“SPOILS TO THE VICTORS”

Taranaki Daily News, 24 July 1929, Page 11

“SPOILS TO THE VICTORS”

DEFENCE OF GOVERNMENT CHARGES AGAINST REFORM PARTY. i DETAILS OF TARANAKI GRANT’S. (By Wire—Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. Further reference to “spoils to the vie tors” was made in the House to-day by Mr. S. G. Smith (New Plymouth) who replied to statements on the subject heard earlier in the Address-in-Reply debate from opponents on the Reform side of the House. “Presumably because some friend of the member for Riecarton did not receive an appointment on the Lyttelton Harbour Board,” he said, “there is a general charge against the present Government, of spoils to the victors.”

Mr. Smith said he bad made inquiries in regard to the reference to the appointment of the Government nominee on the

New Plymouth Harbour Board and he had

ascertained that the. Government nominee was formerly the chairman of the election committee of the late Minister of Agriculture, who was a candidate for re-elec-tion for the Egmont seat.. The appointee was recognised as the bitterest opponent of the United Party in the Taranaki province. ,

Mr. Kyle: “What about Patea?” Mr. Smith: “The Government representative on that board is one of the best representatives on tiny public body in Taranaki.” To show that local bodies were not always wise in their judgment and in their recommendations, Mr. Smith said that in the case of a Wanganui vacancy the local bodies nominated a certain gentleman as a kind of salve for his conscience because he had lost his seat in the House. The Government did not. accept that nomination and appointed another gentleman. In a subsequent election a few months afterwards the gentleman nominated by the Government headed the poll and became an elected representative of the Wanganui Harbour Board and to-day he was chairman. “I refer,” said Mr. Smith’, “to the member for Rangitikei.”

“If the member for Riecarton had wanted to talk about spoils to the victors he might have told us something about what the Minister of Public Works referred to the other night in regard to allocations for roads in the North Auckland district. Mr. Kyle: “Are you digging it up?”

Mr. Smith: “That would have been far more effective than mentioning the case of the appointment to the Lyttelton Harbour Board. The fact is that one particular district under the late administration was able to get expenditure at the rate of £lO,OOO per mile of road. He went on to refer to a .certain school in a Taranaki district in which he said the children were literally herded together until the Government found it convenient, just before the last election, to make a special grant. In the town of New Plymouth, which was represented by a Reform a grant of £528 was made for school purposes. In Waitomo, another Reform district, £2825 was authorised, and in Stratford, which was also represented by a member of the Reform Party, a vote of £2BOl was made for the same purpose. In the Egmont electorate, where a Minister was contesting eeat, the late Government rushed forward a sum of £6901. /The children in that district,” said Mr. Smith, "were in some instances made to suffer in order that the Government of the day might make a great splash just before ah election.” It was a well-known fact that the Education Department insisted on every education board preparing a list of projected works in their order of urgency. They had had the spectacle in Taranaki of the Minister of Education rushing through grants for. schools that were low down on the list and grants being made to a school in the Egmont electorate that’ ./ere never' on the list at all. Mr. Smith admitted that the late Minister of Education had made a substantial grant towards the Girls’ High School at New Plymouth, but he also referred to the case at Manaia where a grant had been made for building 3 room which had not been asked for. He suggested that Mr. Kyle at least should look into the record of his own party before he started making allegations about spoils to the victors.