MR HOGG'S SPEECH AT KURIPUNI.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3038, 7 November 1908, Page 5

MR HOGG'S SPEECH AT KURIPUNI.

To the Editor. Sir,—lf the speech of Mr Hoe-g at Kuripuni the other night may be taken as a fair sample of the utterances of other candidates in other constituencies, what wonder should there be at the extraordinary want of interest betrayed by the general public of the Dominion in the Parliamentary contest now going on. It would appear as if the whole tenor of his address was aimply a miserable whine at his having to face a little opposition. It is strange that one so professedly liberal-minded should at each recurring election question in a mean and petulant spirit the right of those who differ from him politically to contest with him the honour of representing Masterton. Who is this man Hunter? Where are his "monuments?" angrily demanded Mr Hogsr the other night. Where were Mr Hogg's "monuments" eighteen years ago, when for the first time he stepped into the political arena? Not even a Borough Councillor; all that was known of him to the public generally was a certain readiness of speech on the public platform, combined with an unmistakeable turn for invective. With no other "monuments" he presumed to come forward ana to successfully contest this electorate with one who had long and honourably represented it; yet he inconsistently demands that his own rival to-day should possess what he himself was devoid of. And after all what are his own "monuments?" Has Masterton ever obtained through his influence anything from the Public Exchequer to which it was not entitled to, or which any honest Government would have withheld from it, let its representative be Liberal or Conservative? And is it not a fact that Mr Hornsby in six years' Parliamentary service has reared more "monuments" in the Wairarapa than Mr Hogg has reared in Masterton during his eighteen years' representation of it? Again, why should he, of all men, insist on the lack of a stability of political principles on the part of his opponent, when his own actions are becoming painfully unintelligible even to his best friends. What elector is there in this constituency who knows exactly where Mr Hogg is on the fiscal question? Is he a protectionist? Is he a freetrader? Who can ssy, when at Kopuaranga he states that heavy custom dues are necessary in the interests of our boys and girls who must be provided with work, and at Kuripuni speaks of iniquitous combines and trusts which have developed under our protective policy. He would provide work by dues, and he would extinguish combines and trusts by their reduction or abolition. Yet 'Mr Hogg abhors rail-sitting! And yet again, where is Mr Hogg on the question of closer settlement. Masterton has long been

perplexed at the little that has been done in this direction, seeing that it has had for its Parliamentary representative a man who has ever talked loudly about the evils of large holdings, "where sheep increase and men decay." Cornered for an explanation for his failure to influence the Department cwicerned in the purchase of a thirty-square-mile plot of land, out at Whareama, suitable for I closer settlement, what answer did he give? "I will be no party to compelling old and respected settlers to relinquish their homes." Touchingly humane this sentiment of Mr Hogg's. But amazing inconsistent with all his pretensions on this question in the past. Who has ranted more than he on the doctrine of land for the landless? Who has talked more than he of the application of the grand liberal principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number." And who more than he has advocated systems of land taxation having for their object the spoilation of large landowners, irrespective of any sentimental regard for their age or respectability. And this is the man who abuses his rivals for a want of fixity in their political principles ! "Oh, wad some power the giftie gi'e us, To see ourselves as ithers see us." —1 am, etc., KAITAWA.