A CRUSHING REPLY.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13277, 30 November 1911, Page 3

A CRUSHING REPLY.

MR. ISITT ON MR. MASSEY AND THE OPPOSITION.

The following letter to the "Southland Daily News" is published in Thursday's issue of that paper:—

Sir,—l learn from press reports that at the gathering of New Zealand Oppositionists the Opposition congregated from all quarters in Sir Joseph Ward's electorate for manifest reasons. Mr. Massey quoted mo as follows :—"Sir Joseph Ward had gone to the member for Christchurch for a character, but he did not quote the-n-hole of Mr. Isitt's speech, which concluded by describing the Government as opportunists and like snails, which drew in their horns wlion they struck something solid." Now for Mr. Massey. The statement, while it conveys a different impression than that carried by the whole speech, is fairly truthful. It is not, for instance, on the same immoral level as that gentleman's reiterated statement that the Premier voted against woman's suf-

frage. I did use the words quoted, but the wholo passage is needed. "What," I asked my audience, "are the virtues of the Government ? They have given us all the progressive Liberal and Labour legislation we possess. They have, in tl«rteeth of the persistent and bitter opposition of Mr. Massey and his followers, wrested to a large extent of lands of New Zealand from the- hands of the privileged few ana opened them to the occupation of the many. What are their faults ? They have- in some things been weak and vacillating; they have put out their feelers like snails, and when they touched something solid they have drawn back again. Like most politicians they are opportunists, and not prepared to push legislation which they believe will wreck them. When blamed they retort that a living dog is better than a dead one. This may hot be ideally courageous, but do my hearers know of any Government in tho world that ever pushed any measure, they believed would destroy them?"

Now, to begin with. I am gratified by the attention the Opposition are Hardy, the Opposition Whip, informgiving me. When I first spoke, Mr. Ed the Opposition press that my speech was so weak and foolish that lie did not think it worth while to put up anyone to answer me. They have been trying to answer me ever-since, and seem strangely perturbed and irato over my weak and.foolish utter-

ances. Why is this thus? Again, they declare that I am so mad, so blind and fanatical an admirer of Sir Joseph Ward that any testimony I give in his favour is worse than worthless. Yet tho great Leader of the. Opposition quotes for the approval of his followers some of my strictures on the Government. Now, which way will they have itP If my striciures carry weight, ray testimony should be the more variable. If lam a blind, mad, fanatical admirer of Sir Joseph, where do these strictures come from? I leave Mr. Massey to explain.

"Sir Joseph Ward," said Mr. Massoy, "came to me for a character." Ho did nothing of the kind. As a newcomer I listened day after day to such persistent, contemptible, and manifest Calumnies that I felt there was a primary and higher duty incumbent on me than voicing my own political views* That the first duty that any decent man with any sense of fairplay and honour in him owed to himself was to step right outside the party political ring and enter a wholesouled protest against tactics that degraded tho men using them and disgraced the whole Parliament. This I did, and did deliberately.

I want now to say to the electors of Awarua, if you prefer Conservatism to the Liberal policy, of course you will vote; in accordance with your political conviction. But if your views are Liberal, do not be weak enough to be influenced by the calumnies of men who because they have no policy to offer you whine for office on the plea of Governmental corruption —a plea that they have utterly failed to prove. Remember that a man as keen, as honest, as fearless as the late T. E. Taylor, after listening to these charges for two sesisons, declared his conviction that they were false, and that there was probably no Parliament in the world freer from dishonest practice than the present New Zealand Parliament.

I say then to the electors of the Dominion that your choice is definite and limited. You must choose not between the Government and some idenl government that exists only in your fancy. You must choose between the Government and the most helplessly mediocre Opposition I have ever known. If you stand for class interests, if you champion the growth of monopoly, added wealth for the wealthy, and increased poverty for the poor, vote for Mr. Massey and retrogressive legislation. But if you believe that every time the man is worth more than the dollar, if you would advance the general prosperity of New Zealand and tho moral and material good of the many, send us more true reformers to Parliament j that we may urge the Government forward. Do not send us Oppositionists to hold our country back. I am, etc., LEONARD M. ISITT. Christchurch, Nov. 20th, 1911.