CHRISTCHURCH NORTH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10232, 15 August 1911, Page 1

CHRISTCHURCH NORTH.

THURSDAY'S CONTEST.

CANDIDATES' ADDRESSES

Messrs L. M. lsitt and J. D. Hall were busy yesterday attending _to details of the contest which will be fought in Christchurch North on Thursday. Both candidates addressed meetings in the evening.

MR ISITT IN ST. LUKE'S SCHOOL

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC VOTE

A " SECRET MEETING."

A VIGOROUS PROTEST.

A crowded audience met Mr lsitt in St Luke's Schoolroom, Manchester Street., and gave him a good reception.

Mr R. S. M'Kenzie presided, Mr lsitt, after, as usual, paying a tribute to the late member, said that he wished to refer to a topic he would infinitely rather not deal with. Ho wished those present to clearly understand that the necessity for this reference he was going to make had not been occasioned by any action on his part. He was a Methodist and lie was not ashamed of his Church. (Applause.) He owed to her more than he could express. She had taught him the love of Christ. She had taught him a regard for those principles that formed the stay of his life hero and the promise of his life hereafter. But that was a private matter. It was not a matter, under ordinary circumstances, for comment on a political platform. He was not there to seek the people's suffrage as a Methodist, any more than his friend Mr J. D. Hall was prepared to seek their suffrage as a strong member of the Church of England. Throughout the whole of that campaign he had carefully avoided any utterance 011 sectarian religious lines. He regarded such an utterance as wholly unnecessary and in the very worst taste. Mr Hall and he were not fighting the battle on the question of religious faith. They were fighting it on the question of political principles. And lie could not help thinking that his opponent was deplorably ill-advised on Tuesday last, when there was held in St Mary's Catholic Schoolroom a secret meeting, an unadvertised meeting, a meeting that was not reported even by the newspaper which supported Mr Hall's candidature; and that was followed up by the distribution of bills at the close of the service at the church, giving notice to the members of the church that a, further meeting would he held on the next Tuesday. The Conservatives of Christchurch North must be in a parlous position. They must be driven to very, very sore straits when they sought to compass votes by methods as questionable as these. He wished to say that if he could not obtain a seat in the New Zealand Parliament without reviving vicious old plans of that kind, without importing the question of religious difference into a political struggle, he did not want to go there ab all. (Applause.) Any sane man could only regard the action to which he had referred in one light, that it was an attempt to dragoon the Catholic vote in a certain direction. He believed that that action was as srongly resented by strong, broadminded. „ members . of . the Cathplic Church in the electorate as it could possibly be by the speaker. (Applause.) He had not come down from his home on the Cashmere Hills and been in the city an hour before one or two Catholic gentlemen met him and deprecated intensely what had been done, as likely to discredit them and to discredit the Church of which they were so proud. There was no need to import a question of that kind at all. He repeated that Mr Hall and he were struggling not over h question of religious faith but over political principles, and he regarded it as a very poor compliment to the Roman Catholics in the electorate that they should be separated from the other electors and that any section of their communion should seek to school them as to ■where they should place their votev He believed that the Roman Catholic vote in Christchurch North had always beer a progressive and a Liberal vote. He believed that the political principles he had enunciated were far more in 'accord with the Roman Catholics' political convictions than were the principles of his opponents, and he protested against any effort of that kind being made to divert their votes from their principles and to push the speaker 011 one side without giving him a fair opportunity of placing his views before ' the Catholic voters. They could point to no action and no word of his that justified conduct of that character. He had said his first and last word on that subject, whatever happened, except that if he Avas sent to the House—and he firmly believed he would be—(applause) —the question whether the Roman Catholics of the constituency voted for him or not would not make' any difference to him. He would assume that it was his duty and his privilege to serve their legitimate interests in every way as faithfully as he would seek to serve the interests of all other sections of the electors, (Applause.) Passing on to other subjects, ho said that Mr Hall had had abundant opportunities to elaborate his position in regard to the national debt, but lie made no effort to carry his arguments to a logical and conclusive point. It was no proof of the unsoundness of a. financial concern when he said that some years agef the overdraft was £II,OOO, and was now £.37.000. The people had a right to carefully watch public borrowing. but lie protested against the attempt to prove that a Liberal Government was necessarily more extravagant than a Conservative Government, ft w as a good thing to have prosperity, commercial development and growth of population, but progress should be based upon a population that was clean of limb, sound of mind and moral in spirit. That could be done bv further developing the closer settlement policy and placing the cream of the people on the land, in order that they 'might draw their sustenance directly from the soil. Speaking against party government, ho said that every measure should he voted upon on its merits, not 011 party lines, but on the' basis whether or not it was good for the ]>eople and would help to uplift them. The elective executive. coupled with the referendum and the initiative., would help to break down the evils he complained of. He believed that tho year 1913 would he the year of tb© people's: emancipafar as tho liquor traffic was concerned, and that tho traffic would he swept away. If people wore not as blind as bats, they would have s«en long ago the effect of the removal of thp liquor traffic from the path of progress. Within the nevt sovm rr ten years the workers of this oountrv would hold the peoples in the hollow of their hand, for good or for evil. Mr Lowe, who took a leading part in opposing the extension of the franchise in the United Kingdom, finally said : Gentlemen, there is only one thine left for 11s to do. and that is to educate the masses.'' If there was an autoenvey. there might be a king who dragged the nation down, but whom death would certainly remove sooner or later, and he. might be succeeded by a good 111011-

arch. There was nothing of that kind in. a democracy. Power was placed in the hands of the masses, a.nd if the democracy did not travel uphill very steadily, it travelled swiftly downhill, and once the trend had taken that direction. the death of no individual could stop it. If the people wished to bring about their own good, they must set to work to educate the masses, as the speaker he had quoted pointed out. It was a mad policy to give power to the people and to perpetuate a system which allowed on every street corner of ei'erv town and hamlet a licensed place which degraded and destroyed the workers. Tf the wop!e pursued that course, they would sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. He was not afraid of a sober, thrift}', self-re-specting working-man holding political power, clear of brain and nure of soul: he would legislate for his own good and for the good of others. But it was a mad act for tho nation to give political power to the masses while it perpetuated a system which, more than anything else, degraded. If those who listened to his words, sneered at him in their purblindness and told him that he was narrow-minded and a man of one idea because he listed mere than anything else the system which was a degrnder of the people, he would be content to hear the sneers, and wonkl stand strong in the consciousness of his com monsonpe. (Applause.) Tn reply to questions, he said that*he was emphatically in favour of the old ace pension. He bnb'evod that the Ward Government could be squeezed to give something to the No-license party, but the Opposition could not. '' How can the lady who asks this question," lie said, "support. Mr Hall's candidature when he is receiving the liquor vote? - ' He would certainly abolish the totaiisator. Did they think he had any hesitation.abont that? He did not think that a member of Parliament should be compelled to reside in the district he represented. He did not see why, if elected, he should come down from the Cashmere Hills and live in the city, with its thick fogs in the morning. It would lie a fair thing to give the old age pension to women of sixty, while it was given to men at sixty-five. A vote of thanks and confidence was passed, amidst, applause. MR J. D. HALL'S CANDIDATURE. ADDRESS AT RUGBY STREET SCHOOLROOM.

Mr J. !>. Hall addressed a crowded meeting of the electors at tho Rugby Street Schoolroom last evening.

Mr O. T. J. Aipers occupied the chair, and in introducing the speaker said he was not going, to make the slightest allusion to the fact that the candidate was the son of the late Sir John Hall, because that statement always made the "Lytteitou Times" so dreadfully angry. Mr Hall had tsfken a prominent, energetic, and intelligent part in local politics, and had shown his interest in the city and his knowledge of its requirements. Mr Hall was fighting this election on his own merits and " off liis qwji bat." The issue was a clear-cut one, as there were only two candidates in the field. Mr lsitt for the Government, and Mr Hall against the Government. He was confident that on Thursday the electors would return Mr Hall. (Applause.)

Mi- Hail .said he was dissatisfied with the Government, and with the Ministers of the Crown. He was dissatisfied with the Acting Prime Minister, Sir J. Carroll, because that gentleman was responsible for the Jack of activity in opening up the Native lands of the dominion. It was owing to Sir J. Carroll's lack of energy that millions of acres of Native land still remained locked up. " Dear old iiuddo " was a very nice gentleman, but he was not the man to hold a portfolio. How lie over got a portfolio the speaker was unable to guess. Probably it was given him because he Avas deemed quite harmless. Then there was "Roddy" M'Kenzie. It was said that lie was elephantine in his humour. and that when hp went to place and promised things on the occasion of an election and said he could only give these things to a constituency tliat returned a Government supporter, lie* avjis making a joke. That was a serious kind or joke, and a .Minister who made them should be put in some place where he could not affect the public welfare. Tile speaker did not care to say much about Sir Joseph Ward and 'Sir J. Findlay in their absence. They were returning full of honours and titles and various other things. But his view Avas that the Prime Minister should not absent himself from the country for three years out, of five. It was desirable that the Government should be i epresented at the Hofonce Conference, but it Avas not essential that the Prime Minister should be the representative. After contending that the present Government retained office by means of bribery and corruption. Mr "Hall went on to say that the editor of the " Lyttelton Times " had asked him to name cases in this district, There was no necessity for him to do that. Every application for a ballet in the Civil Service had to be endorsed bv a Government member if jt was to" be successful, and the result was that the service was Hooded with persons who Avere put in in order to secure Government supporters in office. In the course of a condemnation of the Government's borrowing policy Mr Hall said, in reply to an interjection, after quoting figures showing the growth of the public debt, that it way an impossibility to r.ay how much of the debt was reproductive. It Avas entirely a matter of the way in which the figures were manipulated, and a. close, study of the available data had not enabled him to arrive at any definite computation of the proportions of reproductive and non-reproductive debt. He would defy the editor of the Lvttelton Times" to prove that £26.000.(100 of the money borrowed for railway construction was reproductive. In regard to the question of compulsory military training, Mr Hall quoted from an address made bv Mr T.sitt to his supooriem, in which Mr Tgitt- said lie saw no necessity for the, compulsory clauses, and that he thought graduated cash payments ourdit to be received in lieu of service. Mr Fsitt's latest statement on the matter was that if returned he would, be found side by side with those who sought to repeal the compulsory clauses. Mr Isitt had claimed in his manifesto that his ideals were identical with those of the late Mr T. f\. Taylor. iVi.P. The speaker quoted from a speech made by Mr Taylor, in which that gentleman said ho honed some «v?fem of military training would V' devised under which every youth iu New Zealand between the ages of fift°en and twenty-one, should receive training. The present scheme was practically that drafted by Lord Kitchener, and the Government, so far rs the defence, scheme v.-as concerned had his •••ptii'e sympathy. A similar scheme had been adopted in Australia by a Labour Govern ment w.iih a 1/abour Prim» Minister. Mr Isitt's attitude was imwund and defective. and Obr-'stchurch Xorth would b" doing the whole dominion an injustice if if returned a in ember pl.->r]rred to rpnojil the compulsory clause?. (Anphtuse and Interjections of dissent.) If his return to Parliament in any way depended upon the rote of 1 the people who objected to military training he was prepared to si op out of Parliament. It was the dulv of New Zea lan dors la keep the oh! viae fly ilia and to maii'l ain the integrity of the Empire, (Applause.)

In conclusion Mr Hall said ho denied j being a Conservative, and added that j he did not think there were any Con- 1 servatives in New Zealand to-day.

A , question was submitted to Mr Hall as to whether he was aware that his lady canvassers were telling people to vote for him on the ground that he was the man who obtained tho suffrage for women. Mr Hall said he was not aware of it. If any lady canvassers were telling that story they must be Mr 1 sift's.

Mr €'. E. Salter said he could assure Mr Hail that his canvassers had made this assertion.

Mr Hall: All right; send the ladies along to me, and I'll tell them about

In reply to other questions, MiHall said he considered the " wizard of finance'' had 'grosseiy overtaxed tho people to produce the £994,000, excess oi receipts over expenditure recorded last year. Ho proposed no extra taxation if borrowing was stopped. Re did not recommend tho stoppage of borrowing, which he knew to he impossible, but the gradual reduction of the borrowing. He was not in favour of reducing tho three-fifths majority on the liquor question, as it was not advisable that one vote should be allowed to upset thousands of pounds worth of property. Mr C. E. Salter: "Don't you consider liiv vote is as good as that of sonxs dirty drunken loafer in the street ?'' ".7r Kail: Yes.

On tho motion of Mr M"Nay, seconded by the- chairman, the speaker was accorded a vote of thanks and confidence by a good majority. Cheers were then heartily given, for Mr Hail.