MR J. McCOMBS AT WOOLSTON.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14838, 2 December 1913, Page 9

MR J. McCOMBS AT WOOLSTON.

■ ,jj r James McCombs, the SocialDemocratic candidate for the Lyttelton ; iejt. opened his campaign in the OddHall, Woolston, last night, the Jflilding being crowded. The speaker wis slightly late, and the audience put '■ hi the time by sinjjmg a new version 5 "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," in which the candidate's name was prominent and frequent. "Boos" were i given for Mr Massey as an accompani- , fhe chair was taken by Mr John graham, Mayor of Woolston, who briefly introduced the speaker. He * legretted very much the reception that lad been given to Mr Miller at bis 7 meeting in the hall last week, and hs laid he believed that the disturbance : ~35 not caused by residents of Wool--jtoD, I»at by outsiders If there were ' noa-rcsidents present there that evening he hoped that they would give the racaber a good hearing. . Sir McCombs said hia interest m general politics was not born on the ere of an election, and he bad been a member of the old Progressive Liberal Association, and been associated with politics in Canterbury lor tiie past twenty years. Ho recounted some of the legislation passed by tho old proyreasj T c*. and then made some remarks abbtit the candidates at tho present election. Mr Miller was a worthy citijen, bat it vraa evident that the party .that nominated him wanted a niero votmachine. It had been said of Mr Lsurenson that no one could accuse fcim of b'.'Jng a delegate of the Federation of Labour, and that looked as though he (the speaker) was supposed to be- He denied that, but he would ■»y that there was a reasonable supposition that" Mr Laurenson might bo imagined to be a delegate of the Em Syers , Association! He thought that i time was ripe for a change in the jdieged policy of the governing body, ■;-aid the only party that had a really progressive policy was the SocialDemocrats. (A voice: "No!") The industrial trouble came in for some refrom the speaker. The workers ia the past had struggled for the right to form unions, and legislation had put on the Statute Book for that ,'pnrpose. Tho employers to-day were aqfc against unionism, but they were ont ; against the federation of unions. There were two Acts on the Statute : Book, the Trddes Union Act and the -Arbitration Act, and both had clauses that prevented the formation of bogus ; nnipns. As both had this clauso, he J-thdnght the two Acte "should be correlated, so that no bogU3 union could be 'organised. Another suggestion he would make to the Massey Government was that the Harbour Boards, who were the

IU-b 111. uuruuui jj_u.ua, nuu »»__ v*>- ■"-' agents of the public, should engage all 'the labour necessary on the publicly-, downed wharves. He stood there that 7 night on behalf of the Social-Demo-cratic Party, and ho would say that what they wanted was arbitration for the settlement of industrial disputes. ;_hey wanted arbitration, but they wanted both Acts on the Statute Book. The Mayor of Christchurch seemed to ; think tho party wanted to wipe off tho arbitration system, and he . had suggested r tho adoption of tho Canadian system, but the speaker thought that they had nothing to ■_■ learn from Canada. '. .-. All • that was needed was'a Blight amendment or amendments, to the Arbitration Act. Mr W. P.* Reeves, who was responsible: for the arbitration laws, had made a big mistake when he arranged for a legal man, a Supreme Court Judge, to bo at the head of affairs. Legal men were too ant to regard precedents and 'that sort of thing, and did not judge of each case on its merits. What was .wanted was a really good business man" at. the head- of the Court." He also thought that when an award was made (;it should: have a compulsory preference clause, as *a measure that would' pro- . mote thorough-going unionism. Personally, 'ho thought preference to - unidnists.r.was an evil, but preference to ;;non-unior_Bts was a much greater evil. \They had to choose between preference f-to" unionists and preference to nonunionists. But the Social Democratic DPorty believed in every man ;b-iiig. a unionist, or - not hay-ing-x'tho riglrt to work; Ho /thought the time had arrived when (.theGovernment should decide, once for was a genuine living wage, ■ and thei Arbitration Court should not be aHoircd to inako an award in which the wages were lower than the. statutory ;.h"i"Bigwage. For a start, he would be /prepared to see that the statutory livving.wage was placed fairly low; it was important to establish the principle firstof all, and thjen further arrangements cohld be made as found necessary. Referring to the cost of living, the speaker "said the taxation was very unfairly distributed. Last year 3J ; n_llions had been received for the taxation of perishable commodities, while from land only three-quarters of a million was received. A more equitable system would be to tax for communal purposes community-created values, and -take off the tax on the necessaries of life. The land tax .should be raised, while tho burden of the Customs taxes should be lightened. # If a stiffer land tax was established it would merely make the land more accessible to the : people, while the taxation of commodities merely made them more inaccessible to the general public With regard to the taxation ostensibly for protection purposes, there wero only 24.000 persons employed in those industries, and he maintained that the taxation ;paid for protecting these industries was more than the wages- paid, and, this being so. it would pay. better to abolish vthese industries. If the boot industry, for instance, was to continue, it would pay-better for the public to subsidise the wages paid -to the employees in tho ■ boot factories, ancj reduce the price of boots to the publio, than pay the prices ; regalated by an excessivo protective : t_t_f. He thought, with Adam Smith, ttbrt^ firstly, everyone should contribute ; :tbßSe;State according to his ability, '-'l i_^»eoording'to what he received while >/Uaaer'i>.thb protection of the Govern.»«Qti and, secondly, that no ono should >'V^__ | <Wl-3 to contribute at all until ho ;-r_sa.seenrcd the means of his existence JtwiEe. existence of those dependent on W|tef;The man who could least afford -~«,_- rnader the present conditions, -;!p**d.'.v..a- bigger proportion of his ..ißcoine to the State revenue, than the swealthier individual. He instanced tilt/success of the State Insurance Department as an argument for moro grogrossive methods ra regard to such btatc enterprises, and he thought the .State could very well make fire insur-":«ace_-a"St.te monopoly. It was not impos'ible in the future, he thought, that "•State Bank could bo brought to a iU-cessfnl issue also. "In regard to he thought that education r should be free to the public, from the to the university, and the ; jresdom should extend to free school ■*po_s and material. As it is now, tha Government contributed more per head

M'- the education of the higher classes |$L';■■.«**-'it did to the mere primary schools. _■*_'*_.."__» also thought that education should %L, rvbe available not only to the children, ■|;>|;,;b_t to any . adults that needed >g : .5 : :_. Th© p-blic already owned SjSiaach, and was it not time that :£&£# -should own the ships?" The whole l |*^; : -f i '"t n « people of New Zealand had a ffij;!lr2rs ev ance against the - huge shipping which were continually ra_IM- ! "ng the freights against the people and EM: against the primary products of New fei Zealand in their carriage to the roarof the world. It would not bo pfv;'-much trouble for the Government to MfS find the money, .seeing that it could p?s_fi_d.£2.ooo.ooo"for a "murdering ship." &fl The present Government was undoing |||fe«J"*"tf- successfully somo of the Liberal

land laws of the past, and was selling the people's b rthright, the land. M.David*.J ones had said that the right to tax had not been foregone even though the land had been sold, and that was right, and that is what would pobably have to be done. - The Defence Act then came under review, and Mr McCombs said that the Social Democratic platform provided for tho formation of a citizen army, established on a voluntary basis, the men to be fairly paid when on duty and not to be used in the case of Industrial disputes. He thought that was a far rrore statesmanlike proposition than the prrs nt defence sy=tbm. He was also in favour of the formation of rifle clubs. Electoral reform was one of tho foremost planks in the Social-Demrocatic platform and the spaaker sketched the rise of the power of the Parliament, from its formation in medkeval times. Ho advocated proportional representation and said ho thought the timo had arrived when the peonle of the Dominion should demand with no uncertain voice that they should have only one legislative body in the country, instead of three, as at present, the third being the Cabinet, which at present was trying to decide what Parliament should or should not discuss. Cabinet had no right to usurp the legislative power of government. The only way for tbo people to control the Parliament they had created was for the people to demand a referendum law, the initiative to be in the hands of the people. The value of the referendum was that Parliament would know that it could not enact any legislation against the will of the people, and he did not think that _t would necessarily bo often called into use. He advocated the "recall" of members, and thought ho did no. think Jh- Social Dom crats could get such a statute passed, yet they were ready for the ''recall" to be applied to them. If tho electors thought they had not represented the Social-Democratic Party adequately, then they were willing to come back, only stipulating that they should have the right to re-contest the seat.

The speaker concluded by stating that ho considered the civil rights of Civil S.rvanls should not be jeopardised, and was loudly applauded on resuming his sent.

In reply to questions, Mr McCombs said he would be willing to forbid tho importation of shoddy m boots, and also tliat English manufactured goods should not bo palmed off as Now Zealand made. He voted for the cancelling of a certain taxi-cab driver's license after ho had been acquitted by a judge and jury, because he (tho speaker) was a friend of the workers, and did not want to sco any of them killed. He was in favour of the bare majority on tho prohibition question. With regard to the Bible-in-Schools question, whilo th© Social-Democratic Party was not out for tho Bible : ir_ Schools, yet it could not cons'stent'y deny ihe right of the peopb to airect their educational system, seeing that it advocated tho referendum, and 20 per cent, of the peoplo could then demand a referendum on the question of education if they wanted to.. He did not come before them as an individual, but as a .representative of certain political principles, and the reason why Mr Mills and others were going round "stumping the country for him" was because the people had to be taught.

•The Chairman declined to put some of tho questions, as ho considered them non-political.

Mr C. W. White moved, and Mr p. G. Sullivan seconded:—"That it is hereby resolved that this meeting of citizens of the Lyttelton Electorate declare our confidence in Mr James McCombs, tho S"X*ial-Demo_ratic candidate for Parliament, in his capacity, his honour, and hisdevb.ioh to tho cause of Labour,- and pledge to him our unanimous and whole-hearted support." The resolution was carried, only a few dissenting. :