THE BRUCE BY-ELECTION

Otago Witness, Issue 3448, 13 April 1920, Page 21

THE BRUCE BY-ELECTION

MR EDIE'S VIEWS. SPEECH AT MOMONA. Mr Edie addressed a meeting of electors • of. Mom'ona on Wednesday night. Mr A. W. Amos occupied the chair. Mr Edie said he appeared before them as one who had been a resident in the electorate for over 50 years. He had come to New Zealand as a lad, and had lived in the district ever since he had entered the Survey Department as a cadet, and at the present time was county engineer for Tuapeka. Also he had a small farm at Tuapeka West, and was Mayor of the borough of Lawrence. He was a Liberal ■ through and through, and Liberalism spelt progress, and progress was what was needed. The county could not afford to . stand still. THE LAST ELECTION. The candidate said the handsome vote given him.at the last election was a more than sufficient reason for a.gs.ia offering his services as their representative, and he appeared before the electors with a good deal of confidence. To get within 126 votes of such a doughty opponent as Sir James Allen was an achievement of which any man might be proud, So far as the old Bruce electorate was concerned he had Sir James Alien beaten, but in the new electorate he (the speaker) was not so well known. Sir James Allen had the advantage of being Minister o;i Defence, and he made the most of this fact. He contended that Sir James Allen had no right to work upon the feelings of the electors by referring to anything he did during the war -period. The soldiers and the men and women of the dominion, did as much as Sir" James Allen —they did all they could, and no one could do more.-r(Applause.) He claimed that Sir James Allen had no right to contest the last election, when at that time he practically' had in his pocket the position of High Commissioner for New Zealand. They £lll knew that Sir - James was to be the riext Commissioner for New Zealand. He admired his opponent, Mr Begg, as a man, but that must net debar him from criticising his statements on the public platform. Mr. Begg, in his address at Middleinarch on Monday night, had stated that it, was necessary that Sir James Allen should come forward, as the Government could not appoint a man to the position of High Commissioner who was not a member of the House. That was all moonshine — there was nothing to hinder the Government from appointing anyone it liked. Why should the country have been put to the expense of another election, and why should he have to run the gauntlet of another election? It was not playing the game. If economy was the watchword of the present Government then the present election should not have been held, because it could not be. carried through without costing a few thousand pounds. PARTY GOVERNMENT. When the Seddon Government was in a ' very strong position Mir Massey had made much of the point that a sound Opposition ■was essential. Mr Massey was quite right. He himself was a great believer in party government. The sour of party government 'was to have a powerful opposition, so that every "measure before being placed on the Statute Book could be subjected to ■ the strongest criticism. This could never be done if the ruling party had an overwhelmir~ majority at its back. If returned he would have no hesitation in strongly opposing any measures which, in his opinion were pot in the general interests of the ■ dominion. ' PROFITEERING. The burning question of the hour, so far as New Zealand and the world generally were concerned, related to profiteering. There was not the slightest doubt that the people were not getting a square deal. The Government had been trifling with this important subject. A commission had been set up to" go into the cost of living, but so far as he could gather the result had been nil. He thought that some of the measures which had been approved by the commission should have been put into exeution. The Government said it- - ' was the business ' of. the individual if he was overcharged for any article to lay a charge against the person who had sold it. Pie maintained,, however, that it was the duty of the Government to take action without placing the responsibility on the individual to become an informer. This commission had cost the country a lot of money—it was composed of experts—and surely, after two or three years' work, it should have been able to give some idea of how the existing high cost of living should be reduced. The Massey Government had not done much, if anything, in this direction, and it was high time that the people should realise who was responsible, and should put somebody else into Parliament who wag prepared to take up a definite attitude to combat the position. COUNTRY NOT OVERDEVELOPED. His opponent had said that the country was overdeveloped, as compared with its population. He did not agree with that statement. It wa a true that they were having a difncultv in securing labour, but the reason for that state of affairs was not far to seek. They had sent a large body of men to the war, and oyer 15,000 of them had been killed or had died of sickness. Moreover, many who had returned were unfit to follow their •usual occupations. Prior to the war the country was not overdeveloped. He believed that their factories should be even developed to a greater extent. To-day they were importing a large quantity of woollen goods which could well be manufactured in the dominion. Then, again, their roads and railroads required far greater development. More railways were needed for Ihe back blocks. It was imperative that they should have more railways if their country wag to go ahead. Their gold mines also required develop- ■** ing. The gold miners had not received the consideration from the Government that they should have received. Their coal mines, likewise, r.eeded more development. It was not altogether the fault of the miners that coal was so dear. He had recently paid a visit to the Kaitam'ata mine and conversed with the miners. They had, told him they were getting about 3s 4d per ton for- hewing the coal, and they had to hew sufficient to fill 18. boxes to earn £1 per day. He had seen the men when they had come out of the mine, and he was quite sure they deserved all the money they Received. One of the duties which should have been carried out by the commission eet up by the Government was to discover

' who received the difference 'between the cost of mining the coal and the price at which it was sold to the consumer. AGGREGATION OP LAND. As regards the holdings of land, he maintained that they were again becoming too large. Only the other day he had seen in the Otago Daily Time 9 about a page dovoted to clearing sales of land. In some cases the farms had been purchased by those owning adjacent blocks. This aggregation was no good to the country. If certain people accumulated large areas of land, where were the young men who wished to become farmers going to get land at a reasonable price? It was' far better to have a contented yeomanry class than a wealthy farming class. The land belonged to the State, whether it was freehold or leasehold. The Government borrowed money, and the land was taxed to pay the interest on it. No landholder should be allowed to sell his land unless he had owned it for a stated period. Then, the system of taxation itself required readjusting. Supposing a man purchased an estate for £IO,OOO, and only paid £SO for it, obtaining the balance on mortgage, he was liable for the land tax on the outctandinp- balance. Ho did not think this was ri<rht. EXPORTS AND IMPORTS. Dealing with the question of exports and imports, the candidate said the country must endeavour as soon as possible to get them to balance. He had noticed from the latest returns that the Customs revenue for the last quarter had been the greatest in the -history of the dominion. This, however, was easily accounted for by the fact that within the last year or two commodities had greatly risen in value', and the Government was collecting Customs duties on these increased values. He contended that the Government should cut down the Customs duties by half. It would itself then bo doing something towards reducing the cost of living. The Government should be the very first to show that it was reallydesirous of reducing the cost of commodities. While it demanded the present Customs duties on the high cost of goods c6ming into the dominion it could find no great fault with the people who were profiteering. EDUCATION SYSTEM. While his opponent agreed with him on several points connected with their education system,- there was one point on which they were not in accord. He did not agree with Mr Begg when he said that a child's education was for the child's own benefit. He contended that that idea was entirely wrong. A child* was not educated -for its own benefit or for the benefit of its parents, but for the benefit of the State. Mr Begg was concerned lest too many people should aspire to be educated. He need not be afraid of any such thing occurring. There was no to be alarmed on this point. If a child had ability and the wish to go in for a university education he should have, every encouragement to study. Plenty of use could be found for educated vouths. For instance, there was plenty of scope for scientific chemists—men who could tell -the" farmers what manures were most beneficial for their soils, and agricultural experts who could advise the best methods to adopt in grassing particular lands, growing crops, and making their sheep produce heavy clips. A STRIKING ANOMALY. As regards the prices of wools, a rather striking anomaly had - just oome under his notice. No later than that afternoon he had been conversing with a gentleman, and he had learnt that a clip of 500 bales of wool had ben obtained from ':■ a flock of about 30,000 sheep in the Wakatipu district. This wool, however, remarkable to relate, had been sent Home direct —it was not sold through the Government. For that wool, no less than IOOd per lb was obtained in the open market in England. The-position, therefore, was that the Government had allowed this wool to be sent Home, while it had' commandeered some 95 per cent, of the clips of the dominion, and sent it Home itself. This commandeered wool had a much less price than IOOd per lb. Mr Lysnar, of the North Island, had challenged the Government to commandeer his wool. He had told them to prosecute him—that it could not have his wool—and the Government was afraid to take any action. There was something wrong about the whole transaction —the great mass of -the wool growers, in fact, had been "had." Probably, however, they would hear more about this later on. Moreover, the Government had promised the wool growers that they would get a further" advance as a result of the profits made by the Homo Government on the commandeered wool, but in his opinion they would never get a further advance. What was termed 80's wool had been sold by the Imperial Government at Is 6id per lb, but experts at Home had stated that this New Zealand wool was really worth, at the current prices, about 5s 6d a lb. The farmers in New Zealand, therefore, were getting Is 6id per lb for their wool, but it was being sold at Home at 5s "6d. There was something scandalous about this. PUBLIC SERVICE. As regards the Publio Service, it appeared i to him that there was no use having Public I Service Commissioners unless the whole of, the Government employees were brought ' under their jurisdiction. They had civil servants and employees in the -publio service, but if the country was to reap the full benefit from the appointment of the commissioners every branch should come under their control. INDENTURED LABOUR. Indentured labour was a burning question at the present - time. lie had always been strongly opposed to such a system. The members of the parliamentary party which had recently returned from the visit to Samoa were divided on the advisability of such a system. It appeared, however, that the Samoans were prepared to work if they were given the same rate of pay as a white man would ask for the particular class of work, and he considered that the Samoans were quite entitled to ask for such a wage. The sugar plantations in the Solomon Islands were mostly run by white labour. Britain had no right to encourage any form of indentured labour, which he contended was a form of slavery. HOUSING PROBLEMS. It had become imperative that. the Government should go in for a huge housing scheme for the people. He knew that some people contended that such a scheme was a rather risky project, but they should remember that cold water was also thrown on the Lands for Settlement Act an<] the Advances to Settlers Act when they were first introduced. These two Acts, however,, had proved highly successful in their re-

suits, under the able administration of Mr Seddon, and under judicious management a housing scheme should prove a profitable investment to the One thing was certain, that something "would have to be done immediately to provide the people with more houses. PUBLIC WORKS. Dealing with the question of publio works, Mr Edie said that in many instances the proportion of overseers to works was far too large. In the construction of railways it had always been his idea that the Gvernment should concentrate all its energies upon the particular railway it had in hand, and finish it to a paying point. He was pleased to see that the present Minister of Public Works was making a good start, and so long as he did that he would always have his support, no matter what side of the House he was on, if he was clcctcci STATS-STEAMER SERVICE. He believed he was the first candidate at tho last election _to bring forward the question of the advisability of obtaining a State steamer sei-viee. Since ; the general election a deputation had waited on Mr Massey in regard to the purchase _ of steamers for the State, but their Prime Minister had put it on one side. Mr Massey had said that Mr Hughes, the Prime Minister of the Australian Commonwealth, would yet be sorry for having bought the steamers for his country. He did not think either Mr Hughes or the commonwealth would ever be sorry. He was satisfied that it' was the proper thing to do. New Zealand, was an island, as it were, and it wanted "its own shipping free from any combine. Since the last time he had addressed them the Gisborne people had purchased a steamer —a 10,000 ton vessel. The Gisbornie people were an object lesson to the whole of the dominion,, and if the Government would not follow their example then he hoped the enterprise of the people of Obago would move them to take steps to scours steamers on the lines adopted by the Gisborne Company. The ferry service should have been taken over long ago. As regards oversea vessels they wore restricted to certain routes and certain ports, and the dominion had a difficulty in getting their produce, etc., sent to other places. Canada had ships of her own, and the United States were going in wholesale for ships of their own. In the light of • the enterprise of these countries was it not time that New Zealand adopted a similar progressive policy? The country had already paid the Union Steam Ship company several millions of money for the use -of its vessels during the war period—millions which could probably have cleared the whole cost of the fleet had the Government had 'the' foresight and? the enterprise to" make .'a fair offer 'to the company to buy it out. The_ country had parted with the millions required for chartering the company's vessels, but it was no nearer owning even one of them. Instead of that, the ship's had been passed over' to the P. and O. Company, and to-day New Zealand was at the tender mercies of the P. and O. Company. The fact "was that, they would have to get ships to carry their exports and bring them their necessities cheaply, and the sooner they started the better for everybody. THE RABBIT ACT Thev must have the Rabbit Nuisance Act amended. It'was not British justice that any man should be hauled up before a magistrate and convicted solely on the evidence of the inspector. If the inspector said that land was unduly infested with rabbits, that was the end of. it —the magistrate had to convict. He considered that the Government would have to go in for a system of purchasing rabbit netting and letting the farmers buy it at the lowest possible rate. FORESTRY. Mr Begg had spoken, on the question of forestry, and had appeared to give Mr Massey all the credit for the work done in forestry in the dominion. - Mr Massey deserved no credit for the forestry operations —he had only carried out work which had been handed on to him. Forestry work was first introduced by the iSToutVogel Ministry. Sir Harry Atkinson, however, had wiped it off, and had sent back Home the expert who had been engaged. It was only when the Ballance-Seddon Government got into power that the work was recommenced. They had only to go to Tapanui or Rotorua to see the wonderful results to be obtained from scientific treeplanting. These forests would prove of great value to the dominion in the future. Incidentally the candidate referred to the value of macrocarpa for posts, and advised his hearers to plant these trees wherever they had a spare piece of land. Macrocarpa was one of the best timbers they could grow for fencing purposes. HYDRO-ELECTRIC DEVELOPMENT. Hydro-electrio works would have to be pushed on. He was in favour, heart and soul, of hydro-electric operations. He was flad to see that in Southland the people ad decided by a large majority to go in for a hydro-electrio scheme, obtaining the water-power from Lake Monowai. When this work was completed electric power would be available for a large portion of the southern end of tho South Island. The Roxburgh people, too, had bought out a small mining plant to_ enable them to •obtain a supply of electric power. There were plenty of other places in the South Island where electric power would bo of the greatest. use in industrial work, and, if returned, he would see that the South Island got fair treatment from the powers that be, and that the operations which tho Government might introduce were not mainly confined 'to the North Island. . WHEAT-GROWING. They heard a great deal about wheatgrowing, and it was stated that the farmers were obtaining too high a price under the Government fixed values. So far, however, as his own particular district was concerned, they could not grow it at a lower price without suffering monetary loss. It was rather a remarkable thing that the oats and wheat in Otago to-day, from Milton southwards, were not of the same quality as 20 years ago. Evidentlv the crops had exhausted their lands of some particularly essential ingredient, and they must endeavour to restore the strength of the ground by the application of nitrates. Too much nitrogen had been removed from the land. Probably they would remember that i syndicate had been formed to utilise the enormous water-power available at Milford Sound for the purpose of working the huge deposits of limestone there. The deep water in the Sound would have enabled the necessary cargo steamers to have easy access to the works, and the limestone which would have been secured would have made a very valuable fertiliser. But the, Government would not allow the syndicate to pro-

ceed with its project, despite the fact that the syndicate was prepared to give over the works at a fair valuation if the Government ever desired to purchase them. The syndicate had also guaranteed to supply nitrates at a price not exceeding £9 I.os a ton. Their live Government, however, had turned the syndicate down. One of the manures they desired in New Zealand to-day was nitrates. It was the basis of most of the manures" they were obtaining from the manure works, and it was very dear at the present time. *■ In conclusion, the candidate said that the result of the last election showed that he wa 3 entitled to another run. He trusted that on polling day they would show their appreciation of his efforts and return him to Parliament. —(Applause.) In answer to questions, the candidate said that he considered that the large Taieri landholders who might benefit by the construction of the proposed huge bank alongside the river, should pay taxes proportionately on the enhanced value of their land. Either that or cut up the large areas into smaller farms. He was in favour of experimental farms. They should have them over the dominion. Returned soldiers and youths desirous of learning farming would thus bo able to obtain a groundwork. In the Taieri an experimental farm could well be carried on. Mr A. Moore moved : "That this meeting accords Mr Edie a hearty vote of thanks for his able address." Mr R. L. Blair seconded the motion, ■which jvas oarried unanimously. MR BEGG'S CAMPAIGN. Mr Begg addressed a meeting of ladies at Milton on Saturday afternoon. About 50 ladies were present. The speaker received a most- attentive hearing. At the close of Iris address Mrs T. Hitchon moved a vote of thanks to Mr Begg and of confidence in him as the member for Bruce. Tho motion was seconded by Mrs R. Bruce and carried unanimously. _ In the evening Mr Begg addressed meetings at Waihola and Lovell's Flat. In each place he was well received, and was accorded the usual compliment. Mr John Edio has been favourably received on a visit to Middlemarch and surrounding districts. He was present at tho

Strath Taieri Show, where he met many > of his supporters, amongst whom the opinion was expressed that Sir James Allen should not have contested tho la,st election, the effect of his doing so being to pub the present candidates to unnecessary expense and hard work. Mr James Begg addressed a fairly representative meeting at Waitahuna on Tuesday evening, and met with a very cordial reception. Mr Jos. Crane occupied the chair. Mr Begg spoko briefly on the lines of his opening address at Milton, dealing with the high cost of living, depreciation of the currency, county finance, over-development of public works, shortage of labour, education, State enterprise, eoidier settlements, and repatriation work. Replying to questions, Mr Begg said he did not favour State owner ship in commercial undertakings, unless independent of 'jiovernment control and working as in the case of the Bank of New Zealand. He also advocated; that all State-con-trolled concerns should issue properly prepared balance sheets, as was required from private owners. Mr R. M'Corkindale moved a hearty vote of thanks to Mr Begg for his address. Thiq was seconded by Mr Thos. Oorry, and carried unanimously. Mr Begg has had a 'busy time. On Tuesday afternoon he addressed) a meeting at Waipori, when a motion of thanks and confidence, moved by Mr W. H. Gare, seconded by Mrs J. T. Johnston, was unanimously carried. Mr Begg addressed well-attended and enthusiastic meetings on Wednesday at Beaumont and Evans Flat. At both places votes of thanks vnd confidence were carried unanimously and with acclamation. Later in the evening Mr Begg addressed about 150 electors in the Town Hall, Lawrenoe, where he spoke at length on the principal subjects of the clay, and received a most attentive hearing. Ho was uccorded a vote of thanks and confidence, which was carried by acclamation.