THE ADDRESS-IN-REPLY.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 132, 10 July 1914, Page 7

THE ADDRESS-IN-REPLY.

END OF THE DEBATE. USELESS VERBIAGE. GETTING ON TO BUSINESS. [From our own Parliamentary Beportsr.f WELLINGTON, July 9. The collapse of . the debate on the

Address-iu-Reply was most unexpected. Everyone expected that it would last at least another day,' but it was not to be. The debate has closed with hardly a. word from the Ministerial benches in answer to such criticism.as has been offered. The- : division of last night settled all argu- > inents, and there was no Teason why the - debate should drag on-drearily day after day, with so little practical result. Tho House may now settle down to real workj*:< •aud the country may be congratulated that the end of the time and-money-wasting verbiage has come so soon.

This the galleries were amused by the clash between.: the members for the southern and western Maori electorates. There is an old tribal difference between these two scions of noble Native races, and they never fail to come to verbal blows, when the question of Native affairs is before the House. Mr Parata • „- ; T never forgets that Dr Pomare's grand- /'' | father was ,pne of the party ojf Te Bauparaha 's raiders, who were not stopped until they reached Otakau; nor" does Dr •.. vjj Pomare forget it —hinc illae Mr Parata delivered a telling attack, but" the Minister representing the Native race -'f' m"the Cabinet was more than-'bis equal. ; Out of the conflict of words Br" Pomareemerged triumphant. The remainder of the debate was more or les? on stereo- -1typed lines; neither one side nor the other was flattering to its opponents in the talent it presented to carry on the war of words. At the same time Christ* - -. church followers of the political game ~ " must be interested in the Speech of Mr . , M 'Combs, which was a very good speech" ,tc indeed. He kept off the subjects -on ; which he is inclined to be tiresome,"land ~ spoke quite, effectively on the question of the recent strikes and industrial troubles , generally. There can be no question in the advent of Mr M 'Combs the Labour ' and Radical' side of.'.the. House has gained. J His style of oratory is telling) and in- * • cisive, and. he gives promise of being a \-1 very useful nieliiber. '

ADDRESS-IN-REPLY.

The debate on the AddrfcSS-in-Reply was resumed by Mr'T. Parata (Southern Maori), who condemned the present Government for . ite treatment of the. Natives.regarding, their land. .The cry .' of the Reformers that there were large blocks of Native lands lying idle was --»~ [ a inere bogey, a The Ministerialists were- J-. I (octiuaaly saying that these large Woekg existed, but when they were aske<? to . schedule therii for the benefit of the members, they always fail«:d. r ihe whole truth was that the Government, who were the friends of the large loud owners, wished to turn the people's eyes away from the large blocks held by a few Europeans, and to. try. and rrit a European settlers on the Ngjive land. T Ihe attitude of the Government was'; ft cue of apathy to the Native. The Prime Minister himself had in tin* duties of his. not having x eplied to a deputation of Natives whieh had waited, upon him regarding some Is nd agreements. The Prime Minister had not had the honesty r! " Mr Speaker: You must- not reflect . / upon an lion: members honesty. ' > Mr Parata: I apologise, sir. The ; Prime Minister, he said, had shuffled- \ and shuffled and shuffled, ; ,and the ■■■-,?/ Natives had been greatly disappointed. Ir was not fair treatment. THE ' 4 EUROPE ANISING,"PttOCESS. ; =

Mr Par at a said, that Mr' Eterries's idea of "Europeanising" the Maori >•* was simply going to leave tlie Natives penniless. It was a trick to take the Natives' land aWav. The Maoris could not be, Europeanised by legislation. They- were not thrifty; they, did not know the value of money. They were to be left impoverished, and: the Minister's last legislation meant that the Maori would never have a chance of putting his case before the Maori Land Board to get a fair deal for*his land. The Maoris coiild not change their mode of living sudcjenly. , Eurbjpeari'. civilisation was. produce of ftuti4l[e<!s of years.' They .could not expect the Maoris to .couie to the same business ii'vel in sixty ; wears; The Maoris were jiot properly represented in Parliament, owing to the fact that l)r Pomare, who sat on' the 'Ministerial benches, had changed his; Vote. prove this statei.ient, Mr; Parata read ; a- lengthy stateluent by several Maori chiefs. They stated that the >IIon: Dr Pomare hnd been returned on the distinet urnWrstanding tlitat 1 lie was going to support J the Native policy ofSir James Carroll. Shortly before tlie fatal division of 1912, a rumour .got to the ears of certain chiefs that the Honourable Doctor was jaclined ..to ~sVtk on the rail. Therefore the leading chiefs of his constituency ■ liad come post haste to Wellington to I .see about it. This was a conversation - which took pi nee between the leading chief and Dr Pomare: — T)r Pomare: 1 am not in favour of the Opposition or the Government. 1 am an Independent. The Chief: No. I don't want you to take up <that attitude. We want you to support Sir James Carroll; that is, the Government. Dr Pomare agreed to ilo so. Mr Parata considered Ih;it Dr Pomare had broken faith with his constituents. A SI-ERITED DEFENCE. The Hon. Dr M. Pomare. (Western Mnon) said he di<l not. know what obr j (if t, the hon. member for Southern Mnori had in view in bringing forward ;oninious of different people about ■ i;.political views when those political views? had been well known, not only to f ii>.embers of the House,, t>ut to the - Natives throughout. the country. He leeried r.he Government without adducing any evidence for-doing so. There was not a tittle of, evidence to substantiate his argument that the Government' had doue wrong*; In his first speech t.b the House he was honest; he was pure : : Sii' Joseph Ward raised a point of order on account of the use of the word " honest."' ? i 1 Air Speaker: I cion.'t think that is an expression thai* should be used.. <~-tf ''POLITICALLY HONEST." V t;_ Dr Pomare: The hon. gentleman at - !• V

that time was pure in his intentions, bijt necessity had found him amongst a, strange crowd of bedfellows and he had altered his vie ws a great deal. In Lis maiden speech he said that "until fjuite recently the Native legislation Tras a positive disgrace." He condemned his own side wholesale. He was politically honest. : Mr Parata: Read it all. Dr Pomare: The hon. member conturned: "I don't know whether it was that the members of the House did not know what they doing, but it v.'as absolutely a public scandal.'' Mr Parata: "What was?" Dr POmare: The native land policy of his own side. What was the hon. gentleman's opinion of his own side of the House. At that time he was pure; his political morality had not been tampered with. Now he was backsliding. • During the course of his remarks he - -said that the member for Marsden had iiiade cM'tain statements with regard to the large areas held by Natives. Quite true. There was still a consider- . "#le portion of their patrimony left to -tiem, and he (Dr Pomare), for one, &fenied the idleness of any Maori on pakeha! land. (Hear, hear.) Was the hon. member not in favour of the Maori taking on his fullest possible citizenship in the country? . : 'Mr Parata: "Eight per cent." » Dr Pomare: He did not say eight per cent, in his speech. He said: "Surely .there are natives who are not sufficiently well educated to "feSe placed on the same footing as Europeans. But those who have passed the fourth and fifth' standards ought to be allowed to fi§ve the same privilege?, and there ought to be no different law for them . than the Europeans." STABBED IN THE BACK.

- It was interesting to note how some members forgot former statements, and "Went back on them. The hon. member's father had been consistent for -2& years, but this new political authoisty on Maori affairs seemed better .fitted to'act as a land agent than anything else. In 1892, 130,000 acres of tjfre Maoris' land on the West Coast was ■fifched from them- without their bein'g consulted in. any way. That was what • the hon. member's'party had done. The Hon. member's 1 method of dealing with life people was to stab them in the back. If the Maoris of this country "Were weeping, they were weeping for joy because of the Government policy. The-hon.-member knew a little more thtan bis own boots. (Laughter.) As for his (Dir Pomare's) allegiance to the other side, Why Sir Joseph and his. colleagues had sent out telegrams asking the people to vote against him. Sis people had put him in the House because they had been crying for a long tune against the injustices that * had been done; and because of the intrica"cies of the law which put them on the basis of mere children. His hon. friend would still have them as children. He 1 said he ?(Dr Pomarfe) was bribed into the Ministry by a statement of Mr Allen down south that if .one of the Native numbers' were returned in support of tlie TVlassey party a seat would be found for him in the Ministry. The first time he (Dr Pomare) ever heard that statement was when the hon. gentleman made it in the House. He would ask' the hon. gentleman to consult (the rest of his party and find out what "offers they had made in the**way of seats in the Ministry. (Laughter.) BROKEN PLEDGES. .Mr A. H. Hindmarsh (Wellington ■ South) said that there were so many broken pledges about the present Parliament that a-large proportion of members became-sensitive when the question mas- mentioned. A charge of pledgebreaking had been levelled against himself by the lion, member for Waikato A. Young), -but he challenged the-member to bring a tittle of evidence to support the charge. With regardto Mr*. Young himself, there was ' m«eh more ground for such a charge. Government -members: Oh! - -Mr-Hindmarsh: Yes; he has supported every iparty in politics. At one time be 1 opposed the Minister of Native Affairs (Hon. W. H. Herries). Sir Joseph Ward: And ran him down terribly. •An Opposition member: A political hypocrite. Mr Hindmarsh: Certainly. He went on to attack the member for Patea (Mr .G. Y. Pearce) for sitting on the Local Bills Committee to consider and try matters dealing with the Patea and Wanganui Harbour Boards, when he had land contiguous to both harbours. No judge or magistrate would sit in judgment on a.question in which he had a pecuniary interest. It had been the duty of the member for Patea to inform the committee of his position. -Mr Pearce: They all knew; and so would you if you attended. .You never attended oftener than once a month. ' Mr Hindmarsh went on .to read an extract from a newspaper dealing with the- holdings of Mr Pearce. There was a map accompanying the report, and on it Mr Pearce's property was marked by a black spot. "I hope," he added, " that the hon. member will be able to wipe out the black spot at the next election.''

Mi- Pearce read the apology which the papep made a day or two later. Mr Speaker: The hon. member will have an opportunity of making an explanation later. Mr Hindmarsh said that he was directly opp9sed to dishonesty in publie life, and whenever he came across a case of it he would expose it. Mr Speaker: The hon. member must not impute dishonesty to another hon. member. He must withdraw. Mr Hindmarsh: I withdraw, sir. But I wasn't imputing dishonesty to the member for Patea; I impute lack of patriotism and regard for the welfare of the people.

Mr Hindmarsh went on to argue that the real patriot was the man who settled on the land, not the man who was subjected to military training with a view to his being shot. GOVERNMENT CONGRATULATED.

■"Mr H. M. Campbell (Hawke's Bay), in a speech lasting only a few minutes, congratulated the Government on its general administration. He thought the grafting of the freehold would prove to be one of the finest things the Dominion had done for its people. (Opposition dissent.) Nearly all who could were benefiting under it. Opposition members: How many? Mr Campbell: I said nearly all. THE STRIKE AGAIN. _

Mr J. M'Combs (Lyttelton) dealt at some considerable length with the question of the late strike, and the two sides to the struggle. He spul there was only one side which had lived up to its principle , and that side was the workers. The employers had proposed to set up a defensive body, but it turned out to be a body purely for attack. In defence of this argument, he read the annual report of the Canterbury branch of the Employers' Federation, which impressed upon its members the necessity of catching up with, and defeating, their inveterate enemies, the Bed Federation of Labour. Was this a policy of defence? The workers were not opposed to arbitration, but they

were opposed to the way the Act had been used to defeat the principle of arbitration. He believed that strikes were a barbarous method of settling industrial disputes. War strikes and lock-outs were an uncertain way of deciding any question, as no one could determine which side was right and which side would win. The employers (Bleed not pride themselves on having a monopoly of the feeling that industrial troubles should be settled by arbitration. Mr Pryor, the secretary of the Employers' Federation, had discovered that by the adoption of the contract system they could defeat the Arbitration Act. This had particular application in Waihi. The; employers recog-, nised that if they could bring the mine workers under the Act they could fetter the workers and prevent them from •striking. Then they could proceed to rob them of the protection which the Act was framed to provide them with. Lovely, wasn't it? (Laughter.) The tradesmen of Waihi were now beginning to see the true inwardness of the strike. Some of them were sorry that they had taken the part of the strike-breakers. MR LAURENSON'S SURPRISE." The then in power, jn which the late Mr G. Laurenson was Minister of Labour, was prepared to settle the strike, and there was no more surprised man in the world than Mr Laurenson when he realised the realstate of affairs. If the Government had remained in power the Waihi strike would have been settled much sooner, and there would not have been that other difficulty which occurred on the wharves, and which was simply an attempt on the part of the employers to rob the workers of the rights conferred upon them by the statute law of the Dominion. \

. POLITICAL CAPITAL. It .had been made plain to him that the Reformers were going to attempt to make political capital out of the strike. They planned to make such capital, and actually prolonged' the strike, so that they could get back to power. (Hear, hear.) Mr D. J. Nathan, a prominent Wellington merchant, had exposed, that. Mr M'Combs went on to contend that the employers had no justification for tearing up their agreement with the wharf labourers. At one stage, in the earlier part of the strike, the combined shipping companies wished to have a settlement, .and so did the Prime Minister. But political influences were brought to bear. Instead of the strike lasting only nine or ten days, it was dragged on for purely political reasons. THE REAL ANARCHISTS.

He maintained that the employers were the anarchists in that struggle. At an early stage of the strike the shipping companies offered certain terms, and the Federation of Labour accepted them, desiring peace. But the combined employers, including several Reform candidates at the next election, prevented the shipping companies from agreeing to the settlement which had been almost decided upon. That was what was going on behind the scenes. The Massey Government had aided and abetted ih the denial to the workers of the rights which had been granted them. At the-conference Mr Massey had jumped up from his chair quickly, so that there could be no appeal to reason. He definitely charged the Government with a plot to continue an industrial conflict which had meant suffering to thousands of people.

LAND SETTLEMENT. Mr C. K. Wilson (Taumarunui) remarked that the most important question at present was the subdivision of large areas into small holdings.for settlement. Statistics showed that the system of special grants for roads was a most pernicious one. The local bodies should be provided with the means, under a regular system, to provide communication. There were paid agitators in the Public Service who made it their business to do everything possible to injure the Government. Grants were being wasted in a shocking way. Sir Joseph Ward said he had been misrepresented when it was suggested that he had offered two or three Dreadnoughts at the Imperial Conference in 1911. He had simply elaborated a scheme by which three Dreadnoughts could be provided out of the annual contributions on the basis of a per capita contribution of 10/-, and a contribution for an Imperial navy, not a local navy. '

MOKE STRIKE. Mr F. H. Smith (Waitaki) congratulated the member for Lyttelton on coming out in his true colours. He was a representative of the Red Federation, and he showed it in his speech. He did not know that there was a meeting when the men should have been at work, and it was decided that there should be no strike. Yet when they went back to work and found that some of their own union men were occupying their places, they decided- that they would strike. That was a proof that they broke the agreement, and that the union existed not for unionists as a class, but for individual interests. The Red Federationists were out to break every agreement that was made.. Proportional representation was not going to prevent alliances -of, any description. He had not heard of any system under which a combination could not exist between any two parties. It was said the Government side was against Labour. They were not so foolish, they knew, where the bulk of the voters were in this country. The Government was not against leaseholds, as had been represented by the '' flying squadron,'' but it must be recognised that the same permanent settlement and improvements would never be got with leaseholds as freeholds. The classification and valuation of | land could easily be improved. He represented the farmers, and so long as he was in Parliament he was going tfi do the best he could for all classes. THE MOVER IN REPLY.

-Mr E. P. Lee, the mover of the motion, rose to reply at 11.10 p.m. He said that the Opposition now knew the position of parties, and he hoped they were satisfied. The Government had come through the debate with clean hands.

Opposition members: Oh! Mr Lee said that the criticism against the Government had been most feeble; the feature of it was in connection with the naval policy. There was no doubt that the Liberals had made this a party question, and he could say with certainty that the navy would be made a party question at the hustings by all. Hon. Mr Allen: Not by'Mr Myers. Mr Lee proceeded to ask what Sir Joseph Ward would have committed the country to if his proposals to the Imperial Conference had been carried out. He quoted from the report of the Imperial Conference, and alleged that Sir .Joseph had proposed an Imperial Council, with power of taxation, a course which the other members of the Conference ridiculed.

Sir Joseph Ward said that in quoting the report of the Imperial Conference Mr Lee had deliberately omitted paragraphs in order to misrepresent him.

The motion was carried at midnight, and the House adjourned.