A FIGHTING SPEECH

Southland Times, Issue 16840, 16 September 1911, Page 6

A FIGHTING SPEECH

I SB, JAMES ALLEN LIT GOOD NOBK. STRAIGHT FROM THE SHOULDER. (From Our Parliamentary Reporter). WELLINGTON, Sept. 15. The Budget debate was raised this afternoon from zero to something more than blood heat by a speech by Mr Jas. Allen, who was in his best fighting form. He followed Mr Arnold, the Dunedin Labour member, who had copied the late Mr Fowlds in his reference to the Opposition as a negligible quantity. “I don’t call our party Conservative, Mr Allen said, “except that it conserves what is worth while In our legislation. It is not a Conservative party, as Mr Arnold would like to have the people believe it. We call ourselves the Refer Party. There are a certain number of reforms that we want to see carried out, and we are going to say to the country that we believe that these should be carried out.” One of the reforms they would fight for was Insurance against unemployment. If the Reform Party was accorded the opportunity it would deal with the question. "We have committed ourselves to it, and we know the difficulties in the way if we ever get upon the Treasury Benches. (Cries of "Oh.") It will receive conisideration.” If the Reform Party did get on the Treasury Benches it would not treat that question in the manner that the Government had treated the local Government Bill. Given the opportunity, a measure would be brought down within a reasonable time. The party would make an honest attempt to construct a serviceable measure if it was given a chance. He could not say that the history of the Government showed that it would be done. He had come across a promise made by the Government in 1894, that a local Government Bill would be brought .down, and he wanted to know where that Bill was to-day. He agreed, however, that it was a difficult subject. As to the right to work policy that had been enunciated by Mr Arnold,, he contended that the difficulty in. shaping such a measure would not be so great as framing a bill to provide insurance for unemployment. ( Whether it was a question of the right to work or insurance against unemployment, theVe were men on his side of tire House who were quite prepared to consider the questions and do their level best to solve the problems, just as there were men on the other side of the House who were prepared in the same direction, and he hoped and believed that they would mdke an honest endeavour to do something 'in the Interest of those who sought to be considered in the matter. He objected, he went on to say, to the waste of money on railway construction on almost every mile of railway, and he challenged a reference to the cost of construction to-day as compared with the cost of construction fifteen years’ ago. Sir Joseph Ward: "Compare them with other countries.” ' .Mr Allen: “I will come to the question of comparison presently.” Sir Joseph Ward: “So will I.” Mr Allen' went on to say that the cost of the construction of railways had gone up by three t to four thousand pounds a. mile during the last eight or ten years. The cost at present was put down at about £II,OOO a mile. That was very largely owing to ihe wasteful system of construction. He contended that, instead of building heavy railways into new country districts. it would be far fairer to construct lighter railways and so enable the country to be opened up.. What, he asked, was the present policy of the Government? It said that it had not the money to construct railways; and it would not allow the people to construct the railways and hand them over to the Government. He could not understand such a policy. He was of opinion that if people living in a locality were willing to construct a railway they should be allowed to do so, provided they did not want to retain private control of the line. Turning to the Budget, he said that he did not believe in the Government attempting to discover the opinion of the House by bringing proposals forward in this way. The Government ought to frame its legislation on certain principles, and then bring down that legislation for discussion. Instead of doing that the Government did not even bring down its proposals in the Governor’s speech, but when the Financial Statement came down the measures were outlined, so that the Government might discover what was the popular opinion. A member: “A very wise thing.”' Mr Allen; “It is not statesmanlike. A , statesman . ought to say. ‘This is the right thing to do, and if Parliament does not agree we will go out ,of office.’ This is merely a method of hanging on to' office.” Sir Joseph Ward, he went on to say, had accused him of misrepresenting and injuring the credit of the Dominion; but Mr Allen analysed the tables attached to the Budget to show that Sir Joseph Ward had overstated the amount of the Public Debt by not taking account of the sinking funds under the State Guaranteed Advances Act and the Advances to Settlers Act' If an account was taken of those sinking funds the net debt would be reduced to £77,678,000. He was, he said, making that analysis only in order to show how grossly careless, how criminally careless, (cries of “Oh”), how politically careless, the Prime Minister was to have brought down a statement so full of inaccuracies. Mr Laurenson: "It is very satisfactory.” v . Mr Allen; “Yes: but he is injuring the credit of the country.” They had evidence, he went bn to say, of the internal condition of the Cabinet. There had been two resignations, and he wanted to show from internal evidence what the Cabinet was like. Mr Hogg resigned in 1909, and in resigning, said that he never knew the policy of the Government when he joined it, and did not then know its policy. More lately they had seen Mr Fowlds resign, and in doing so he had said that the party could I not live on traditions alone. “They have some good traditions behind them and the name label, and they are living on that,” said Mr Allen. Mr Davey: “You are changing your label every year.”' Mr Allen went on to quote Messrs Hogg and Fowlds as representing an opinion of Cabinet from the point of view of those who- had been there and who were not there now, and he added, by way of explaining the methods adopted by the Government in times of stress, “I don’t wonder that we have a Budget like this.”