CANT AND MISREPRESENTATION

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXIV, Issue 17730, 2 December 1919, Page 6

CANT AND MISREPRESENTATION

"I was not asked to vote for the permanent establishment of indentured labour," said Mr L. M. Isitt at Christchurch. "I was asked by the extreme Labour to vote for the immediate extinction of indentured labour, and ruin that country (Samoa); and I wasn't fool enough to do it! (Applause.) Because we refused to make New Zealand the laughing stock of the world by accepting a mandate for Samoa and then ruining the country, we are accused of championing indentured labour." The extreme Labour presentation of the matter, Mr Isitt added, was "a tissue of cant and misrepresentation from start to finish." (Applause.) At question time Mr Isitt was asked why New Zealand wanted Samoa, and he replied that New Zealand wanted Samoa because New Zealand was just the one country to undertake the indentured labour question and solve it. New Zealand ought to have had Fiji, and if she had the state of things in respect of indentured labour in those islands would not have existed for twelve months. When the proposal was made that Fiji should form part of New Zealand, Fiji objected because it was known that New Zealand would interfere with indentured labour, and asked to be allowed to remain a Crown colony. England was a far way off. and didn't know so much as New Zealand.