GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 67, 2 November 1911, Page 5

GENERAL ELECTIONS.

KON. T. MACKENZIE’S CAMPAIGN. In the course of his address at Eltham on Tuesday night the Hon. T. I Mackenzie made special reference to * tlie criticism to wliica politicians were suOmitted, and said: i can well understand the electors being in a perfect dilemma as to wiio to uelieve. On the one hand the most scathing statements are made, and on tne otiier perpetual defence is being set up; so that between one ana tuc otmer, matters of real public importance—questions dealing with the living present and the pregnant future—are thrust into the background; and it is only in the snatcnes between these defences that we are able to promote measures for the benefit ot the community. What is the nature of some of the charges p From whom do they emanate? i may here say that I believe that some of the Administration’s traduccrs have for so long harped on tne one string that they have themselves become obsessed of what they allege, and thoroughly convinced of the truthfulness of their aspersions. That this is so is lamentable. About the first speech 1 ever read of Mr. Massey’s was in connection with his election to Parliament in 1894, when ho said ho hoped that the election contest he was then engaged , in would be carried out without personalities or recriminations being indulged in. Yet, later on in his remarks ho makes the following statement with reference to previous Governments:^—“To keep one set of men in office, corruption reigned right through the body politic, the Ministry, and the Executive,” and he applied that to all Governments. From that date to now he has had his nose keen on public scandal. If it was not Eraser, Bushy, or Pomahaka, it was Knyvett or Tammanyism, Mokau or “Pickings”; and wo have, therefore, interspersed throughout his speeches such statements as: wo are political hypocrites; that if it were a question het\ voen our skins and the country, the country would go every time; that we use public money for private purposes, and take out of the public purse for our private purposes more chan we are entitled to ; Hurt there is bribery and corruption, Mr Mackenzie went on to quotb Mr. L. M. Isitt’s speech on this question (already published in our columns), and followed by asking what wore the remarks of Mr. Eowlds in connecion will his question of bribery and corruption on the occasion of his resignation from. tho Ministry. They wore these: “I tfiiuk it is only fair to Sir Joseph Ward and my other colleagues to state that the charges of corruption and Tammanyism which have been so freely levelled against the Government, have been entirely unwarranted. The members of the Government may have made mistakes, but I know of nothin ing that occurred during my coimec- * tion with them that could be called corrupt.” Let us take also the words of the late Mr. T. E. Taylor, regarding our Parliament. Speaking in connection with the Hine charges, Hansard, vol. 153, Jingo 1107, he said: “Take this Parliament as a whole, and take the whole European members of this Assembly, and there is probably not an Assembly in the world that is cleaner and against which so few charges of improper conduct could he brought as against tin’s House.” Then I have pleasure in placing on record the remarks made by Mr. Justice Edwards in proposing the toast of Parliament on January 2d last, when he said: “ . . . . But he knew this—that for sincerity of purpose and incorruptibility of honesty, the New Zealand Parliament would rank second to none in the world. Mistakes have been made no doubt in the past, and will be made in the future; hut so long as Parliaments possess these qualities you can depend upon it the country will march onward.” Personally, I resent with all the intensity of my nature, tiiese insinuations of bribery and corruption. (Applause.) Regarding the dipping of fingers in the public purse, I will tell you how I fared during my first two years as a Minister. 1 was £4OO poorer on my first year, and the second year, in addition to the salary I received, I spent £SOO of my own money, and I venture to say that at ; tho end of this year it will lie nearer £IOOO of my own money in addition to all I get fro m the Government, and any accountant duly accredited, Is at liberty to go through my hooks for a verification or refutation of this statement. One would not perhaps feel, it so deeply if it were not that these traducers go beyond this country to' do their fell work, as I will presently show. I have taken tho more serious charges first, as they reflect on one’s personal honour. Perhaps at this stage I might quote a leaderette that appeared in the Wellington “Evening Post” of October 26. It. is headed “Personalities in Public Life,” and reads as follows: “Words almost as much used in politics as ‘consideration’ and ‘question’ are ‘innuendo’ and ‘insinuation.’ . . . Sweeping charges of ‘Tammanyism’ have been vaguely uttered against tho Government, and the Opposition, in turn, has been accused of trying to build for itself a place of power on the ruins of the country’s credit. . . Tho petty squabbling, the hitter bickering, the recriminations and revil-

ings may amuse the vulgar, just as a

coarse jest may amuse some persons, Ik but this spectacle of public men p charging one another, in general ' terms, with political burglary and blackguardism is something to sadden and pain the vast majority of Now Zealanders. The latest instance was last night, in the House of Representatives, when matters of public policy were forgotten while the parties had a squabble about a statement alleged to have been made outside the House by an Opposition candidate. . . . . Politicians and men who aspire to lie politicians, or even to he statesmen, are in a hurry to score a point in the political game, even if they have to go out of hounds to do it. They hasten to make general charges without quoting fact's to warrant their unweighed words. The rancour which now infects party politics will inevitably tend to keep out of public life a number of men of character, knowledge, and general equipment to servo.the public well.”