ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 22612, 17 May 1945, Page 4

ELECTION CAMPAIGN

CANDIDATES’ MEETINGS POINTS FROM PLATFORMS Parliamentary candidates will be adressing meetings as follows: TONIGHT Mrs Hilda Ross (Nat.), with Mr W. J. Poison, M.P., St. Andrew’s Hall, Claudelands. Mr C. A. Barrell (Lab.), with Mr A. G. Osborne, M.P., and Mr R. Coulter, M.P., Melville Hall and Railway institute. Mr J. A. Lee (Dem. Lab.), St George’s Hall Frankton. * * * * A good story was told against herself by Mrs Ross last night. When visiting her parents’ home in Auckland, she said, she had to call up the power board because the lights in the house had fused. The power board official was rather curt, and when the electrician arrived she told him that at Hamilton, where sne came from, people were more civil. “Hamilton,” he said scornfully. “Isn’t that the place where they’ve just appointed a woman as deputyMayor?” “Yes,” she replied, “and I’m the woman.” The man was sceptical. His reply was: “Nuts to that!”

The well-known musical talents of Mrs Hilda Ross make her an unusually versatile candidate. When the audience sings the National Anthem before each of her meetings, the accompaniment is provided by the candidate herself.

Mr C. A. Barrell, the Official Labour candidate for the Hamilton by-election, made it clear at his meeting at Frankton that he was not going to be drawn into references to other candidates or into personalities , .and he held to that intention in face of several interjections alluding to other candidates and to a present member of Parliament.

How a man who had three times been granted sine die adjournments from military service, on account of his occupation, and had eventually left that occupation to buy a business of his own, was told by Mrs Hilda Ross, National candidate, in a by-election address. “He justified his action,” she said, “by saying he wanted to take advantage of the opportunity before the soldiers started coming back. What sort of rehabilitation can we expect when people who have never done a hand’s turn are allowed to take the cream of the jobs?”

“Finance has neither soul nor heart nor faith. It speaks fluently in all languages and it works day and night, year in and year out. It has no flag and no country. Interest grows while lenders and borrowers sleep. There will never be freedom from the fear of slumps so long as the present financial system lasts.” Mr C. A. Barrell at Norton Road HalL

“This campaign is an electoral test j match between the Labour Government and the Nationalist Opposition with two individualistic vote-split--1 ters yelling themselves hoarse on the side-line.”—Mr C. A. Barrell at Fairfield. “What do you think would be a fair wage today for a man with a wife and three children, without any family allowance?” asked a questioner at Mrs Ross’s meeting at Norton Road. Mrs Ross said she could not see how such a family could manage decently on less than £9 a week under today’s conditions. The trouble was that spending power had declined and people no longer got real value for their money. Dealing with the shortage of houses, Mr J. A. Lee (Dem Lab.) said there was only one way to break up a Lee meeting. That was for one of his opponents to look in at the door and announce that he knew of a five-roomed house to let. “I am of English stock and I am proud of England as our Motherland. But I do not take pride in the parasitic financiers in London who try to control the monetary and economic system of New Zealand. Their policy is not the spirit of the people of England.”—Mr C. A. Barrell at Fairfield. When additional seats were being brought to the hall at a political meeting in Claudelands on Tuesday night the facilities of a nearby kindergarten were utilised. When a rocking horse was offered to a returned soldier standing at the back of the hall he accepted with the remark, “Wouldn’t it rock you.”