THE OPPOSITION.

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

THE OPPOSITION.

CRITICISED BY HON. G. FOWLDS,

Opposition principles and tactics came in for trenchant criticism at. the hands of the Hon. George Fowlds during the course of an address to the electors of Grey Lynn the other evening. Though no longer a member of the Ministry, Mr. Fowlds said he was not going to let pass the unjust criticisms of the Government with which lie had been associated. He quoted from Air: Massey's speech at Napier, in which the Leader of the Opposition had declared that the Government was doing absolutely nothing in connection with the. railway employees' grievances. Mr. Massey had made that statement, despite the fact that only a few weeks ago he had been in his place in the House when the Government brought down a proposal on the Estimates* to vote a special increase of £60,000 pel' year to one division of railwayman alone. What could they, make of the moral, and mental condition of a man such as that?. Sometimes, admittedly, a statement could bo innocently made which conveyed a wrong impression. When these statements which were open to misunderstanding were repeated, however, the position became serious.. In his opinion the time had now.arrived when tho people of New Zealand would show that they were tired, of this attempt to degrade political life by turning out the remnant of the Opposition party, in the House of Representatives. (Applause.) The present Onposition had no function in tho House, and served no good purpose. In fact, all they, had proved themselves capable of doing was the creation of friction. When this effete Opposition was wiped out, lie believed they would develop a true Opposition that would take up'a stand on principles, and would honestly oppose the Government whenever those principles were at stake. The existing Opposition was without principle, and was mainly dependent on manufactured bogeys. They had had so many cries of "wolf, wolf," when there was no wolf, that tho man in the street simply said, "I have heard that cry before: there is nothing in it." This apathy on the part of the elector was not a desirable thing, but it was inevitable when they had a x band of scaremongers in politics. (Hear,

hear.) It is really only in the last three years that thoy had had the continual re-hashing of these discreditable stories.. Probably the- era of misrepresentation dated from the last elections, when the Opposition seized upon a wrongly printed statement which gave it forth that the Government's new dairy regulations would impose a registration fee of ss. per head on all cows. In reality the Government proposal was to register all herds at 5s per head—a vastly different thing. The Opposition party knew that there was no truth in the first statement, but they played it for all it was worth, and in Taranaki—a dairying province—it won them two or three seats. So elated were the Opposition leaders with their success in connection with the misrepresentations relating to the dairy "regulations that they decided to keep it no, in the hope of so turning the Government out of office. T]«en followed the Hine charges, and the attempt to create a scandal regarding the Mokau land deal. A full inquiry into the former case had proved the charges against the Government to be utterly groundless, while the investigations into the Mokau deal, concluded this session, proved tho Government's action to have been clean and pure. Even worse than these was tlie disgraceful attempt to bring discredit on the Supreme Court judges of this country. One of the worst kinds of American Tainmanyism was that which attempted to bring contempt upon the administration of justice;. Ho had no hesitation in saying that the Opposition had been living on scandals for two or three years past. The party was absolutely without principle. An indication of that was to be found in Mr. jViasscv's recent statement that the Opposition and Labour could go hand in band in this country. Could any sai'o person imagine such an nnholv alliance? Why, the story of the snider and-the fly was nothing to it. (Laughter and apnlause.) Another indicfitiVm of the Opposition's lack of regard for principle was to be found in the action of the party in now accepting as its candidate for a neighbouring electorate a man who until a few weeks ago was nn avowed Liberal. The Hon. Mr. Fowlds concluded with an explanation of tho circumstances and history of the Hine charges, the Mokau case, and the allegations against Supreme Court judges, stating that the inquiries into these allegations had cost tho country thottsanrs of pounds, and only served to show how entirely free from blame the Government was. The candidate was listened to most attentively, and was loudly applauded throughout his discourse.