ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1928, Page 5

ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

MR. S. C. LYE FOR HAMILTON.

FOLLOWER OF SIR J. G. WARD.

REFORM’S RECORD CRITICISED.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, Saturday.

Announcing himself as a supporter of Sir Joseph Ward, Mr. S. C. G. Lye, a candidate for the Hamilton seat, opened his campaign with an address to a meeting of over 200 people to-night. He said that until Sir Joseph Ward had undertaken the leadership of the United party he had intended to stand as an independent, with leanings toward Labour. He had no quarrel with the Labour party, and thought it had not been so great a failure in Australia as Reform had been in New Zealand. He considered that Sir Joseph was the only man on the political horizon to-day who could clean up the muddlemeut in New Zealand’s financial affairs. Mr. Lye said there was not one thing in the manifesto issued by the Reform Government at the last election that he did not agree with, but lie contended none of the promises made had been carried out. There should be more business in Government and less Government in business. He stood for scrapping half the Government regulations and a reduction in the number of inspectors employed. He criticised the land administration of the Government, saying it had failed, but if there were a Minister of Lands who understood his job, and a sympathetic Cabinet, the problem could be solved. The more money spent on agricultural education the better it would be for the Dominion, he said. The heads of the Agricultural Department were out of sympathy with the officers in the field. He believed Mr. Hawken had failed as a Minister because he had closed the farm school at Ruakura. Mr. Lye said be took much of the credit for the starting of the Rotorua-Taupo railway. He considered that mueh of the land through which the line would pass was equal to that at Newstead, near Hamilton.

In outlining his platform, Mr. Lye said he believed education should be free, secular and compulsory. Where a child showed ability, it should be given the opportunity of having a free university education. He was opposed to the reading of the Bible in schools bv teachers, but he liked the Nelson system. There was no reason why New Zealand should not stou the importation of benzine and manufacture petrol from its own coal deposits. He was prepared to give the general manager of railways, Mr. H. H. Sterling, all the assistance he could in his new position. He advocated a special institution for the accommodation of suspected persons on remand. Hamilton badly required a new courthouse and a new railway station, and, if returned, he would do his best to secure them. He believed in the two-issue ballot paper on the licensing question and the bare majority rule. A vote of thanks and confidence was passed.