THE REFORM CAMPAIGN

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1159, 21 June 1911, Page 4

THE REFORM CAMPAIGN

SPEECH BY MR. J. ALLEN. THE TIME FOE A CHANGE AT HAND. (By Taleert'Dh.—Special Correspondent.! Auckland, June 20. In the course of his political address at Devonport, Mr. .las. Allen, M.P. for Bruce, made a number of telling poin.ts. He said that when money was voted for a certain purpose presumably it was required for that purpose, but ,£59G,000 had been voted for roads and bridges last year and only ,£251,000 had been spent upon them. He hoped they would ask the next Minister who camo this way to explain that; he would probably have some story ready to the effect that the vote was made to carry on till the end of June. But that period was always provided for out of the next year's appropriations, and the explanation was sheer humbug. For public Buildings X' 125,000 was voted and .6325,000 had been spent, a sum .€70,000 greater than that spent on roads and bridges, though the appropriation for the latter was tho greater by .£170,009. Why that was so he could not explain. The sum of ,£25,000 had been voted for tho development of the goldfields, but only .£10,815 had been spent. The Government seemed to think it was autocratic and supreme. He could not conceive a self-reliant people putting up with this sort of thing for one day. The time was coming for a change. His party camo to ask the people to make a change, not because they wanted the power for themselves, but because they wanted to see the country progress in the way it should. Land Settlement. Mr. Massey had framed a clearly defined policy with regard to tho settlement of the land, but what was tho policy of the Government? Sir John M'Kenzie placed the policy of the 899 years' lease upon the Statute Book, but it had been abandoned, as unsatisfactory, and the Government had tried all softs of schemes in its place. The single main principle of the Land Bill of last year was that it gave the Government power to take a man's land, not by purchase, but by compulsory lease, with tho right of purchase, within ten years. " Tho grcat ob-. staclc to the settlement of the land was the lack of money, and that was the reason given again and again by the Executive. A way of avoiding that difficulty had been suggested by the Opposition, which proposed that the. large estates should be divided for occupation on lease, if the leasehold was desired, and that opportunity'should be given to these who took up holdings to acquire the freehold, due care being taken to prevent the aggregation of large estates. Tho money obtained from those freeholds could be utilised for the purchase of other lands for settlement, and there would be no need for recourse to tho costly method o? obtaining money. from the English financiers. (Applause.) Enormous Penalties. There was no Opposition member who could stand up on a public platform without referring to Clause 18 of tho Land Bill of last year. It embodied such a proposal a-5 ono-might have expected from an autocrat of past ages, for under the guise of preventing tho aggregation of largo holdings the Government proposed to reduce tho amount of land which any man might hold to 2500 acres of third-class laud, or 333 acres of first-class land. Enormous penalties were provided to enforce this proposal, provision being made for the forfeiture of any land in excess of those areas, and the imposition of a fine not exceeding ,£SOO or imprisonment for five vears. The measure bore tho name of Sir Joseph AVard, and it was tho Bill of every member of Cabinet, siuco none of them had repudiated it. It was the business of the Government to carry such a large policy measure through tho House and to place it upon tho Statute Book if it could, but the Government had thrown the Bill into tho waste-paper basket; and run awaj: from its policy. . .; Other Reforms, ''■ Mr. Allen said that the nomination of members, of the Legislative Council by. the "Government resulted in an unsatisfactory state of affairs, which the Opposition would remedy by making tho Upper House an elective body. Mi". MasEcy proposed that each four electorates should return two members of the Council on the proportional representation system, and ho was confident that such. a reform would result in better work from tho Council than had been done during the last ten or fifteen years, and it would abolish the' system of patronage upon which it was at present constituted. A further proposal from the Opposition was that appointments to tho Public Service should be made by a non-political board, end he "ha;l heard w< sound arguments against that idea. The result would be much more satisfactory to the public prenerally and to the Civil Service also. The system of appropriatine money for roads and bridges was another illustration of the power of patronage, and he advocated a comprehensive Local Government Bill that would cive local bodies an assured finance, enabling them to deal with those matters which were essentially within their province. Prior to tlin last general election Ministers had slated that during the next three years a nuarter of a million a year would be found for roads in the bnck-blocks. That promise, had not been fulfilled, and the fact was ;fhat the back-blocks settler had been humbugged.