135, 25 July 1914, Page 13

OPPOSITION CRITICISM

SOME POLITE LANGUAGE. ' ME RUSSELL AND AIR FISHER. (Fhom Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, July 24. The main, feature of tho debate upon the Imprest Supply BiU in the House yesterday was the utter failure of the Opposition to find any real defect in thj administration of the Reform Government alter it has been in otKce for two years. The opponents of Reform have therefore been driven to other straits, and in the futile endeavour to make a mountain out of a molehill they have concentrated their attention upon tho enormity of Mr Alassey s offence in not telling Sir J. G. Ward that an Imprest Supply Bill would be brought down by Governor's .Mo.sea go yesterday afternoon. The enormity of this offence may be gauged by an extract from a leading article headed " The Unspeakable in the New Zealand Times, the leading Wardist organ. - " The Prime Alinkter," the Opposition journal states, " lias taken a mean revenge, a petty revenge, condemned by all rule*, from the written laws of tho prize ring to the unwritten code, of decency, a revenge which a costermonger in a back street would scorn to take of a. brother huckster whom he had bostod, a revenge comparable only to the act of a hooligan stoning the windows of a sleeping enemy. He had been in fight, and to enjoy this petty spite, as Mr Isitt well named it, the Prime Minister dispossessed half of the House of its Tight of important foreknowledge. What can we sav to this unspeakable thing? What but'that the meanest depth of political degradation has been deliberately reached by the head of the party that has always asserted its monopoly of the highest political virtue.'' The idea of the Opposition press comparing the Prime Minister to something worse than a costermonger-in a back street and "a hooligan stoning the windows of a sleeping enemy." to say nothing of the other language applied to him, will no doubt be noted by Air Alassey's many friends throughout the country and deprecated even by his bitterest political enemies. Apart from the matter above referred to, the main incident in the debate was the slashing speech delivered by the Hon. Air Fisher in reply to Mr Russell, who is generally regarded as the deputy-leader of the Opposition. Mr Russell had warmly condemned the attitude of the Government in connection with the Legislative Council appointments, which, he said, was very weak. Circumstances that day had shown that the Government had no need whatever to make the 11 fresh appointments to pass the Reform Bill. The Government should have given the Council as it stood at the beginning of the session another opportunity of voting on the Bill. The fact was that the Government's policy in regard to the Council was a piece of the grossest humbug. He would not particularise) but there were men among the new appointees who had bought their way into the Council by their 'support of the Government. One man had written a series of open letters to the Prime Minister in the Conservative press, in which he lied about him (Mr Russell) and other members. This speech, delivered late in tfyo evening, brought Air Fisher up in the early hours of the morning with a trenchant and even withering replv to Mr Russell. Air Russell, he said, had got very indignant because some person had written some untruths about him. "Well," said Air Fisher, "he should be glad, not to get indignant, because one has only to tell the truth about the hon. gentleman, and his political reputation is at once destroyed." —(Laughter.) Air Russell, he added, had spoken in very disrespectful terms of one of the nominees to the Council. Did the hon. gentleman remember what he himself had done four years ago ? An Hon. Member: He has forgotten that.

Mr Fisher : Does .he remember in 1910 introducing in this House the Legislative Reform Bill? I see that the hon. gentleman is completely obsessed -with the Public Service Commissioner's report at the present moment.—(Laughter.) But this is what the hon. gentleman said when he was introducing Sis Bill. How nobly and dignified he started. He said : u I would like to say at the outset that I have no intention whatever of criticising the appointments that have been made to the Council or of referring to the personnel of that body. In my opinion it would be an improper and undignified course for members of this House to cast reflections or criticisms upon the members of another Chamber." —(Much laughter from the Opposition benches.) An Hon. Member : Who 6aid that? Mr Fisher': That was the member for Avon, and to-night we have that hon. member making what I thought was a very unfair and uncalled for attack upon a person with whom he has differed. However, this little speech runs on : "I realise that legislation on so great a subject as this, to have a reasonable prospect of being consummated and of going on to the Statute Book, should be initiated by the Government." Well, we have done that. Does the hem. member support us? Does he approve of it? No; lie wrangles and raves and he gets very angry because the Government has brought down a proposal which, to all intents and purposes, is on all fours with the Bill which he himself introduced in 1910 and which did not succeed in reaching the Statute Book.—(Laughter.) Mr Fisher, to the amusement of the House and the evident discomfiture of the member for' Avon, went on to quote at length from the speech delivered by the latter in the House on the occasion referred to. To-night, added Mr Fisher, four years afterwards, he complains because the Government is acting upon the very spirit and sentiment of the speech which he himself delivered in 1910. IJid the hon. gentleman turn these- sentiments down now ? Mr Ruesell : It was prophetic—(Laughter.) Mr FisheT : It was singularly prophetic. —(More laughter.) Mr Russell : I shall have to put up as a prophet after that. Mr Fisher: Yes; profit and loss.— (Laughter.) Mr Fisher went on to quote from Mr Russell's speech, in which he elaborated his proposal for an elective Legisltaive Council and large electorates. He asked if the hon. gentleman had seen the Reform Government's Bill. Mr Russell : I have not seen it.— (Laughter.) Mr Fisher : Then the hon. gentleman must have been neglecting his duty. Finally, Mr Fisher suggested to Mr Russell that he should re-read his own Fpeech. It was one of the few speeches he had made that was worth reading.—(Laughter.)