MR. HUGHES HITS OUT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16610, 6 December 1919, Page 3

MR. HUGHES HITS OUT.

AUSTRALIAN ELECTIONS. “I wish to give you justice and a ! fair and square deal. But I want to , make this dear to you: That lam not ! going to ruin this country in order to : buy the soldiers’ votes—and 1 am i pretty sure that nine out of every tea j of the soldiers don’t wish me to do j that.” , ’ | It was in tills strain that Mr. Hughes, the Commonwealth Prime ! Minister, after explaining the war gra- j tufty scheme, addressed himself to a large meeting of returned soldiers at j Wollongong last week. “There you j have it,” proceeded Mr. Hughes. “The | other side have promised the earth. \ and all that is in it, if only you will . return them to power. Vou can judge for yourselves tl.o value of their pro raises. Y’ou know me, and what I have done, and want to do for you. ' “The other side say you can get ! the cash by taking it fl'oin the profit , oer. It pleading that is not I likely to deceive you. 1 assure you ; that if I thought I could get the i money that way 1 would put the profit- ; eer through a wringer and wring every ; penny out of him.” Mr. Hughes heaped scorn upon tho I promises of tho Labour Party, mado formally to the Returned Sailors and . Soldiers’ Imperial League. “1 call them 1 the limit,” he said. “I never before | saw so many lies in so few lines. These , men who make these promises are the nien who, when it was touch and go in | March and April of 1918, whan our | boys were fighting desparately at Villens j Dretonneux, were against recruiting, j and were for peace by negotiation. , Every soldier wno was in Franco in I those black days knows what it meant 1 when those men turned .their faces ■ against our further participation in tho war, and cried: “Wo cannot win— 1 no more fighting—no indemnities— < peace by negotiation.” These are the ; men who were always against the soldier. And then they come along to you with these promises. Hero is ■ somtliing that they wrote about you in 1915: Ye are the sordid killers. Who murder for a fee; Ye propliko rotten pillars, , Trade’s lust and treachery. Hog-soulod'and dirty handed,. Ye sell yourselves for gain, And stand for ever branded Red felons after Cain. Ye are tho “fools and flunkeys,” Ye die to serve the great; The rooks and glided monkeys Who eat the fat of State. Ye fell in alien places; On foreign wastes ye lie; Stiff-limbed, with putrid faces Turned stinking to the sky. This was published on January 4, ■ 1915, in the official organ of the Victorian Political Council. On November 5, 1919, the Labour manifesto said: “Our | soldiers have proved to the world that i they have few equals and no superiors.” j There was no election in 1915, but there is one in 1919. I Mr. Hughes also quoted extracts i from a publication called “Australia.” 1 This paper referred in unflattering j terras to the soldiers, and Mr. Hughes j said it “had been blessed by Archbishop Manuix.” “Do not forget what they have ' done for you and said about you—and j do not ignore my record. Do not for- ! get that if it bad not been for me 1 you would have been fighting from the I first week in October right through im-: til the armistice on November 11.” j