MR. SMITH’S VOTES IN HOUSE

Taranaki Daily News, 20 October 1930, Page 8

MR. SMITH’S VOTES IN HOUSE

NEW PLYMOUTH, LABOUR PROTEST

A stroncr protest against the course followed by the Hon. S. G. Smith, member for Ney? Plymouth, in the present session of Parliament was recorded by the last meeting of the New Plymouth branch of the Labour Party. The meeting objected to the course followed by Mr. Smith: — _ “(1) In his promoting and piloting through the House an Unemployment Bill which excludes females 1 from benefits, and which provides for a flat rate instead of a graduated scale of taxation, thus extracting from the poorest paid and hardest worked employee and farmer a sum equal to that demanded from the wealthiest exploiter of the land. v r “(2) In his supporting a policy oi public, servant dismissals, thereby causing a quite uncalled-for sacrifice on. the part of many conscientious and thrifty working people and further complicating the ever existing problem of absorbing a standing army of workless men and women. ' i - “(3) In his Voting against the Government’s giving effect to the recommendation of the Petitions Committee in the case of the Auckland telegraph office employees who were dismissed on charges of divulging information which was connected with illegal betting, thereby contributing to the Government’s failure to-grant justice to the men concerned, which would, not have resulted had he voted for the amendment moved by Mr. Harris (Reform). “(4) In his not voting for the amendment moved as a protest against the reduction in the agricultural vote. “(5) In his-voting against the amendment moved by Mr. McCombs (Lyttelton) that in order to -provide cheaper wheat and flour and to assist the local wheat-growers the Government subsidise the ‘wheat-growers in lieu of the present duty.”