MAIDEN SPEECH

Southland Times, Issue 21648, 9 March 1932, Page 6

MAIDEN SPEECH

MR J. HARGEST NUMBER OF SUBJECTS DEALT WITH PRIME MINISTER REPROVED (From Our Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, March 8. An almost boyish and altogether winning frankness characterized the maiden speech of Mr J. Hargest in the House of Representatives this afternoon. Rising as the. first speaker in the Address-in-Reply debate for the day, he advocated action and bluntly referred the Prime Minister to what had been done in Great Britain while commenting on the meagre results obtained during the two weeks of the present session. Although Mr Hargest only spoke for about 20 minutes, he dealt with a number of subjects, the principal ones being the need for better balance in reciprocity of trade and for a .reduction in expenditure on the High Commissioner’s office and the League of Nations Secretariat. Referring to the work of Parliament, Mr Hargest suggested that the Prime Minister might emulate the British Parliament. The Government in the Old Country had been elected a month before New Zealand’s present Government, but they had done a great deal of work. As a result, Britain was on the highroad to success while New Zealand had stood still. . The Prime Minister and his Cabinet had been given what practically amounted to a blank cheque at the General Election but in spite of that, the Government had been three months in office and had sat in session into the third week and nothing had been done. “It is time the Prime Minister realised that he has a mandate from the country,” Mr Hargest. declared. “If he has legislation to bring down, he should bring it down and I feel sure, the House will stand behind him. If the Prime Minister will go ahead, we will support him and I believe that the country is not. so concerned with what goes on here as with what we can show in results.”