THE COUNCIL BREEZE

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6410, 3 November 1923, Page 4

THE COUNCIL BREEZE

(To the Editor.)

(To the Editor) Sir,—ln answer to “Liberal” and Mr Kennedy, the former says I took a long time in answering his letter. As a matter of fact I had it answered 12 days before, but overlooked sending it in. He says what have the Reform Party done for 12 years if they are only now bringing in a Bill further curtailing members of Parliament from getting grants by favor or otherwise, and that my letter was mainly what Mr Coates was doing, and why does he not tell us what Mr Massey has done to sweep away Liberal corruption, because there was no Liberal corruption to sweep away. Well, “Liberal,” one would think you were Rip Van Winkle, and only just woke up. Corruption, have you never heard of the Hine Charges, where some Liberal members of Parliament were paid large sums for their help in getting the Government to take over land for settlement. Then you forget just jafter Mr Massey took office the biggest war in history started, and he had sense enough to see it wanted an undivided House to be successful, and he proposed the Coalition Government, and at the end of the war, just when his help was most needed, did Sir Joseph Ward play the game ? That is why the ,< people of New Zealand will have none of him. Mr Kennedy says I have cast reflections on the Rt. Hon. R. J. Seddon. I emphatically deny this, and am proud to state that of all the Prime Ministers of New Zealand none was more able and honorable, and at all times without fear worked in what he thought the best interests of the people of New Zealand. I was very sorry when word came of his passing, but able as he undoubtedly was, my opinion is if he could not have lived another five years it would have been better for this country if he had died five or six years earlier. Then he says I was a rail sitter until the wind blew me off. Well, the wind is inside or outside most people, and I ,am glad Mr Kennedy thinks it is outside me. The next paragraph is more wind; why should I prove what everybody knows. Then grants by favour (you have left out “or otherwise”), which is a Liberal way of making it read the opposite to what was intended. Then you say “Mr Walters until quite recently claims to have followed the Liberal Party.” I did not. I was an Independent, and voted either ! Liberal or Reform, whichever was the best man. I voted for Mr Wilkinson in Taranaki the election before I voted for Mr Poland here. You say, if this Party was good enough for him in the days when he was a young and vigorous man striving to climb the ladder of fame, would we not be justified in coming to the conclusion that it was his broad acres and 600 Jersey cows that changed him from Liberal to Reform. No, because I had no cows until years after I became a Reformer, and further I had more cattle in Taranaki than .1 have had up here. No, it was the outcome of mature consideration. You can hardly realise this perhaps, but I am sure some men are at their best when they are young, and some make the wisest de- ’ cisions at a more mature age. I evidently am one of these. Then you say because the Liberals did or did not do something at the time of the Watersiders’ strike that they have no idea of right and justice. I am quite satisfied they knew what was right and just, but what I objected to was their lack of backbone in not carrying out that knowledge. Re Dried Milk shares. I must say you are a typical Liberal. In the vi£or of youth you take up these shares, help bear the burden without growling too much, and then just as Mr Goodfellow and Mr Wright predict a\ fortune in it, you get the wind up and want to sell, but I will oppose the transfer. No wonder my old friend Harry Holland and my new friend William Massey will have nothing to do with you Liberals.—l am, etc., F. W. WALTERS.