THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1925. DUNEDIN WEST.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19615, 20 October 1925, Page 8

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1925. DUNEDIN WEST.

Although Mr Downie Stewart remained seated while he addressed the electors at Burns Hall last evening, there was nothing suggestive of the invalid in either the delivery of his speech or in the matter which it contained. Far from it. In clear tones, so that hot a syllable of what he said was missed by his audience, he spoke vigorously and breezily and the vein of humour of which he makes skilful play was effectively developed by him. He was able to confirm the statement that the reports of his medical advisers are so favourable that he hopes before the end of the year to be restored to a physical condition superior to any that he has enjoyed for years, and this circumstance promises to the electors of Dunedin West that during the ; ensuing three years he will, as their member in the new Parliament, be in a position to render to the constituency, to the city, and to Otago better service even than he has performed in the past. His speech last night divided itself into two parts. He defended the Government against some of the charges which have been brought against, principally by Socialist candidates, and he riddled the platform upon which his opponent in the contest for Dunedin West and the other candidates in the interest of the Labour Party are required to stand. It was not necessary for him to waste a great deal of breath upon his reply to the attacks that have been made upon the Government. These attacks when directed from the Labour platform—and it is, as Mr Stewart observed, between the Reform and Labour parties that the electors have in reality to make their choice —have resolved themselves into the ridiculous allegation that the Government has introduced and carried legislation in the interests of one class only in the community. As the class which is alleged to have benefited by this legislation is numerically insignificant, it would be a Government singularly short-sighted and uncommonly. destitute of the instinct for self-preservation that would be solicitous for its interests. Mr Stewart cited instances, however, of the social and humanitarian legislation of the past three years and claimed with reason that the reductions that have been made in taxation—reductions which, Sir Joseph Ward observed at Invercargill last night, still leave New Zealand a heavily taxed country —have been advantageous to all classes of the community. It is not to be supposed that the exposure of the insubstantiality of the charges they have made against the Government will deter the Socialist candidates from repeating them over and over again, since they rely to a large extent upon an appeal to class prejudice for the support they hope to receive at the polls, but it should at least have the effect of enabling the electors to detect for themselves the weakness in the case which these candidates attempt to set up. The most effective portion of Mr Stewart’s speech, however, was that in which ho subjected the policy of the Labour Party to examination. His criticism of it was crushing in its effectiveness, and was most strikingly so in his demonstration of the absurdity of the Socialist belief that the adoption of its programme would have the effect of destroying capitalism. The idea of confiscation of private wealth has been repudiated by the leaders of the Labour Party. They say that they will buy out the owners of the property which they seek to socialise. What they cannot pay for in cash they will pay for in bonds. That being so, the private individual, whom in present circumstances they pleasantly describe as an exploiter, will remain a capitalist with, as Mr Stewart says, the advantage that his capital will be guaranteed by the State for all time! In a few telling phrases Mr Stewart ridiculed the portentous land policy of the Labour Party which has proved so perplexing to the party’s candidates that they go on not only contradicting each other, but also contradicting themselves in their efforts to expound it to the electors. The Labour Party, Mr Stewart said with reference to this branch of its policy, has “tried to construct a pianola which will play any tune you put on it.” The attempt, however, to extract different tunes

simultaneously from one instrument will always produce nothing but discordant sounds. The Labour land policy is one, it is to be remembered, to the construction of which a committee of the party devoted its brains for a period of twelve months. The result is a chaotic jumble that is the despair of the party’s unfortunate candidates.