REFORM’S “CAMOUFLAGE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 509, 12 November 1928, Page 7

REFORM’S “CAMOUFLAGE”

MAKING SEATS SAFE FOR LABOUR ATTACK BY MR. STALLWORTHY “The Coates Government Has departed from the splendid principles of conservatism upheld by Mr. Massey in the zenith of his power. What shall it profit Reform if it gains the world and lose its own soul?" Addressing 150 electors at the Epsom Library on Saturday evening Mr. A. J. Stallworthy, United candidate for Eden, had some hard things to say of the present Government. Air. G. H. White presided. The candidate wondered that there should be anything left in New Zealand to reform after 16 years. What the Dominion needed to-day was a reformation of the whole political structure. That the Government was exerting every effort to put Labour back on the Opposition benches rather than the United Party was the speaker’s View. During the campaign Air. Potter had been patting Air. Savage on the back, declaring he would be sorry to see the Labour member unseated. Air. Savage, on the other hand, was equally well disposed toward the sitting member for Eden. This was a form of camouflage that merited the most serious rebuke. Air. Stallworthy went on. With a more than equal chance of capturing Auckland West the United organisation had put M.r. Speirs in the. field. Then to make the seat

safe for Labour the Reform Party had put up Air. Adeane. The candidate refuted a statement in a recent Labour bill that he \\ould not follow his leader if elected. Air. Stallworthy asserted he had never said anything that could be construed that way. It was not cricket. The speaker went on to criticise the Government’s financial and land policies. There were hundreds of citizens in Auckland who had thought they had come to the age when they had finished with business activities but many found they had to start life all over again because of the gross mismanagement of the Government in permitting the bottom to drop out of the property market. The wool barons and large financial friends of Reform were the only ones who were not allowed to suffer. The recent announcement by the Prime Minister regarding Alotuihi. Mount Albert and the Alorningside tunnel were merely election catchvotes.